Build a Scalable Business: Forget Lifestyle Hustles

When you're just starting out, don't think small, think big. And often the mistake I see for a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly women, is we get stuck on an idea, but an idea that might have a small reach or a small impact. And for me, I know I'm on the pathway to the possibility of having a success if I've got something that could be really big. By that, I usually mean there is a capacity and a capability within that business idea to be replicated or repeated, which is usually the building block of scale. And so have you got something that could be scalable? And so many folks have great ideas, and so many folks can even come up with a big idea, but have no executionable plan. Building the plan, testing the plan, redoing the plan, redialing in on the plan again and again and again is how you build a wildly successful company.

Guys, and welcome my good friend, Sarah Dusick. How are you doing today?

I am so well. It's so nice to be here.

Yeah, likewise. You know, it's awesome. I'm always interested in founder stories that turn into large exits, but more importantly, the challenges and the things that you face along the way. After going through some exits myself and, and whatnot, I. And building and founding a company myself, I have a great appreciation for the entrepreneurial journey of sorts.

You mean the torture. The torture that it is to be an entrepreneur?

Exactly. You know, I'm curious to know what are some of the. Maybe as we're trying. Because, you know, one of the things that the show does is we try to empower and encourage entrepreneurs on their journey. We try to give real life wisdom and insights and practical knowledge that you only get by actually doing the work, like physically building the business, going through the struggles and stuff like that. What do you think maybe kind of resides in your heart that every entrepreneur should probably have a better appreciation of when they start to build their first business.

Well, maybe then I'll start with my big philosophy, which is why I just written a book called Thinking Bigger. And almost everything I'm going to say will be connected with the concepts that I've talked about in that book. But really the heart of when you're just starting out is don't think small, think big. And often the mistake I see for a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly women, is we get stuck on an idea, but an idea that might have a small reach or a small impact. And for me, I know I'm onto something. And I've had multiple businesses, many were failures before a very big success.

I mean, that's, that's the other thing to know, right, is it's like if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. Because successes are not overnight wonders. Every successful entrepreneur will tell you they have had a million failures and lost a lot of money and lost a lot of time. It just doesn't happen without making mistakes. Well, without getting it, you know, not quite right the first time. But I, I know I'm, I'm on the pathway to the possibility of having a success if I've got something that could be really big. And by that I usually mean there is a capacity and a capability within that business idea to be replicated or repeated, which is usually the building block of scale. And so have you got something that could be scalable? I had multiple businesses that could not be scaled. And it wasn't until I stumbled across, because of a lot of failure of figuring out a business model that could be scaled, that I had a possibility of building a company that could be wildly successful.

Well, and on that same topic, you know, one of the things that I've at least struggled with as an entrepreneur over the years is in my mind, everything is scalable. Like, everything is like, you know, so what I mean by that is you get excited with opportunity and stuff like that. What is the filtering process to really determine, do I really have a scalable concept? Should I keep digging? Should I, you know, should I keep getting counsel, that kind of thing?

Yeah. So my answer to that is, can you find a scalable growth channel? Is there a way to actually execute on the scale? And to do that you normally need a channel of selling, you need a way of marketing, you need the possibility of executing on a large opportunity. And to do that, you often need a growth channel. And often we can have a great idea and maybe a big market opportunity, but no idea how to sell what you've got. And no easy way to break into that market without maybe needing a heck of a lot of capital and heck of a lot of luck. And we can't rely on that. And often we can't rely on having a lot of capital. So can we find a way, a very tangible way? And you only do that by trial and error, right? You can't pick that up the sky and go, oh, this will work, you have to try it, and go, oh, that didn't work, try something else that didn't work. And so that's why it's not possible from the outset to go, oh, that's a highly scalable billion dollar idea that I'm going to knock that out of the park. You have to have a large market opportunity, plenty of blue sky and an actual way to sell it and to market something that over time you could actually execute on. And so many folks have great ideas and so many folks can even come up with a big idea but have no executionable plan. Building the plan, testing the plan, redoing the plan.

Yeah.

Redialing in on the plan again and again and again is how you build a wildly successful company.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with all that. You know, it's funny, I tell the audience all the time, there's really five seasons of building a business. There's the startup phase, which is like hustling grind. Get it off the ground, try to get, you know, you're testing products, goods and services, trying to see if something sticks. You know, you're, you're really working as you're working all kinds of hours or you're, you know, you're, you're building relationship. You're basically, it's almost like you're in politician, you know, like you're steady on the go, steady shaking hands, that kind of thing. You got the, then you got the testing phase. Okay, I got an idea, I got a concept. Is this, is this, is this. Does this have the potential to be kind of like successful? And then it goes, then it goes. Does it have the potential to be wildly successful? What, what proof do I have? Like what, what kind of market feedback am I getting? How, how am I uniquely different? What's my value proposition has never been done before. Kind of like with canvas, I know that you guys kind of created a. Which is typically expensive, you know, and then you got the scaling and you got the invest. I'm sorry, the investing, the scaling and then operate and sell is kind of like my, my five seasons. And it's funny how each of those, at each levels of those seasons, you're constantly reevaluating what the, what the overall capacity could be. You know, and I'm curious to know from your perspective because, and obviously not being a, a woman or a female myself, I'm not as uniquely gifted at understanding some of the unique challenge challenges that women face. Which is another reason why I think you step up, step up, step stepped up and wrote the book is to help them be more wildly successful, give them the opportunity to pitch like a pro. And you know, and I'm curious to know kind of where that real. That really comes from. I, I assume there's pain points of maybe during your process, I know you created A profitable business, and then also struggle with some pitching along the way as well. So I'm really curious to kind of how you brought this full circle.

Yeah. I mean, I wrote the book Thinking Bigger because I realized not enough women were thinking big enough. There are not enough women building big companies, not enough women getting capital to raise and build big businesses, and not enough women in the arena attempting to build big. So it's a bit of a vicious circle with not many. Not enough women are getting funded. And it's intimidating when 99.9% of the people doing investing are men.

But not so much that, because most of us are used to that. Right. And professional women are used to playing in a field where we are the minority, normal. But what I noticed was, um, women are really good at building small businesses, lifestyle businesses. You see vast numbers of female entrepreneurs who settle. And I, I know so many very talented, capable, visionary women who are setting themselves short. Yeah. And it is very hard to get funded. And so I wrote the book to distinguish between what's the difference between how you build a small business, how you build a business that revolves around you, how you build a lifestyle business, and what would it take to take that to the next level and build something that could be big. And I, I define big as 100 million dollar big.

Yeah.

Yeah. Usually venture capitalists are looking for businesses that could at least be worth $100 million. You know, that's kind of explore rather than. And so they'll take more than possible, 100 million. They'll definitely want to take more. Yeah, exactly. But it's like how, how do we create the possibility of thinking that way in the first place? And what mind shifts do we have to have? And why should we get in the arena? And for me, building a business is contributing towards building our world. And if we only got a certain segment of society getting funded to build our world, guess what's going to happen? We're going to have a world that doesn't work for all of us, which actually makes the world worse for all of us. It creates discontent and conflict and strife and poverty and all the rest of it. You've got to build a world that works for us all. So all people of shapes and sizes, colors have got to get in the ring. And there should be no barriers for folks being entrepreneurs. And you know, that's the beautiful thing about America is we are, we are a melting pot. And you know, the country has always been built by all sorts of people from all over the world coming to America to fulfill their Dreams and make their dreams happen. We are still the land of dreams, and we just have to get better at funding everyone's dreams. And so I wrote the book to help women particularly understand what it takes to get investable, be investable, what it looks like to build a big company.

And to sort of take the mystery away from the rules of finance. I was super naive when I was growing and scaling my company. I had no idea what venture capital was. I had no idea that that was a thing. I, I, I didn't have a business background, so I didn't come at it with, well, this is how you do it, and I'll just follow the plan. I had, I had no new, I didn't know what the plan was. I didn't know, you know, other than I knew you were supposed to generate revenue and I knew expenses was supposed to be less than what your revenue was so that you came out with some profit. That, that was my starting point. I just didn't understand the nuances. Um, and I learned all the nuances the hard way and the expensive way. Um, and so the book sort of unravels my own story of discovering those things. And I thought I was the only one who didn't know them. I thought I was, I was the exception. Um, and I now know I am not. I now know a lot of people don't know how venture capital works. A lot of people are not privy to the inside knowledge about what investors are looking for and how to get funded. And so the story is my story. Hopefully the story will become many other people's story as they build their pitch, raise capital, and build big businesses. Because I think if we, if we can do that, we can build a better world for everyone.

No, I 100% agree with that. You know, I was thinking through it too. You know, when you're. One of the things I've heard you say Prior, is there was, there's a time and a phase where even when you were kind of shaping your pitches and, you know, and whatnot, that it wasn't working as well and someone had entered the market or was trying to enter the market, doing it at the time, a competitive, well, I guess what would have been a competitive process with just an idea, and here you are actually generating profit with your business.

He had my idea and I was doing business.

Yeah, and you were actually making, you were actually making the money, you know, but then you'd also related that, you know, one of the things that, you know, that I heard you say you realized is he knew the Lingo, he could talk venture capital ease, you know, and I'm curious to know just what that. One piece, man, that's just one piece of a pie, if you will. I'm curious to know from your perspective, where kind of like the. Where do people get venture capital wrong? Like, you know, in other words, like, maybe. I know there's a lot in the book, and I want everybody to dive into the book and like, literally learn more about it from that perspective. But what are two or three things? Like, you know, kind of learning the lingo or, you know, that you can share with the audience that. Because about 60% of our audience is female. Very high profile. Yeah, very high profile females. Which is, which is kind of really cool because also many of my leadership team members within our organization are all female. So. Yeah. And they're in there and they're.

You.

I got lucky. I got the. I got the melting pot for sure. And so I'm kind of like using this episode a little bit to inspire, encourage, and teach them, you know, and also because my, My goal, my big, hairy, audacious goal, if you will, for entrepreneurship is I want to cut the business failure rate in half. Yeah, they say 80% of businesses fail in the first five years. I want to cut that in half. And if I can cut that in half in my lifetime, I know that we've done some really good work. And I think this is a key part of it, is helping people understand maybe some early stage pitfalls of, you know, of the venture capital world. I, you know, I've built all of my businesses on cash, which has its pros and cons. Right. So, you know, there's less risk, less people in the equity pool and all this kind of stuff, which is great. But there's also a lot more struggle in trying to, like, go from startup to scale. So I'm curious to know what are a couple other things maybe that. That everyone should be aware of as before they dive into the book.

You're right that the venture capital world has a lot of lingo in it. And as someone who didn't go to business school, who didn't have an Ivy League education.

Who didn't have a massive network of wealthy people in their speed dial on their phone.

I walked in when I first started realizing, hey, someone else is trying. This is what prompted me to go raise money. Someone else was raising money in New York for my idea that I was executing, I was already doing. And I realized, oh, gosh, I'm doing what you just said. I'm Plowing all my money that I'm making. I had a cash flowing business. I'm plowing all my money back into my business. And I'm using that money to keep growing my business and build and scale my business. But what I realized was I couldn't grow fast enough just doing that. Yeah. And here was someone else coming along, sharing my idea with wealthy folks and wealthy venture capital firms in New York. And I realized if they fund his idea, if someone else puts millions of dollars behind his great idea. Which is a great idea because I know it is.

I'm doing it because you're making money with it.

I'm making money doing this idea. If someone else comes along who's super well funded, I could get wiped out. I. My. I will not be able to keep up. He could outspend me out, buy me. Like, I just. If he sets up shop right beside me, I'm. Yeah, I'm done. Yeah. And I. And it. And it made me realize I had to ask myself like a really critical question, which was like, what do I want here? And I realized I want my business to succeed. I want my business to thrive. And I. I want to be able to withstand competition. And I want to lead in my space. Know what I'm doing. We've tried and tested and failed and tried and tested and failed. And I now know what doing. And I have a massive opportunity in front of me. I just have to take it. So that was sort of the impetus for me for getting in the ring. I was like, why should I be outgunned by someone who could talk the talk.

Yeah.

And who moves in the right. The right spheres. And of course that's totally intimidating because I didn't know how to talk. To talk. And I didn't know the right spheres to be in. But I realized I gotta figure it out. I gotta get. I gotta get up and in there if I'm gonna. If business is gonna have any half of a chance. And if I could put fuel into our tank, if I could raise capital, we could grow exponentially fast. Cause I've got a proven model. I've got a product that I know people love. I know how to sell it. I know how to market us. If we could just put more fuel in the tank, we could really take off.

Yeah.

And so learning, learning, learning the lingo was painful.

There are whole chapters in my book which break down the metrics that matter, that investors are looking for, the acronyms that venture capitalists throw around that I had no clue. I remember walking into One of my first investor meetings and the guy saying to me, what's, I mean, he barely looked up from the table and he had my deck in front of him and he said, what's your cac? And I was like.

I, I wondered if I was in the wrong room. I was like, it sounded like, sounded like a wrong, a rude word like, what's your cac? I was like, I mean, it sounded like your crap. And I was like.

I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about. And he was talking about your cost of your customer acquisition. How much does it cost you to bring another customer into your business to drive revenue, wanting to understand your marketing spend. And I was like, if you'd have asked me what's your marketing spend, I could have been able, I would have been able to tell him. But he didn't use that language. And so it's really important if you're thinking about putting fuel in your business, trying to track your revenue by receiving some outside fuel, which is really what capital really is.

You'Ve got to understand the language. And like you, I wrote the book so that you don't have to look stupid in the meeting like I did.

Which is totally okay if you've had to do it once. I've done it many times.

So yeah, once a time, but maybe not 10 times. But, but if you don't have to and you can learn from someone else's mistakes, even better, right? Yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's fascinating too because some of us can't learn from other people's mistakes. Some of us have to make our own mistakes. But other of us, others of us can really benefit from others mistakes and honest them and, and use, use that to be your floor. Like, okay, I've learned all this stuff and here's my floor now. And you have a different starting place than if you start, you know, like five miles down the road. So that was really the goal of my book is like, can I, can I give a whole bunch more entrepreneurs a different starting place than I have to help them build their businesses faster than I did?

Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely a way to leapfrog and kind of shortcut the process. You know, I was even, I mean, just something. There's a couple things I want to kind of bring awareness to in what you just explained. First of all, the, I always say, you know, they say that there's typically five reasons businesses fail or struggle, right? They're under capitalized poor management or poor leadership team. They don't have Good market penetration. There's not a marketing plan, there's not really a business plan. There's not something to execute. Essentially. It's kind of like how it all works. It's like people process and money, essentially, those three things, right? And then I had this epiphany one afternoon. I was working with an entrepreneur. They built a good sized company, but they were having a hard time getting to the next, the next threshold. And you and I know there's different thresholds. Like 1 to 10 million is a threshold, 10 to 50 is a threshold. 50 to 1, hundreds of threshold, 100 to 200, this kind of thing. And as they were talking, you know, I was giving them strategic advice on components to scale the organization. Like, okay, this, you're, this is missing, this is confusing, this needs to be replaced. Your system is outdated. And all these different things. And they would, they were nodding and they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, huh, yeah, huh. But, and then it would give me a rebuttal of why they wanted to keep it in place. And I'm like, I'm having a hard time with this. Which, which is interesting because.

The way I see it, entrepreneurship in general, entrepreneurs actually fail when they do fail, for ignorance, arrogance, impatience and fear at the end of the day, right? These are the core drivers of the emotional drivers that cause the decisions to be made. They cause the stumbling blocks to kind of be had, et cetera. So I want to bring awareness to the fact that you became aware of the fact that you didn't have the knowledge you needed to go out and raise the capital you wanted, which was going to put you at a competitive disadvantage, which I think is important for the audience to understand, because I want the audience to like, really own up to the fact of sometimes you don't know what you need to know right now. But like you, the good news is you can learn in today's time whatever the heck you want to learn, right? So if you identify, hey, I want to re, I want to raise capital. You know, I'm a fee, I'm a, I'm, I'm a female led business. You know, there's, there's lots of different ways to access capital with the right mindset and the right tools and things of that nature. So in that respect, I want to applaud you for stepping up to the plate to taking a kind of like pulling the veil off, you know, because again, I run the same similar things with entrepreneurs as well. What's your ltv, right? Can you, what's your, what's your ebitda. I mean, just silly stuff that, you know, that we, I think at this stage I would take for granted. Right. You know, because you don't learn the term EBITDA until you're actually really honestly looking at potentially ever exiting a business. Then you got term sheets. Okay, what's the term sheet?

Million dollars of revenue. Before I knew what my EBITDA was, yeah, $7 million revenue business and I did not know what EBITDA was.

And that's so common. That is like so common because, you know, and it has to do with the fact that we're putting our heads down. We're just got our heads down. We're just trying to build the, build the machine, build the business, have, you know, have that, create a tran. You know, take a wall one time transaction and turn it into a lifetime customer or you know, take a process and really start to, you know, drive down and get rid of your, your, you know, drive down your cost of goods sold and all these types of things. Right. So the reason I wanted to bring that up is because I, I feel like in the entrepreneurs that I've worked with and the ones that I see now in the marketplace, so much of it comes down to you're kind of in your own way. And until you humble yourself to receive the information and the training like you've provided in the book, you're going to continue to struggle and stumble. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying the show. Steven Scoggins here. I've got something that I think is actually going to blow your mind. Imagine taking your life and your business to the whole nother level. I'm talking about an eight figure level and beyond. You see, you've been working your butt off to build your business to where it is now. But what if you could work smarter, free up more time, make more money and impact along the way? How much would that be worth to you? You see, I can prove that basic steps, basic mindset shifts and subtle changes can make the biggest difference. I want to introduce you to the eight figure mindset makeover. It's absolutely free and it's here for you. It's a powerful summary of my top strategies that help propel me from the streets, if you will, to upwards of figures in quote unquote, success as we like to chase it. This is more than just tips though. It's a complete mindset overhaul with simple hacks that you can apply today to begin working on your unprecedented heights in your own business. I would like the honor to share these types of things with you that turn my dreams into reality so you can experience the same type of joy and freedom that I now get to live out in my own day. In other words, it's time for you to build your own unstoppable enterprise. And if you're really ready to take it to the next level and elevate your life and your business, this is an absolute game changer for you. So if you want to take advantage of this free resource, simply go to the Show Notes and click the link. Or you can go to stevenscoggins.com backslash8 figure that's Steven scoggins.com backslash 8 figure. Until then, much love. God bless. Let's get back to the show. Take care. You know, the other thing I want to just pivot onto on the vernacular vocabulary that I think is really important. I mean, I know this plays a huge role in your story that I, that I've understood so far is the term term sheet, right? So most of us wouldn't know what a term sheet is, let alone know what to look for in a term sheet to make sure we're getting a fair deal. So maybe if you would elaborate, kind of maybe your experience with the term sheets and kind of how that played into kind of capital and maybe things to watch out for. Because maybe there is a female entrepreneur right now who doesn't have the experience and the knowledge that she needs right now who's got a term sheet on the table and she's about to say yes is something she should say no to.

Love that. So to one comment on your previous statement, I have a phrase that says your business can only grow as fast as you are growing. Your business a hundred percent relies on you being able to grow as a human being learn you being able to unravel your own mindsets that are getting in your way. And my book unpacks about. I think there's about 12 different mindsets we explore through the book that are common obstacles that keep us stuck from executing on the things that we need to execute on. So 100% agree with you on that. When it comes to term sheets. I remember the first time I got a term sheet in my hand, I was totally bamboozled by it. It was like it was written in a foreign language. And I had good corporate attorneys that were trying to unravel it for us. But one of the things they kept saying to me was, well, this is just market. This is just market, which is terminology for, well, this is what, this is standard. This is what everyone signs but the reality is there's no such thing as market. There's just.

Or standard.

There's just what things people will get away with. And so we have to be able to understand them and feel good about them. Like in any terms of any contract that you would sign with any other human being, you have to understand the terms yourself. You have to what it will mean for you, and you have to make decisions about whether that will feel good for you. So there's a whole chapter in the book, sort of unpacking the types of investments you will typically see venture capitalists and one of the big gotcha. I think it's a gotcha. People will disagree with me, but I as a founder and I also now invest in female entrepreneurs. So I sit on the other side of the table. But as a founder, if you see a, what investors will call a 3x preference in your term sheet, do not let anyone tell you that's market, because what that means is the investor is going to get three times their money back before you see a dime. So if you, if someone invests a million dollars in your business, they're getting $3 million back now, regardless of whether they invested and got 10% of your company, 20% of your company, 5% of your company, the preference makes the percentage of their ownership irrelevant because they're saying my money is preferred ahead of yours. And so I hate seeing that in a term sheet. I think a 1x preference is maybe fair, maybe a 1.5x preference, or I like to see venture capitalists on par with a founder. Having common stock alongside, having the same parity, being real partners with skin in the game with you.

Yeah. And common stock, again, I think that that shows that the investor is legitimately coming alongside of you. You know, in the businesses that in the operating companies I look to invest in, a lot of times I'm not just looking for the return on the capital. I'm looking for an opportunity to add so much value to the business I can help them scale it further faster, you know, and I think, you know, in some of these deals, a lot of times there's ways to basically encumber the business's growth at different stages of growth because there's not enough capitalization. Yeah, there's enough capitalization to leave money in the business and then grow the. Because, you know, because obviously different term sheets have different things and different payouts and profitability and that stuff. But, you know, I, I think that's a very, very important point. And the reason I say that is because I feel like there is a lot of predator and this is my heart. Right. And I know this is not your heart, but I see a lot of predatory type behavior in venture capital, specifically 100% there.

I write about it and I share my own stories of predatory behavior. That was, was very distressing and, and very shocking. Quite frankly. I, I had not expected it because it was not the way I operate. And in my, in my head there's no reason why you and I, if you're investing in my company or I'm investing in your company, would not be partners. And we will be looking for win win solutions. We're on the same team but very often venture capital can come in with an attitude. Well, I'm going to win regardless and it doesn't matter if you win or lose.

Yeah.

And that was obnoxious and horrific towards to me and I chose not to do business with folks who wanted to invest in my business with those kind of attitudes. Turned down my first term sheet that I ever got because it felt predatory, because it felt like this was not going to be a good deal for me in the long run. And I don't believe you were going to be the right partner to come alongside me and champion me and help me and support me and expedite, you know, by using your expertise. Anything that we could already do. Yeah. And so, you know, that becomes a very important piece of, you know, capital. Raising is complex and finding the right partners, you know, talking the language is complex but finding the right partners can also be complex. And so it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a minefield. And hence you know, writing the book to share the stories around, what to watch out for and how to think about it and you know, it can be off putting. It can be one of the reasons why we go, I don't have anything to do with that and therefore I'm not raise money, I'm not going to take outside partners. That would scare me too much. But again, if you go in with your eyes wide open and you understand the game better, that's really, you know, the essence of the book is like if you can understand the game, you have a chance of playing the game well.

I think, you know, you can actually play the game well. Like.

Yeah, you can take your eight or nine figure exit and three exit if you understand how to play the game.

Yeah. And you can make your own game if you know the rules of the game. You can change the rules. You know, you can make your own game. You can decide this is not the game I'm playing. I'm going to play this game over here or you can play really, really well. And that's the power of knowledge, you know, going back to your, you know, where you get stuck in our own heads. Knowledge is power. And knowledge gives you choices and choices and the ability to frame what you're doing and figure out how you're going to get where you want to go.

Yeah, no, that's so good. And you know, and to continue that, that same frame of reference with knowledge, one of the ways in which I fast tracked my understanding or the beginning of my understanding of, you know, venture capital, M and A world, so on and so forth, was I hired a professional. Like I, I hired a professional that had been playing the game for 30 years and you know, it does a lot of deals and I'm like, dude, I have no idea. Like I, I wasn't even sure what, you know, I, I, I didn't, I ended up not selling my business that I founded over 25 years ago to private equity or family office. I ended up doing a bit of a strategic buy slash meets my operating team. You know, the people that helped me build it got to play a, play a role and that worked really well for me. It works really well for them. Going back to the heart of the deal. What, what they call the, yeah, the heart of the deal. And one of the things that I did was I hired a, an investor and I was okay giving him a percentage of sales. And then what we negotiated was, is like, you get me a better deal, I'll give you a little more percentage, you know, and I made, you know, so everything that I do, whether I'm investing an operating company or whether I'm, you know, looking at selling a portion or equity stake in something is I'm looking for a win win scenario. When you began to build up Enigma and you sought out to go help these, these wonderful female entrepreneurs be very successful, what are some things strategically that you do as a core value.

With your, with this, with this, with Enigma that the, the venture capital world of the typical M A world doesn't really do? Like, what are the, like, you know, because I know if you, once you've been through some predatory stuff, the last thing you want to do is become predatory. So I'm curious of what are some strategic things that you did specifically?

We would have to obviously ask my investees to really get the honest answer. But I would like to say I am actually helpful. So I am actually at the end of the phone. If you WhatsApp me or you text me and you have an issue, I will drop everything for you and I will be on the phone trying to help you fix it. I had three calls this week from female founders. I'm invested in with various levels of difficulties and struggles, and I cleared my time and I made. Made space for actually creating viable solutions and helping them work through their problems. I mean, they still have to run their business, right?

Yeah.

But I am available to be the mentor, to be the coach, to be the strategic advisor, to be the. Okay, I don't know what we can do about that, but let's brainstorm it together and figure it out. So I'm like an extension of their. Their team.

I'm also there for, you know, when stuff hits the fan and stuff's not going well, you know, and it's easy to think, well, you should only tell your investors when life is going well. I want to hear from my folks when are not going well and, you know, and being there to help them pick the pieces up. I had an entrepreneur call me about two weeks ago, and she said, I'm really burned out. I'm really tired, and I don't know if I can keep doing this in there. And, you know, I have, but we've all been there, right? Yeah. But, you know, a typical investor would say, suck it up. You've got my money in your business. You got to pull this off.

I didn't say that. I said, okay, why don't we scale back? Why don't we stop doing some things? Why don't we figure out how to get this business to tick along so it's less stressful, less burdensome, so you can get some rest. Because I know if she takes time out and she recovers and regains her strength, she can come back 10 times harder than before. So it's like, let's stop. I'm not afraid of you stopping. I am not afraid of pressing the pause button. I am not afraid to hear you say, I've had it. I'm done, and say, okay, what do you need? Because at the end of the day, good investors invest in humans, and we understand that we're all human and we're not robots. We're not AI machines that can just multiply stuff at the rate of light. And, you know, we're. We're. Our value is in what we're capable of creating. And we can only create, and we can only make things happen if we have capacity in ourselves. So, you know, that's who I am as an investor and I'm, I'm constantly looking for win, win, wins. I'm looking for how can we build something that creates impact, that changes lives, that moves the world forward, that's driving change, that's building the future that I want to see. And how can I be helpful in helping you do that?

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting about what you just shared too, is just as kind of a side thought is I've discovered that your resilience as an entrepreneur grows alongside of your experience as an entrepreneur. So the things that it used to scare me, hold me back, make me not want to take action, and then you find a way to break through that. It's almost like that thing never happens again. Then you deal with a slightly larger issue and then slightly larger, and then before long, you're now the mentor mentoring amazing human beings, doing great work in the world. And the reality is, as an investor, if you take time to realize your investment journey. When I say that, I mean your time, your talent, your resources, building your own organizations. Right. One of the things you quickly realize is to your point, people are people. And if you can find a way to encourage them and empower them on the journey, the chances of them actually doubling or tripling the investment are greater than is if you just were to, like your point, treat them like they're a transaction. Right. So I think that's really interesting. That's actually, I think that's a unique investment thesis that needs to be put like really kind of formalize is like making sure that you're reinvesting in the entrepreneurs that you've invested in, your money's less at risk, just at the tactical level, not including the human level.

Even if you just think about that in a very logical sense. If, if you are a friend rather than a foe, the likelihood of you having access to the information that you need, having transparency.

Things not going wrong in, in the business or you know, dodgy stuff happening that you wouldn't want to happen, you know, the likelihood of the investment being better is just practically likely to be easier. I know, you know, I, I, I know a lot of people on both sides of the table and whenever there is conflict or whenever there is, you know, this is a transaction and it's, you know, it's pretty painful. They are getting minimal amount of information about that business.

Yeah.

They are getting the bare bones. They are on the outside. They are not getting to be involved, not getting a say, not getting, you know, not getting any say in anything.

Yeah.

And you know, I, by being.

A.

Fellow sojourner on this journey, I get, you know, I have a window seat onto everything that's happening in the business. I get to therefore make help formulate very strategic decisions. And as a minority investor, I mean, theoretically, you really shouldn't. Right. I mean, but I get to be much more involved and engaged and thoughtful about the work that we do. And.

Yeah, hopefully. And again, that's. Those are the type of investments I'm looking like. I want to be able to come alongside of an entrepreneur, which is why I don't do a lot of deals. Like, I, I'm very selective, you know, and the deal takes time to really kind of proof out, you know, the, the diligence phase is typically a little longer, you know, and that kind of thing, you know, before we kind of jump off. I do want to encourage every, every entrepreneur. I actually think every entre can benefit from the book. I know your heart is for.

Few do too.

But I would, I would like anyone who's trying to understand the venture capital world and raising money.

It's a different world. It's its own business. I mean, that's just the reality is its own business and it has its own lingo, it has its own process, it has its own diligence. It has its own thing. So until you understand it, honestly, you probably should have an advisor, somebody walking alongside of you to do it. I know you kind of feel the same way. I know that historically, one of the things that you've done with your Enigma Ventures specifically is you've really focused in the female led businesses in Africa. And I'm curious to know, are you, are you, are you in the process of broadening the horizon and looking at the States and for other female entrepreneurs, or is your heart kind of really kind of like centered in Africa?

Yeah. I am now finding myself mentoring. I mean, partly because I've been a founder, have found myself mentoring and working with a lot of female entrepreneurs all over the world.

I have, yeah, literally hundreds and hundreds of female entrepreneurs that I'm in contact with on a very, very frequent basis. And they're in Europe and they're in the States and they're in Africa and they're in Asia.

But I figured I would clarify for the audience.

So, yes, I can definitely see a world in which our focus broadens 100%.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, talk to me a little about kind of what you're looking for in your female entrepreneurs. Like, you know, is there a specific business size scale that you're looking for? Is There a specific level of sophistication because I do want our female entrepreneurs who are really looking at trying to scale and who made me a need of venture capital alongside the mentorship that you wouldn't normally get with another outside organization to find you. So talk to me a little about those females.

Yeah. The core of what always drives me is, is how big an impact someone is able to make. So I'm not just looking at how much money I can make from an investment in your company, which is still important to me. I'm also looking at how much change and impact can we drive from making this investment. I'm the same way. So how many lives can we reach? You know, how, how does this move the world forward?

What is the significance of this? And so that's kind of what wakes me up. Yeah, I'm typically investing in very early stage businesses. Typically they can be doing anywhere from 50,000 to, you know, $500,000 of revenue, maybe, maybe not hit their first million yet.

Yeah.

So we like the sweet spot of trying to help companies get their first million and get their series A raised.

You know, and trying to do that in an 18 month period. I'm typically wanting to see businesses that have the ability to grow very rapidly and escalate both by putting a little bit of fuel on the fire. Can they execute on rapid growth? And that can be a bit hit and miss with early stage companies. Sometimes the J curve's a little bit less steep than we might want. But the question for me then becomes, that's fine. The question then becomes, is there a potential for a really rapid growth, businesses that are going to, you know, and for profitability. I'm all about building businesses that have real economics. I don't like fake economics. And there's a lot of fake economics in venture capitalism, which, which often means companies that have no chance of becoming profitable in the next 10 years. Yeah, that's not for me. I'm looking to build real profitable businesses that have huge potential for scale that can be world changing, advancing.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's interesting. I was just thinking too, one of the things I'm looking for a lot of times is I'm looking for in the deck specifically, especially when I start getting into. And I'm alongside of you, by the way. I love, I love impact driven entrepreneurs in general. That's who I serve. Like I'm heart centered but logically smart and very diligent. They have to be, they have to have like a bit of a warrior spirit as well as A poet kind of mentality with their, with their heart centeredness. And you know, one of the things I'm looking for in the financial deck specifically is I'm looking for honesty. Like, I don't want you to come out of the gate and tell me you're one. You're going to make a bazillion dollars and scale from there. Like, I want you to show me the, like show me the trend. Show me, okay, year one is my investment, year two is my, you know, we're going to bring on the crp. Like, I want to know the honesty. And I find that until an entrepreneur is properly mentored, they always focus on just sharing the upside. Not really helping you understand the full risk profile. And therefore, when stuff does go south because businesses go through seasons, it's not always up and up and up and up and up. I don't care what it is. Apple, right. A trillion dollar business, multi trillion dollar business, went through their own season of almost getting close to bankruptcy, you know, kind of thing. I'm looking for realness in the data. And I assume that's kind of what I'm hearing you say is like, just be honest with me.

Yeah. I talk about in the book, because this is when you're presenting your numbers, what you're talking about is creating believability. And what we often see. Yeah, we often see in decks, you see one of two things. You see people even just putting numbers out there that are pie in the sky numbers that are like, best case scenario, like, you've got all the headwinds in the world and this thing's a go. And then you've got the alternative of that, which we often see women do most often, which is be wildly conservative. Like so conservative that you're not even in the ballpark for consideration for being investable in. Yeah. So somewhere between those two things is the magic sweet spot of what I call being believable.

Yeah.

So being honest enough to have a thoughtful plan about how you would actually do the numbers that you're projecting and what it would actually look like and actually sort of a real kind of blueprint plan. But at the same time, those numbers have to be strong enough and big enough and bold enough to catch someone's attention to be. Well, that looks interesting.

Yeah.

And that's a sweet spot. And that's hard to do, but it's really, it's genuinely, I think, fairly easy to spot bullshitters. Excuse my French. Yeah. And it's pretty easy to spot people who are underestimating themselves. And the market.

Yeah.

And the gray area becomes everybody in the middle. And so. But the gray area in the middle is, is the potential for the sweet spot. And then it just becomes how much integrity is in and thought is behind those numbers. You cannot pluck numbers out of the air and not expect people to interrogate you. You have to have a plan, you have to have an understanding of, you know, where's the, this is how, how I've thought about this in terms of highs and lows. This is where I got to this number. And that, that needs strategy.

Yeah, yeah. And strategy, that's one of the things I think is. And I know we're getting a little bit over on time, I can't help myself. But this is such a good conversation with strategy specifically, I find that a lot of folks don't put a lot of thought into. One of the things that I think adds a lot of value to any business is when an entrepreneur thinks through the experience of the person that's going to be their client. So I maybe share with you offline. I'm actually, I actually think, I'm actually thinking of a female led business. Two females that are partners, they're in the very early stages phase. They want to have a national organization in a health and wellness sector, which is a good one if you, if you lock it down correctly. And one of the things that I encourage them on, I just like kind of friend coaching. I met him through my fiance. We were out at Coeur d', Alene, Idaho and just kind of having a bit of a vacation and met him and then, you know, she was, began sharing some of like what she wanted to do with the business. And you would probably the same with me. Somebody says, hey, teach me about business. You just jump in and start adding, trying to add value. And one of the things that I encouraged her to do outside of just getting, making sure she has a full firm grasp on her cost and stuff like that was think through the experience. How can you add value and be so unique in the marketplace that a competitor pops up down the street that hasn't thought about the experience, doesn't have a chance, you know, because you know, maybe you're getting a cold towel, maybe you're, it's just, maybe it's a friendly hello. Like what is your raving fan retention model is what I refer to it as kind of scenario.

You know, that's what I originally realized when we, we started our conversation talking about competition. And that's what I ultimately realized about competition is even if did Someone did set themselves up right next door to me doing what I was doing. There was a way to differentiate ourselves other than by price. And nobody wants a situation where everyone's driving each other to the bottom, you know, with price. But the way you capture and build. I think one of the strongest ways to build a brand and not just a company, but build a brand is through customer experience and through being very smart about how your customers experience doing business with you. And that, that is completely, you know, nobody can undercut you on that. Yeah, you deliver extraordinary customer experiences. You deliver on, you know, the ability to deal with your company and it just be magical in every way. You are writing yourself a massive check forever.

Yeah. Sarah, I can't thank you enough for joining us on the show here. I know everybody's got a lot of value. Where can we find out more about you? The book ways that possibly even get to know you about on the venture capital side and kind of learn more.

Yeah, thank you. Okay, so the book is called Thinking Bigger, A Pitch deck Formula for Women who Want to change the world. And that is out on everywhere you buy books and it's open for pre order right now and out on the 2nd of September and you can find me at www.sarahdusick.com.

Love it. Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today guys. I do want you to go ahead and grab the book. If you don't need the venture capital now or need capital now, there, there will, there will likely become a time either in this business or future business that you're going to want to have that and you're going to want to have Sarah's book in your possession. And for those of you guys who are female led businesses who are looking for venture capital, definitely go to Sarah's website, check her out and learn more about that because yeah, we both want to change the business world and help help people become a lot more successful and create a community overflow. Sarah, thank you again.

Thank you so much.

I hope you liked that video and if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here. Businesses, family is business. That corporate meeting all of you listening should be having every year. Even if it's just a rental property level rental property with an llc. You're going to have a company board retreat. We're going to go ski and ski out in the winter. We're going to go to a cabin in the summer, we're going to go to here, we're going to go to there and we're going to have a family board meeting. 100% write ups.