Nathan Hirsch, CEO of FreeUp.com, lost a college startup when he relied on one supplier and one employee. He argues hiring is the most critical business decision, and shares his five-step problem-solving process: gather information, assess resources, develop plans, choose one, execute, then safeguard against recurrence.
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Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Nathan Hirsch with us. He is the CEO of FreeUp.com. So welcome to the show, Nathan.
Tyler, thanks so much for having me.
Of course, thanks for hopping on, man. We will dive in. The first question I have for you, Nathan, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Yeah, so when I started my first company in college, I had everything going really well. I was— it was a multi-million dollar business. I had hired this one guy, spent 6 months training him, so instead of being stressed, the business was in good hands. I could sleep better at night. The processes were there. I had this one supplier that I was crushing it with. I didn't bother to get other suppliers. And so I took my first vacation in over a year, and on the first day of that vacation, I My supplier called me and decided to no longer work with me. The guy quit on me within a few hours later, telling me he had to focus on school and couldn't work for me anymore. And then I got a call from my accountant telling me that someone had stolen my tax return or stolen my identity and filed a tax return in my name. So I went from this unbelievable high to young entrepreneur crushing it, has everything in place, to I have to start all over again. Um, so two things out of that. One, I learned a very valuable lesson about diversifying and not putting all your eggs in one basket, and I never made that mistake again. But two, I learned a lot about resiliency because I spent the next 6 months building the business up from scratch and making sure that it was bigger, but not only bigger, but more protected than it was before.
And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
So I'm all about hiring, and hiring is the difference between success and failure. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't understand that. They don't teach hiring in school. There are a lot of big businesses or good business ideas that fail because they hire the wrong people. There's a lot of mediocre businesses, business ideas that get to the next level just because they hired great people. And I think too many people are focused on they have to learn and master every little thing when the real skill you should be focused on is how to hire well.
And what is your best piece of overall business advice?
Learn how to problem solve. I mean, my 5-step process for problem solving is gathering all the information, figuring out what resources you have, um, figure out what the different plans are, picking a plan, step 4 execute it, and step 5 put steps in place so that it never happens again, that problem never happens again. And I think too many people, they don't focus on solving problems in that order and and they're not able to problem solve quickly enough to advance their business to the next level.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
So I grew up with my parents both being teachers, and we weren't poor, but I went in the town to school in the town over next to me because my dad taught at that high school. And in that high school, it was all kids whose parents were doctors, lawyers, dentists. They were all very well off. And so I always wanted what I couldn't have, right? Money was very important. So when I became an entrepreneur, it was all about the money. And I would tell myself, my young self, that that's not the case because as I grew this business, I realized that I cared a lot more about helping other people, whether it's freelancers and paying them out or helping clients grow their businesses with great talent, than pushing the products on Amazon, which is my first business. I wasn't passionate about the product. It was really only helping myself, and it got old and stale after a while. So I would tell myself to Try to grow to the top with other people instead of just focusing on making as much money as possible.
And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
The key to happiness is surrounding yourself with people that you enjoy working with, that you enjoy playing with, you enjoy hanging out with. I mean, that's really the key. No, it's not fun to get to the top by yourself. And a lot of happiness with people is about surrounding yourself with people that you actually enjoy their company.
And what's the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Very similar to my other answer, Start With Why really opened my door to why businesses succeed. I mean, with my first business, we made a lot of money, it was great, but there was no why, there was no purpose, it was just make as much money as possible. With Free App, I get to say, hey, I paid out over $3 million to freelancers last year, and when I travel and meet up with them, they show me their houses and their cars and we're actually making a difference in people's lives. It's incredibly motivating. So for me, that's the book that meant the most to me.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
Work hard, play hard. My mom's been saying that to me since I was little, and it just means go all out in everything that you do, whether I'm at the gym, whether I'm playing sports on the side, whether I'm working on Free Up in my business. Just go hard, go all out, don't hold anything back.
Yes, man. Thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where is the best place for people to find you online?
If you go to freeup.com with 3 Es, my calendar is right at the top. You can book a free meeting with me. Love to talk to you about your business and your hiring needs. You can create a free account for hiring freelancers and get a $25 credit just for mentioning the podcast. Awesome, man.
Dude, thank you for that. We will talk with you soon.
Talk soon, Tyler.
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