Episode 008: The Fearless Entrepreneur: Kyle Mosher

Hey there, Fearless Family! This is Will checking in with you with the Fearless Entrepreneur Podcast, where I interview some of the most influential people who have conquered their fears to pursue their passion in entrepreneurship. So kick back, relax, and let's unleash your fearlessness. Hey there, Fearless Family! Will here, and welcome to the Fearless Entrepreneur Podcast, where I have successful entrepreneurs share how they've been able to overcome their fears and challenges in starting their business. And now they're rocking it out, creating with no fear. Today we're speaking with Kyle. Kyle, are you prepared to show us how you became a fearless entrepreneur?

I am, I am, my man.

Good stuff, man. Well, we'll check in with Kyle in one moment, but right now we want to take a second to thank our sponsors. Hey, Fearless Family, go and check out Phone.com, your business phone service in the cloud. With dozens of included features, tons of phone options, all starting at $9.99 per month. This is a great phone system if you're trying to grow your business and is trusted by over 25,000 businesses every day. Go and check out Phone.com. And right now you can get a free 30-day trial by going to our link, thefearless.co/phone. Again, that's thefearless.co/phone. /phone. So what's up, Fearless Family? Today we're chatting it up with Kyle. Kyle is a full-time artist from Canada currently residing in Charlotte, North Carolina. He's been featured in and worked with Forbes magazine, Karma Loop, High Snobity, Mountain Dew's Green Label, Complex, Rittenberger, Bud Light, and more. Woo, that's a list, that's a list right there. So Kyle, before we dive all the way into your business, I want you to tell me a little bit about yourself, who you were as a kid, and what was your biggest fear back then?

Yeah, definitely. So right now, like you said, I'm a full-time artist. When I was a kid, I was always into music and art and creating. Used to go to record stores, which— or like CD stores, I guess, like Coconut and Strawberries, which don't even exist anymore. And I would spend— I'd have my mom drop me off and I'd spend hours in the store just looking at cover art and listening to music and then I'd go home and create. And I did this till I was about probably 13 or 14. And then I had just a really strict upbringing geared towards athletics and doing well in school. So I was, art and music was never looked at as a viable sort of thing to do in terms of monetizing off it and doing it full-time. So I pretty much, you know, went to college and I did graphic design, which was cool. It was sort of in the realm of what I wanted to do, but it was— the corporate side of it wasn't really what I wanted to do. And then around like 22 or 21, I just decided that I wanted to do, you know, I wanted to live life on my own terms and do my own thing. So I didn't tell my parents and I left school and I transferred. I applied to and somehow got into a fine arts school, which was geared way more towards the creative side, you know, working with your hands and not thinking through a computer and being able to think and be creative through your own means, your brain and your own two hands. So got into art school and then, and really for me, my biggest fear was never taking the leap. It was never, you know, I'm definitely someone who has fears, but that wasn't one of them. For me, my biggest fear was growing up and being unhappy and seeing, you know, I had a lot of people in my life that were unhappy with their career and people that were adults in my life, and I never wanted to be like that. It affected their personalities and it affected the way, you know, they were just negative people. So I was like, man, these people are so unhappy. And I think a lot of it circled around just their job and what they decided to do, whether they gave up on their dreams or they never pursued their dreams. And I never wanted to be like that. So Yeah, my biggest fear was ending up like that, so I just did everything I could in my life to work as hard as I could to follow my passions and to follow my dreams and to never let anyone tell me I couldn't do it or hold me back.

Cool. And touch a little bit on your fear as a kid. Was that one of your biggest fears as well? Just not being happy, making sure that you did everything in life to be happy, or did you have any other particular fears that you may have had? Just as a youngster growing up?

Yeah, no, that was really it, man. Like, I just, um, yeah, there was just a lot of negativity in my life when I was a child, and I didn't, um, you know, I didn't want to end up like that or be like that. So I, you know, and as a kid, you sort of, uh, you haven't really experienced the world, so, um, you know, there is this sort of naive and oblivious sort of nature as a child. But the simplicity of being a child is something that I think we should never lose. And it's, you know, not overcomplicating things like life. So it was just, I don't— the simple answer is I didn't want to be unhappy growing up. So, and I sort of looked around and made this deduction that like, hey, these people aren't happy because of To me, it felt like everything circled around jobs and money and career, and particularly my parents. And it's like, I never wanted to be like that. So I just did everything in my life to, I guess, do the opposite and try to follow my dreams and my passion and live and love what I do.

Makes sense, man. I talk a lot on the podcast about, you know, getting in contact with our inner child and because when you were your inner child, you know, you were fearless. You didn't know any better, so you would try some of the things, you would do some things that may have been outside the box. But creatives tend to understand that, you know, they go out and just try some things and things end up being, you know, great, awesome, something different that people can connect to. How did you get over that fear as a youngster?

Again, it really wasn't like— it was something that, that it's something that's still still there. I never, I don't want to ever be unhappy, but the biggest thing was growing up. I really wasn't allowed to be myself or do what I wanted to do until I was in my early 20s, until I stopped playing hockey, stopped, you know, stopped living, you know, through other people and started living for myself. So when I was like 21, like I said, I I just started living for myself and taking every step that I could to follow my dreams. And when I was younger, when I was in my 20s, it was, it was, I don't know, I just researched a lot. I read a lot of books and I just started creating like goals, like daily goals, like weekly goals, monthly goals, and just things that I could do to just always keep the bigger picture into focus. And I mean, that's pretty much it. But yeah, it's just, it's definitely, it's difficult. I mean, whenever you follow your dreams and you do stuff like music or art in particular, it's very, very difficult. But for me, it's, I worked in agencies and I did like the corporate climb, the corporate ladder. And it was just, it was soul sucking to me, man. Like days and months and then years would go by and I was just like, man, I'm not getting anywhere and I'm unhappy, you know. And so I just really just— I had become everything that I didn't want to be. So that's when I was like, man, I just gotta, you know, really, you know, take the next step and just try everything, do everything I can to try to do this art thing.

Yeah, dude, I know there's a lot of listeners out there that can relate to that, you know, working that 9-to-5 going to this mundane job, getting caught up in the cycle of wake up, work, home, sleep, wake up, work, home, sleep, and not fulfilling their purpose, their inner purpose that they have. So I definitely appreciate you sharing that with us. But now let's talk a little bit about your business today. How did you make— how do you make money in your business now?

Sure. So when I first started, you know, I graduated art school it was during the height of the recession in 2009. So it was like no jobs, especially art jobs or anything art or design related. So I mean, I could not get a job for the life of me. So I just ended up working. I was cleaning used surgical equipment. The position was called Central Sterile and it's literally like in the basement near the morgue of the hospital. And it was like, yeah, man, it was just such a, like super depressing. There's no windows, no daylight. And it's like, I mean, just working at a hospital in general is difficult for me. For me anyways, it was extremely difficult. So I was like, man, this can't be what my life is all about. And it was difficult in the first few years after I graduated. It was— I'm gonna get to how do I make money, but it all ties in. And I didn't know, it's hard because I know so much now about my business. I know all the different revenue streams of how to make money and I'm constantly learning about new ways to make money in my business. But at the time I didn't know, most people don't, they think artists, they're like, okay, yeah, you sell art, you sell paintings on a gallery wall. They don't understand that there's so many different revenue streams that exist and I was one of those people. I started researching, researching, reading, and then there's a book specifically called— it's called The Artist and Designer's Market, and it updates every year. So there's a new one every year and updates. And what this book is— I actually have it probably laying around here somewhere— is that it offers you the first, like, it's a pretty big book. It offers you like the first, you know, 4, 5, 6 chapters offer you insight on specific, you know, things to do. But the real gold in the book is at the end of the book, there are like all these different contacts that you can reach out to. So there are publishers, there are licensors, there's galleries. And when I say list of contacts, I don't mean just like, this is Steve's gallery and it's like, you know, like gallery@stevesgallery.com. No, it's like Rolling Stone magazine. Here's what you need to do. Here are the contacts. Here's what they're looking for. Rolling Stone magazine is looking for illustrations, you know, in the realm of music, and they like full color, they like full page, they like these specifications.

So that's a cheat sheet.

Yeah, yeah, man, for real. And it's like a list of all these, and it's not— again, the book has actual contacts. And so it's like, okay, here's the art director's name, here's the publisher's name, like, please only send one package of physical work once a year. We get a ton of packages and we try, you know, we try to get read or look at all of them. So if you send more, it's sort of just cluttering the space, whatever. So, and you know, what I did was I went through and I started highlighting all of the different contacts that I wanted to reach out to. So I'm talking like thousands of contacts of people, literally thousands, from galleries to publishers to licensing. And I just started after I had accumulated the list that I wanted to, I started reaching out to these people. And one of my favorite quotes ever was my teacher told me, "You're not a real artist until you get your first 1,000 nos." So you're not like, basically, you know, until you get turned down 1,000 times, you haven't really made it as an artist. So my goal was to just get those 1,000 nos out of the way as quickly as possible. Just get 1,000 people to turn me down and play the numbers game, and then the odds would be in my favor that I get my first gig. And I literally got turned down by everything Every single thing I applied to except one, and all it takes is one. I got my first licensing deal, and that was to create— and what licensing is in the art world, again, something I never knew existed until I got this book and really researched it, was licensing is taking your artwork and having an agency handle all the marketing for it. They handle everything, and then you just get royalty checks. It's basically, depending on how successful your art is, it can be anything from a part-time job to some people sustain themselves 100% licensing as an artist. And this is a revenue stream that I had no idea that existed. It was never taught to me in school. This is something that I had to find out on my own researching. And that's why when I say like, and art school is different than obviously business school, but that's why I say trial by fire, life will teach you way more than a school will. And it's not a knock at teachers. I just feel like as an artist, how are you going to tell me how to be an artist if you're a teacher? Essentially your revenue, you're going to teach me the skills to the skill sets, but you're not going to teach teaching me how to make money because your revenue, your salary is based on the school. Like the school is subsidizing your living and everything as opposed to an artist who's out there working, actually making money. So yeah, I just, I researched, I got the first licensing deal. That's a revenue stream. I've since then, I have 2 more licensing deals. So I have 3 total that I have right now, which provide royalty checks. And then the other one, the other side of revenue is is obviously selling physical paintings. So that's sort of like the crown jewels of what I do. Those are the top ticket, big tier items, selling physical paintings into galleries, showing in galleries and then selling to private collectors.

Good deal, man. Fearless family, there were a lot of jewels in that rant right there. Taking your 1,000 nos, get the 1,000 nos out of the way so that you can get to your success and then start working the numbers game. Definitely that, that resource guide and doing your research to find things like that. There's a lot of resources out there that'll point you in the right direction, but you got to dive into it and you got to get outside the norm. Again, you're not going to learn everything within the four walls of a school all the time, so you have to take that initiative yourself and actually get out there, grind it out, research it, figure out where things are, and One of the last jewels, one of the pieces of knowledge that you dropped on the Fearless Family was learn from the people who have done it. This is what— this is exactly what the podcast is for. You know, you can't always have a teacher teach you how to be an entrepreneur. You know, they're a teacher. You know, you don't want to go to a rock salesman to teach you how to sell jewelry. You know, I need to align with the people that know how to do things. And learn from them, not from others that haven't taken that leap of faith and pursued their dream and their passion like they want to, but in essence are sitting and teaching you how to quote-unquote take that leap and do it. So good stuff, man. How did you get started in your business?

So after I got the first licensing deal, I was still working part-time gigs I think at this point, because I'd worked retail, I'd worked at the hospital, then I worked retail, and then I actually did really well in retail, climbed the ladder, became a general manager, store manager. And then I— it's a long story short, I actually made my— the company I worked for wanted to make my employees work past midnight on Christmas Eve, and I was like, that's just ridiculous. So we left, and then the next day, or the 2 days or 3 days after, I think that was on a Friday, and on Sunday I got fired. So it was like the best thing, it was terrifying, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me because it's again trial by fire, put me out in the world and I got a job with iRobot, the people who make the Roombas and those robots that clean your house, like the little vacuums, doing packaging design on a contract basis. So finally I had, and I had done up until then I was doing anything I could do to get by. So I was taking on just small gigs, $50, $100, $200, $300 here and there for album covers or website stuff, like front-end website design. But this was my first real design gig in the real world. But this was, I mean, I was 3 years removed from college, I believe, at this time. So it took me 3 years, and again, the economy was getting better at this point. So it took me like 3 years to get this first my first design gig. When I was in the corporate world and I thought this was everything that I ever wanted, I was like, "Man, I found out real quickly that you're really constrained by corporate." This is me just being like a diva, an art diva. Maybe it's part of what makes me successful as an entrepreneur or just makes me different than someone who is able to work a 9-to-5. I felt like, "Wow, poor me. I have all these great ideas and I can't express myself creatively because of corporate." corporate constraints, you know, I had an art director and so I did the corporate thing. I worked at iRobot, then I worked a couple other, like 2 or 3 other companies doing like packaging design and graphic design for— I did some work for a company that licensed stuff for Apple. So we did some packaging design for like big name brands like Tory Burch and Sea Wonder, Kate Spade, and Jack Spade. I was doing some stuff there, but again, it was super constrained. I felt like I had these good ideas of ways to not just take what we were doing, but also to create other revenue streams for the company I was at. I was already thinking like an entrepreneur. I was like, "Okay, we have this great stuff, these ideas, and we're taking these designs for these companies and we're putting them onto Apple product cases, like iPhone cases and stuff. Is there a way that we can Is there a way that we can make more money? Is there a way we can find different revenue streams? And I was always looked at like, "Oh, silly little designer. That's not your role." And I would take these ideas to corporate, like the higher-ups, and it was just, I was never taken seriously. So that to me was frustrating, and I was just like, I had this realization where, you know what, I'm just going to do this on my own. I have these ideas of ways to leverage social media and to create a brand through social media. The company I was working for had no social presence, and they had no Fast forward, so this was like 2017, so this is probably 2014, 2013. So I mean, social was really popping, like it really was becoming a legit way to create revenue was through social media. So I think that they actually didn't renew my contract at the Apple company because it was a part-time thing. So that's when I was like, I'm just going to do this myself. And that was the last real job I've ever worked. And that was 3.5, 4 years ago. And so how did I sort of start my business? It was, to tie it all back in, I had the licensing at the time and I had made some contacts, but this is when I was just, I had to really kick it into overdrive because it was like, I was never, now I was not going to make any money. I was 100% self-sufficient. So I gathered these skills and I was, I had them, you know, like I said, researching and networking and social, like I had all these basic skills and I knew how to do them, and now it was to really really just put them to the test. It's like put your money where your mouth is. I told all these people that I could do it. I had all these great ideas. Well, now it was time to buck up and do it. So yeah, the revenue streams through licensing was what really sort of started off. It was great. I describe royalties, like when you get royalty checks, I describe it as a really good part-time job. So it's like the bare minimum, you're getting royalties, you know, that you just wake up, you wake up every month and you have a check that drops and that's a royalty check and it's like, you don't, in art it's amazing. It's like I created this piece, I'm still making money off pieces I created 4 or 5 years ago. Just through royalties. Yeah, and it's through royalties and that's just, that's a revenue stream that I found and that was never taught in school and it just exists. So building, I think the first big thing, I did a design contest. I was doing a ton of design contests to just try to get any sort of extra income on top of the royalties and on top of the private art sales. But the first one I ever got was back when Yellow Wolf was signed with Shady. They had a design contest and I won it and it was like $1,000, which is peanuts. It's nothing. I look back at that and I'm like, man, they totally screwed the artist. Because if you're gonna do a huge campaign for someone on Aftermath and Shady Records, $1,000 is peanuts. But I won that and that was to me was like, oh my God, it was— and I got a lot of press for that, and I just leveraged that into other opportunities. So, you know, just taking that, hey, I won this, and reaching out to other record labels and trying to like just do anything I could to leverage those little victories into bigger victories into bigger opportunities.

Awesome, man, very dope. Just another jewel that you dropped in there to kind of bring everything in is, uh, number one, your journey kind of introduced you to a lot of things. So going through that journey, you have to go through that in order to learn. You just got to be paying attention to the things that are happening because you can resource that. And I love the book The Alchemist because it talks about that, you know, a lot of things that happen through your lifespan, you may not understand which— what— why you're going through it and what is happening for, but it's for a bigger purpose. And the second thing is being able to leverage yourself, leverage those things and those opportunities that you actually have to put yourself in a better position. And it looks like you were able to do that very, very easily. You were strategic and made that thing happen, man. So kudos to you.

Thank you, man. I appreciate it.

How old were you when you realized, you know, that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

It's weird. I remember taking like tests, like when you're in junior high and like take those tests, it's like, what do you want to be when you grow up?

The little Scantron deals. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And I remember I got like artist, musician, and entrepreneur, and it was so weird because it's so accurate. But at the time, at the time, I was so mad at those tests because I always wanted something cool. I was like, man, I can't because my parents were never like, you can make money doing these things. So I got those and I'm like, oh, I'm never going to make money. And I wanted like lawyer or like doctor or something cool. And I was like, man, but I look back and it's like, dude, those are exactly, that's pretty much everything that I am right now. It's those things. So it was like, shout out to those tests, man, because they were pretty accurate. But I mean, I remember just being young and I just, I always wanted to like, I just had a very curious, creative sort of mind and it was, I gravitated towards unusual, you know, I mean, I'm not unusual, but I just gravitated towards different things. I was always just a unique individual and I just never, I was a nonconformist, but not in a like a, I guess in a little bit of rebellious sort of way, but I don't know, I just, I feel like I've always just been gravitated towards these. I remember like we had to sell chocolate bars for like hockey or something. I would always, I was scheming of how to like sell these more, how to beat my friends by selling them and just thinking of creative ways to do that. And so, but I think like, I mean, really, really to fast forward in my early 20s or when I was working through all these jobs that I hated and I had, I think the corporate ladder, just how like There's too many cooks in the kitchen. You have all these people, especially higher-ups, you have these old 60, 70-year-old dudes who started the company or been with the company and they built it to a pretty successful company. But the thing is, they stopped learning and they think these old methods still work. So when someone like me, this young kid, was coming to them with ideas and I was always going right to the top, I would bypass all, I'd go right to the owner and be like, hey, I have different ways that we can leverage and create these opportunities using social. And when you say stuff like that to a 67-year-old dude, their mind gets blown and then they just get, they feel threatened, they feel like they want to do things their way. So I don't know, just working these corporate jobs and just trying to like having this sort of rebellious nature, it was always pointing me towards I wanted to do my own thing and I just, I felt like I could do it. I felt like I had all these ideas that people weren't listening to me. Again, it's It's a fine line because you don't want to be like— you obviously want to be a good employee and listen to your boss and you don't want to be someone who's a distraction for your company. But at the end of the day, it's like maybe you do have really good ideas and these people are just suppressing them. So I went out and tried and I was right, I guess. I'm here and I'm doing it full time.

There you go, man. What was the top 3 things that you had to figure out once you started? Your business? I know you touched on it a little bit with the licensing and finding that awesome resource guide to basically point you in the right direction. Outside of those, what were some of the other things that you had to get together doing this thing full-time?

The art world is so much different than any other business. It's just, there's a lot of things that are counterintuitive in my world that you would do in a normal business. And I never really knew where I wanted— there was all these sort of like It's sort of like the music industry, like back when like Napster and stuff happened. The music industry was always the same, right? It was an industry that never changed. It just had this, it was set in stone. It was like the corporate labels basically held the artists hostage and they had all the money. Artists, like, it was really hard for them to get paid. Well, the art industry was sort of the same thing. You have all these gatekeepers and it's like galleries are the gatekeepers and there's only a certain amount of galleries and it's a really bougie world and it's like the idea is not to market yourself. You're supposed to be like this thing that comes out of nowhere and you're the next hot thing and it's very— the parallels between art and the music industry are very similar. So navigating that world because I never knew where I fit in. I was this guy like I was looking at a lot of artists that had made it. Again, like artists like KAWS, K-A-W-S, man, like that dude was so hugely inspirational to me and even Artists like Shepard Fairey, he's massive now, but at the time he was still on his come-up and he was very much like a still underground, like, I mean, he was getting paid, but he was an indie artist. And I was like, man, I love the idea of taking a signature aesthetic and a signature style and making that your own and being known for that. So that was my goal from day one. But one of the challenges was like, I didn't really fit into the gallery world and I didn't understand why, but I didn't fit in. Now I know because I was too commercial. I was too like, galleries don't want you to be well known. So it's like, again, counterintuitive to normal business. It's like you want the next hot big thing that's super marketable and galleries don't want that. It's just this weird dynamic. So that was a challenge, navigating where I fit in the art world. It's like I wasn't really a gallery artist because my work was being licensed and sold through commercial outlets like TJ Maxx and Michaels and these big Kirklands. I was too commercial for the gallery world, but I was too artsy, I was too really fine art because my art was something very unique and that's something that I purposely did. I worked very, very extremely hard trying to find my signature style, my signature voice as an artist, and it was too artsy for the commercial world. I didn't know, I didn't really fit in, so that was a real, real challenge for me because I didn't know my identity and it's still hard right now. To figure out what my identity is because I do sell original paintings, but they're, again, it's like, again, it's too commercial for really high-end galleries, but then I still battle that. So that's still something that I just battle with, just this weird dynamic of the art world. It's got gatekeepers and it's got a really old business model and they haven't updated it. And one of the things that I wanted to do, and actually it's kind of a thing that I didn't talk about, and I was talking with Ray J for a while. Yeah, like that Ray J, which was the most random thing ever. Dude, it's the most random because that dude is, aside from all the gimmicks and ploys, he's a really, really, really smart businessman and he's got the whole reality thing on lock, man. He just understands what his business model is. But we got in contact with each other through a guy that I knew who was acting as my agent in LA and we were talking about creating a platform to sign visual artists. Like you would sign, and this is something that would be brand new to the art industry, would be like signing artists. Sign an artist like a visual artist and give them a cash advance and allow them to go out and do the things. It's the exact same business model as music, as the music industry, and do something unique and dynamic and something along those lines. I think that's a model that I even talk about now. No one's done it yet and I don't know why. Maybe it doesn't work, but I mean, there's got to be someone out there that's going to shell out $250,000, $300,000 to give it a shot. That's a tax write-off to some people. If you lose, if it's a loss in business, it's like, okay, that money's gonna be taken by the government anyways. Take a shot with a visual artist. He also wanted to do a reality show that was based upon— this to me was something that was really gimmicky, but based upon artists with beef and they would follow them around. And I was like, man, that's not my wheelhouse. But yeah, just the challenge right now is just the industry itself is very difficult to navigate because of old business models and just, just, it's just a weird industry. I hope that's a, hope that's a good answer.

No, man, it definitely makes sense, dude. When you're uniquely you, it sometimes it goes against what the norms are, so it definitely makes a whole lot of sense. I appreciate you shaking up the industry by doing what you're doing. So this will, I think it'll push people to start looking at things a little bit different and maybe shift some of this stuff, man. And maybe they'll have more art galleries that focus on both, you know, a mixture of both. And we can have art galleries that are run by artists instead of by the old heads that want to stay stuck in the system, you know. Yeah, good deal. Well, we here at the Fearless Entrepreneur like to talk about the leap into pursuing your dream. So take us to a moment where you first started your entrepreneurial journey, that point in your life where you realize, hey, 'Hey, this is really what I want to do. The art world is where I want to be.' What was your biggest fear that you had to confront when taking that leap? And explain what that felt like to you at that time.

Yeah, again, I mean, it was never— the fear was never the actual taking the leap. The fear for me was being stuck in the corporate world. So I mean, that to me was the biggest fear. It's like, I don't want to be here forever. I'm miserable. The fear for me was like, I always had like, and again, it's not saying that like I'm not afraid of things, but it's just I always had the drive and the motivation. For me, the fear was not making it, but that doesn't stop me from doing it. That just made me work harder. And it was just, it was something that I still sort of grapple and struggle with is the anxiety of, man, like I'm working super hard and I just still haven't really, quote, to me, quote unquote, like made it. Like I'm able to do it full time, but I feel like there are a lot of artists that I look up to that have made it. Like, Cozz made it. Like, Shepard Fairey has made it. Like, those dudes are just there. There's not— James VerBicky, another artist that's just made it. Those dudes are paid and they're like, and they're able to just, you know, I'm sure they have their issues. There are issues that come along with being paid, but it's like, yeah, I would say, you know, again, in my early 20s when I just— or my mid-20s, I guess, is when I left those companies. Behind, the fear was not doing it. The fear was being stuck in the same monotonous 9-to-5 grind. And yeah, I guess when I realized I could actually do this is right around the same time the Yellow Wolf thing when I won that contest for Shady Records and Aftermath and Interscope. And then I sold I actually sold my first few original paintings to a professional athlete. His name is Andrew Ference. He's a professional hockey player and he bought 3 or 4 originals. And this was literally like, dude, I was, this is crazy. I was like, I had no money for rent. Like that's how much I would, there was times where I would take money for bills and I'd put it into entering a contest. Maybe the contest had like $100,000. $500 entry fee, which by the way is bullshit. So artists don't do that. That's just like, if you're gonna pay to enter a contest, that's another thing I learned. It's just like such a scam. And also paying to— there's all these art comp— there's all these art books out there now that reach out to artists. They're like, we're one of the biggest, most successful art books in the world, give us $1,500. And I did that. I dropped $1,500 to get in this book and it was just such a scam. And it's just like, there's so many scams that are out there. Anyways, I had no— like, I was doing stuff like that playing with fire, being ballsy, like, hey, I'm never going to move forward in my life or as an artist if I don't take these chances. And I would take bill money. I'm definitely not advocating this, so don't do this. I'm just crazy and stubborn, and I just— it was at any way, at all means possible. I was all in, no plan B. Sometimes that's not very smart, but yeah, I mean, I was taking these big shots. But anyways, I sold these paintings to this professional athlete, and this dude, it was like a $3,500 deal. Deal. He bought all these original paintings and I was like, yo, I just went from having like, I was, it was like the 4th or 5th of the month. So I was already like 4 or 5 days late on rent and then I just like had this great opportunity and I actually took that money and this is crazy. That's right when I moved to Charlotte, I paid my rent and then I had this money to like make this move to Charlotte, which is a whole other story. But yeah, it was just It was just one of those opportunities that really was like, whoa, I can do this. And I leveraged that into other opportunities, and he introduced me to other professional athletes, and it was just like, just one moment, man, just can change your life.

Oh man, that's so dope. What's been your most successful story this far as an entrepreneur?

Oh, there's been some cool stuff, man. Like, that guy's been a pretty good big collector of mine. He's a professional athlete, and he's since bought 3 or 4 more paintings. I was included on a list of artists in Forbes magazine, contemporary American artists that are doing it full-time. It was just small, it was a small feature. It wasn't like, "Hey, this is Kyle Mosier," like a big thing in Forbes. It was like, "Hey, here are some really good, here are the best contemporary artists in America and here's a look at their studio and here's price ranges of their work." I think there was a couple other things in there, but that was cool. Green in Forbes. Karma Loop, I did a thing with them which was really dope. Actually, Selco, Greg Selco, who's no longer the CEO, became a really good friend of mine, so he gave me some great opportunities. So shout out to Selco, man, that dude's awesome. And High Snobity did a feature on me, which is crazy. That's another really cool thing. These are all things that I like, you know, it's weird because when in my early 20s, I really, I was like, man, I really want to get into Karma Loop and High Snobity, and it was like And now that I did it, it's not that it's not a big deal, but it's like it actually doesn't really— it's more just a talking thing, right? It's like, oh, that's cool, but it didn't really like— I don't know, it didn't really change anything for me financially. It was just a cool thing that happened. It's always cool to get recognition, I guess. So a lot of the big financial things that have happened are way behind the scenes and they're not cool at all. It's like a magazine will reach out to you and like, hey, we want you to do a cover for our magazine. It's like a $1,500, $2,000 project. I'm like, but it could be the dumbest magazine in the world, but you're paid, man. That's a paid gig. It's not a cool magazine, but it's like— So there's a lot of things that aren't glamorous. Sometimes more of the glamorous things don't pay you, and sometimes the less glamorous things are the better paying gigs. So there's— The art world, or I guess the entrepreneurial world, maybe it's the same thing, is success isn't really linear. It's not like, oh, you blow up and you're like, oh, I'm successful. I'm gonna blow up and now I made it. It's like, no, it's— you have like one— like 2015 was the biggest year financially for me in my life, and then 2016 was literally the worst financial year for me as a professional artist. So it's like, its success is very much like peaks and valleys, and you can be— you can, you know, one month be, you know, have all these opportunities, and the next month you have none. And it's just you have to learn how to like handle that, and you gotta be ready to That's part of being a professional is learning how to get through the— it's learning to be thankful and to ride the momentum when you have the peaks and it's learning how to grind through the valleys and that's just the up and down world of being an entrepreneur.

Fearless family, my man Kyle is dropping knowledge after knowledge after knowledge on you. Make sure you're paying attention, taking notes, very insightful. Definitely appreciate that, bro. We're going to talk about a little bit, you know, a little bit about adversity. You know, it happens no matter the amount of achievements, no matter the amount of the success, and it's usually when you're able to get through, you know, that challenging moment that you're able to become someone new. Take us to a time when that pivotal moment happened for you and your business. It went from stress to success. I know you just said, you know, 2016 was probably your worst moment as a full-time artist, what was one of those pivotal moments where, you know, it's stress and, all right, I'm gonna kick it into gear and switch this thing up and still make it great?

I mean, I went like 4 months in 2016 without selling one piece of art. That's an entire quarter of— more, you know, it's a quarter and a month of not selling art. So that's like a— that, I mean, I was just super stressed. And so for 2016— for 2015, I was super successful. I had a— sorry, to word that better, I had a very good year. A lot of things happened for me. I made a lot of big sales, a lot of big connections. So 2016 rolled around, I had insanely high hopes, man. I was like, yo, I'm gonna do— one of my big goals was to have my first solo show, and I was looking at LA or New York or— sorry, LA, New York, or Austin, Texas, like 3 big markets that have really big galleries. And I wanted to do my first solo show, and I had it all planned out, man. I'm not gonna name any names, but I had two galleries steal my ideas straight up. It was like Trojan horse style. They came in, they were like, yo, we're gonna give you a cash advance of $50,000 basically to do the solo show, and they came in and then they stole— they just literally came in and stole my ideas and they gave them to the artists they represent. And that was a moment where it's like, whoa, I'm someone who prides myself on being super business savvy and I just got got, man. And it's like, so you're never too successful to be humbled, man. And that was like pretty much started the domino effect of awful stuff happening in 2015, of just all these different challenges. So I basically, just to give you what that means, it's like for creating, for doing a solo show, you basically have to create a huge body of artworks, like anywhere between 20 and 30 paintings at least, and you have to not sell them, not market them, and completely like keep them out of the public eye and just give small little teasers and in exchange a gallery will give you $50,000 as a cash advance to sustain yourself for an entire year to create the art. And then once you spend the entire year creating the art, the next year, so the following year or later on that year depending on how quickly you make the art, they will do a huge solo show, they'll handle all the marketing and it's a big deal. It's like they have their list of— any big gallery will have their big list of clients, they'll have their big collectors. If you're any gallery that has any sort of legitimacy, you'll have a lot of big-name celebrities on that list as well. You're like, "Hey, this is the next big guy. Here's this guy like Kyle Mosher." The celebrities will come out, the people will come out to the gallery opening. It's a big deal. You have your work, will usually hang for anywhere from 3 months, 6 months to a year. Depending on how successful the show is. So I had planned all this from happening, and then sure enough, man, these galleries flew in and they just saw all the work that I was working on and they just took my ideas. And it was just like, yo, again, my fault for not making them sign a non-disclosure agreement, NDA. It's like, there's a lot of things I learned. I mean, I already knew that, I already knew that, you know, you need to make people sign an NDA, but these people just, you know, they They were pouring the honey in my ear telling me how awesome I was and then they just stole my ideas and that was a big moment and then of just that really sucked, man. It started a lot of negative things that happened in 2016. I mean, just like I had some health issues and then just financial issues. So it was just super stressful and it was a year for me to really— it happened for a reason. It definitely does. It sucked and it was so horrible and I was so stressed out and And but man, I look back and I'm very, very— I'm always thankful for those moments. I'm always thankful because you learned so much in those moments, not just about your industry, but about yourself. How are you able to handle and rebound from that? And then I closed out the year after having this horrible 2016. I closed out the year by selling the single largest collection of art to one single buyer in my career. So I mean, that was a guy in Cleveland is building an Omelie style of If you guys aren't familiar with Omelies, it's like a European, really eclectic sort of vibe of different styles of art. It's really cool. But this guy's building an Omelies-style restaurant in Cleveland, and he's circling the entire restaurant around my style of art. So I mean, worst year of my life financially for art, and I closed it out by a battle that battle that battle. I never gave up. I just grinded through it. All the horrible things that happened, I closed out the year by making my single biggest sale I've ever had as an artist to one buyer. And it was a great cap to the year.

Awesome, man. Definitely, dude, battling through all the adversity to actually achieve what you're trying to achieve and learning from your failures, that's one of the key things that I got from that. Everybody's not gonna always be trustworthy, things aren't always gonna go your way, but take those opportunities to to actually learn from them and not just be stuck and wallow in your own sorrow. Like, learn from those deals and take it as motivation and say, cool, I know what to do next time. That really does suck though, that whole process. And what you said really sucks, but I'm glad that you were able to get through it and still doing awesome things now, man.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

We have the Fearless 5 questions coming up, but before we jump into that, we're going to thank our sponsors. Fearless family, if you're looking to start a business business, one of the things that you need to have is an online presence. Well, I have a secret for you. Right now, you can go and purchase your first domain for 99 cents at GoDaddy.com. Just visit our link, www.thefearless.co/godaddy, and you'll have the opportunity to purchase your first .com for 99 cents. Again, that's thefearless.co/godaddy. Bit.ly/goDaddy. Okay, Kyle, are you prepared for the Fearless Five?

I am, my friend.

What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Money.

What's the best advice you've ever received?

Two pieces of advice. One, the exact quote— I sent an email to one of my heroes in the art world, and it was a really elaborate email, and the dude literally just wrote back There is no secret to this, or there's no secret to success, man. Just work hard. Now it's like, like the most eye-opening experience ever. Like, so I hugely looked up to, and that's all he said back to me. And I was like, wow. Like, the second one was, you're not a real artist until you get your first 1,000 nos.

Yeah, I love that right there. The one book that kind of opened my eyes, opened my mindset, was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. If you could recommend one book that opened your eyes, open your mindset, just to our entrepreneurship, business, whatever, what would it be and why?

Probably The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. And Malcolm Gladwell is an incredible writer who has so many good books. But yeah, it's basically defined— like, The Tipping Point is defined as the moment of critical mass, like the threshold and the boiling point where all of your— all the sum of your hard work comes to fruition and it's It's when everything just spills over the top and you start to sort of snowball and your momentum starts, but it takes so much to get to that tipping point. For some people it's years. Some people literally go 15, 20 years and they finally get to that point, and some people take 15, 20 months. But yeah, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is an amazing book.

Name one app resource you use the most as an entrepreneur?

So when I first started, man, I didn't have iPhone. So this crazy that I have this resource of having basically anything I ever need in the palm of my hand. But I mean, Instagram was really hugely, hugely important for me because I don't know if that really— it seems like it's such a dull answer because it is sort of like Instagram is really just— it's just everyone has it now, but when it first came out, man, it was just so, so powerful. Powerful for building— oh my God, the name is eluding me— building organic. Yeah, it was— yeah, so that was the biggest thing for me is Instagram.

Good deal, man. And no, that's not dull. It makes sense. A lot of people aren't even utilizing Instagram to its full extent to penetrate and get that following they need to.

Yeah, 90% of my business, my organic business, is through Instagram. That's just— that's— if anyone understands business, that's insane of how powerful that is.

That is crazy, 90%. Okay, okay, this is the last question. Imagine you woke up one morning, except you're your younger self at that pivotal moment where you realize that, hey, this is what I want to do, I want to be an entrepreneur. All your bills are paid, you have food and shelter. Now you still have all the knowledge that you have now, you have a laptop, and you have all the experiences of overcoming your fears thus far? You also have $400. What would you do in the next 10 days?

Okay, so it's sort of— it's— I'm gonna answer the question, but I'm just gonna preface that it's sort of difficult because going back to that point, Instagram had just come out. I didn't know the power of it yet, so I am gonna build up Instagram. I don't know what the next big thing is. I don't know what— I mean, but for me, I'll just answer the question. So go back to, you know, it would be in my early 20s. Instagram had just come out. Day 1, build a super strong brand with web presence and social presence. Make sure everything is in brand with your brand. Develop that brand. If you're not sure what your brand is, spend endless amounts of hours researching and studying and talking to people about what is your brand, not just visually, but what is your brand, who are you serving? Make sure that is just so tight that you know everything about your business and your brand and you can answer any question. Then, you know, day 2, step 2, after I have my brand in line, it's just hit the streets. Like, find out events that are going on. For me, like gallery openings, anything. Think abstract. Think, is there a new alcohol line that's coming out? Is there a new cigar line that's coming out? You know, because these are people that people who buy alcohol, spirits, and tobacco, these are people that have a disposable income that would buy art. That's just me knowing my demographic of who's buying art, who has disposable income. Step 2, hit the events, network, build super solid relationships with people and spend— anytime you're not physically working on your brand, you should be out networking and building relationships, real relationships, genuine relationships. Figure out how you can help these people, not just how they can help you. What can you offer them? What is your brand or your product or whatever it is? How can it help change people's lives or whatever? And then I guess day 3, step 3, I would definitely research new outlets, like something new, something new that's the next big thing. It may have it had nothing to do with your company, but you never know. Maybe, you know, for me, this is before Vine, but I'm sure Vine was being developed at the time, and it's like, I don't use Vine, but if I would have known about it, it's just a new thing that I— so find the next big app, find something, you know, find the next big thing. What is the— what is the big fucking thing that's going to be next? And it may have nothing to do, but find out what it is and research it, and you never know. It could, you know, is there an event somewhere close like that, that this big thing is it's going to be launching at. Go there, meet people because people who are into the big thing may be into what you do. I mean, that's just, that's really the 3 important things. It's just never stop learning, networking, and then, you know, building a super tight solid brand and knowing everything there is to know about your company, everything there is to know about your brand, every revenue stream, every question. Know your enemies and know the people that are in your corner. You should know your the people who are your competitors just as well as, you know, the people that are in your corner.

Good deal, my man Kyle. This has been a killer interview, man. What I want you to do is leave the Fearless family with a little piece of advice. Let them know the best way they can connect with you, and then we'll say goodbye.

Sure, yeah, best way to connect to me is I only use Instagram, so @TheKyleMosher, T-H-E-K-Y-L-E-M-O-S-H-E-R, @TheKyleMosher is my Instagram. And then they connect with me on my website. There's an email list you can sign up for. Sometimes I very rarely do promotions, but when I do, they're good. So if you're looking to get some prints, some Handsign Gallery wrapped prints, that's a good way to do them. And like I said, I do promotions on them sometimes, and sometimes I send out just weird quirky things about what's going on in the art world. Maybe I'm doing an event, maybe I'm going to be somewhere. So that's a cool way to just stay up on what I'm doing. And now that Instagram has the stories thing, man, it's just— that's like one of the best things they've ever done. It's just completely bite Twitter. I mean, completely bite Instagram— sorry, Snapchat. They're so shameless, but it's just so— man, I can't say enough good things about the power of Instagram if you utilize it correctly. So yeah, I post a lot of crazy things about anything from from, uh, me going out and doing crazy things at events or, um, just creating art. So follow me there.

We're Fearless Family. You know, I end this thing off the same way every time. The fear of the unknown can kill your dreams and aspirations. You've been replacing fear with knowledge with my boy Kyle and with Will. You can head over to thefearless.co and type in Kyle's name in the search bar. We'll have show notes and everything will pop up with the link, some of the books that he suggested, as well as the link to his page so that you can sign up for his email list. Kyle, I want to thank you for sharing your journey with the Fearless Family today, and we look forward to seeing you continue to create with no fear.

Thanks, Will, man. I appreciate you having me on. It's been great.

Fearless Family, thank you for joining me for another episode of the Fearless Entrepreneur Podcast. Take a moment to visit thefearless.co/podcast. Podcast, like, share, and comment on our channel.