How To Choose Which Business To Start?

Somewhere between too many ideas and not enough clarity, it's easy to get stuck. One day you're excited about a new business opportunity, and the next you're convinced it's the wrong move. That kind of uncertainty can leave you frozen, wondering if you're about to waste time, money, and energy on the wrong path.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Small business owners, listen up. You started your business, but you can't do it alone. And that means you have to hire people to help. That's where Justworks comes in. Justworks is the payroll, benefits, and global hiring platform to unburden your brain from all the complicated small business stuff. They handle the things you can't afford to get wrong, so you don't have to worry. So you can focus on the parts of running a business that you enjoy, knowing everything else is running smoothly. You don't have to worry when it just works. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? For example, I really wanted to love the show Mad Men. I really tried to watch it and love it, but it just didn't do anything for me. As a marketer and business person, the show was a little bit of a disappointment.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, like impressions. But then we don't see revenue. LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend. Instead, you can get the highest ROAS of major ad networks with LinkedIn ads. Cut the bullspend, advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/MBAShow. Terms apply.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  If you're sitting on three business ideas and can't pick, or maybe you have no ideas for your next business, this episode is for you. Here's today's biggest takeaway right from the top. Choosing the right business is not about the perfect idea. All right, it's about providing exceptional value using your existing skills and experiences that you already have to people in a way and in a product that people want. So you're leveraging your skills and experiences with a product that people actually need. And we're going to talk about how to implement all that in today's episode. But that's really the whole answer. We're going to talk about how to actually implement this strategy in today's episode. As today is Q and A Wednesday, we had a question from one of our listeners. And I have with me my co-founder, my executive producer of the podcast, and my wife, Nicole

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Baldino. Nicole, welcome.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm happy to be here. I'm excited for today's question because I think it's one that people are quietly stuck on.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  If this show has helped in any way, it would be amazing if you could drop us a quick review on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast right now. It helps me and my team bring new episodes every week. And more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover our podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Thanks so much.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Today's question comes from Grace. Grace asks, "I really want to start a business, but I keep going back and forth on what it should be. How do I actually decide which business to start?" Wow, Omar, where do you even begin with this one?

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Grace, I really love this question because most people skip this concept. I'm also very fascinated by this concept of a lot of us, we do a lot of long-term things with very little time to decide those things. So for example, a lot of us, we took maybe a couple of weeks, a month to decide our major in university. And it wasn't like a dedicated month. It was like here or there. And then we spend four years studying that subject. So it's actually a good idea to spend a little time, a little more time than it feels a little bit comfortable, to make a solid decision before you start a business so that you invest the next three, four, five years, 10 years on the right thing. But more importantly, this is something I talk about a lot here on the podcast, and

• 3:42Speaker 00

  that is, business is hard. I don't like to sugarcoat it. It's challenging, especially your first one. And with your first business, you're going to make mistakes. We all make mistakes when we're learning something for the first time. You pay what I call an ignorance fee, right? You have to pay it off. There's a cost to learning things that you just can't learn without experiencing it, without actually doing it. And it's unavoidable. Everyone pays this fee. So my goal isn't to avoid difficulty, right? My goal here is to give you some advice to increase your likelihood of success as much as possible, to stack the deck in your favor as much as possible, so that your business can survive your learning curve, right? Despite the fact this is going to be hard, and despite the fact that you're going to

• 4:25Speaker 00

  be making mistakes, it's good enough to sustain itself and move beyond all those kind of challenges. So the right choice, the right business, doesn't make it easy, but it makes it survivable. It makes it worth your while. It makes it easier for you to be able to sustain this business, to see some success. We love a good framework, so I want to give one of my favorite frameworks when it comes to deciding which business you should start, whether this is your first business or even your next business. It's a three-part framework that I believe these three elements are critical for you to be able to succeed in this business. So we're going to stack these three because all three of them are going to really just tilt things just enough for you to be successful if you have everything right.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  So element one of this framework is you want to leverage the skills and the experiences you already have, not the skills you plan to learn, not a skill that you're hoping that you can learn through a course or some coaching before you start your business. We're talking about something that you're already doing, something you're already getting paid for. And we all have some skills that we've picked up, whether it's in school, whether it's in our jobs right now, in our careers, even if it was just for part-time work. I did some telemarketing when I was in university, which was a part-time job, and I was selling long-distance services. That was back in the day when that was separate. It was with MCI. And I learned a lot of sales skills, so I can leverage some of those skills in a business. So my point here is that you don't have to start from scratch. You're not starting from scratch. You're starting with things that you already have, things you have attained.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  You just want to parlay those into something that you want to build.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  I think part of the exercise of that time that you were talking about investing in the thinking phase could be spent just even listing those skills. I remember early on when we were starting out and I was trying to carve out my way into the business, what role I would fulfill and what the business needed. I remember doing this exercise where I listed all the things that I had done, whether it was volunteer work, part-time jobs, my career as a teacher, all the skills that that brought with it, with teaching. And then I think I did this other exercise where I asked you or a friend.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  This is such a long time.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  What are my strengths?

• 6:38Speaker 01

  What are my strengths? What do you know me for? What am I good at? And I think just spending time listing and it kind of brings you back to all the things that you've done that you've forgotten about. I recalled like a summer job that I had done, taking a bunch of students who'd come from Japan on a tour around Sydney and interspersed with like English lessons. I was like, oh, that's a little bit of tool guiding there that I'd totally forgotten I had done.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Whether that's a skill that I would then parlay into a business is a different story. But you start to see then some threads and commonalities.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  But it's good just to dump it all, and then you can decide later. You know, you know that this happened. And sometimes we undervalue ourselves. We don't really highlight some of these smaller kind of experiences that actually can augment our ability to do well in business. And just to kind of be really meta, we can use the example of this podcast as all three elements are hit. And if you kind of reverse engineer our success of this podcast and our business, the $100 MBA, it's because of these three elements. And the first element we're going to talk about is leveraging skills. So here at the $100 MBA on the podcast, we do a lot of teaching. And a lot of people know that, know my story. I was an educator for over 12 years in this classroom. I literally taught five days a week, five lessons a day for over a decade.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  So like I have a lot of reps of taking ideas, concepts, boiling them down to the simplest form, and trying to communicate them to my students. My job, my paycheck depended on it. So I got really good at that. So using the skill of teaching really helps me have some sort of advantage in this world of podcasting, in the world of business education. Element number two, and that is to serve a market or a group of people you genuinely understand. Ideally, you're a member of this group. You understand the lingo, you understand their needs, you understand their wants. You understand them because you are them. And this really helps because this gives you a bit of an unfair advantage of people trying to come from outside a market and try to understand their needs.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  They're going to really be relatable. People get you because you get them. And this is why I believe with this podcast that we were able to kind of resonate with our audience is because we're business builders as well. We built our software company for 10 years and shared the journey as we're building this podcast. We understand how to be a beginner. Like, one of the things I really try to tap into, and every time we do an episode, is what it's like to be a listener. And I try as much as possible never to forget the struggle of getting traction, the joy of getting your first customer, your first sale, all these milestones you have to go through in the business journey. And we understand business people because we're around them all the time. All our friends are entrepreneurs. We understand the lingo. We understand that there are really no days off, are constantly thinking about it.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  All these little nuances really make you understood and you understand who you're serving.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  And it's almost like what companies do when they go into market research or conducting surveys, I guess also to a certain point, running interviews and customer interviews. It's almost a way to fast-track getting that information because you're already in it. You speak the language, you understand the vocabulary, you understand where people are coming from, you're seeing things from their perspective without having to do this kind of formalized outside research.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  It's not only quicker, but one of the things I want to emphasize is these companies have a really hard time building trust with their audience because it's so easy for you to build trust because you're one of them.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  And you're walking the talk. And people see themselves in you. Like, I could trust this person because they actually ran many businesses. They've had a successful business. You know, one of the reasons why people listen to this podcast is because we share so many stories from the businesses we're running, the activities in the business we're running right now. And it's like, okay, these people are credible, they're authentic. It's not some sort of university that's out of touch. It's not a corporate entity that's trying to just make money off people's need to learn business. There is some trust that's already innately built because you're in the community.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Element number three, probably the most critical element, they're all critical, but this one is kind of non-negotiable and that is you need to solve a significant problem, a significant pain that they cannot ignore. Your audience needs to have something solved. I'm not interested, especially in your first business, in solutions to nice to haves. Okay. We're not looking at nice to haves. We're not looking at like small inconveniences. We're looking at a problem that's costing them time, that's costing them money, this costing them maybe even night's sleep. It's keeping them up at night. It's keeping their mind occupied, right? The more painful the problem, the easier it is going to be for you to sell your product or service because they're in such a need

• 11:17Speaker 00

  for a solution, they will try anything. I mean, one of the things that comes to mind is like when you're on holiday and you get the sniffles, you have a cold, you get the flu, you're willing to go to the pharmacy and like buy whatever, like, you know, like, does this work? Okay, I'll try this. I'll try this. I'll try all this. Like you're so desperate to have some relief so you can enjoy your holiday that you're like trying all this different medication with the hopes that it's going to help.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so do you think you need all three to make this viable? I'm thinking, so you mentioned three elements, leveraging your skills, understanding or being a part of the group and solving like a true pain point that people are willing to pay for. Is it possible to start with just say two? I have an example that I want to get your thoughts on, a real example. As you know, I've been going to yoga every Sunday, wonderful class, wonderful teacher. She's 20 years practicing yoga and she also happens to be an actress and the class is great in terms of the yoga practice that we do, but also in the way she weaves storytelling, myths, philosophy, all of that is woven through

• 12:20Speaker 01

  the practice and you're really hanging on every word throughout the entire hour. And I know that now she's parlayed that into a business package that the skill that she has in communicating, telling stories, being present, controlling the nervous system, all that stuff that you get from yoga and also the skills that she has from the acting world, whether it's vocal training, pacing, delivery, all of those skills, married those together and is offering now packages to help people deliver better pitches, rally their teams, sales, sales calls, all of those things. And so there's the question I have for you, which ties into Grace's question. She's got the skills, no doubt about that. I've witnessed

• 13:04Speaker 01

  it. In terms of understanding maybe this corporate world or this landscape, if you've given that maybe you've been involved in a different world, whether it's acting and yoga, now going into a corporate world. And then the second point being her ability to, is it really a pain point? I think your third element.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  It's a good question and my honest answer is that you need two solid of the three. The third one, which is the pain point is non-negotiable. So you need at least one of the first two, but if you're asking my personal opinion, all three is required because I want to again, stack the deck in your favor, make it as easy as possible. There are some challenges that you don't perceive, right? We just watched The Odyssey. And there's going to be some monsters out there that you're not expecting.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  No spoilers, but.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Right. You're going to see a cyclops, your own version of the cyclops. You're going to see these giants are going to be chasing you out of your business. You're going to see competition, right? So this is why I'm saying like you, all three helps fortify your business a little bit. Now, in this particular example, I don't know her whole story. I don't know all our skills, but she definitely has the skills to deliver this type of product or service. So that's great. She's got number one. She doesn't really understand the corporate world if she's done yoga all her life, if maybe that world or she doesn't have a network there yet. So that one's a little bit weak. Brings us to the third one, which is, is it a real pain point? And the way I filter pain point, if this is a real pain point, if this is a real need is that if there's an economic downturn, if we are in 2008 again, and it's a financial crisis and companies are slashing budgets,

• 14:36Speaker 00

  is this one of the things that they just can't slash? And my guess is probably no. Probably like helping people become a better speaker presenting is probably like a nice to have and it would, it's a good investment for the business. But when people are just trying to like, how do we make sure we only spend on things that help us deliver our products and services to our customers? And that's really, I would say a must have that we're like, she's actually providing something that they must have or otherwise the business doesn't run.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  It could be an audience though, right? It could be maybe the audience isn't, it could shift to individuals.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  It could be, but I'm just giving the, yeah, given the example, you're saying corporates, you know, if it's public speakers, if keynote speakers, that's how they make their money and they, they need this ongoing training so they can get better and better. That's different. Like that's how they make their money. Yes. You know, so, yeah. So I would be as critical within yourself and your business of all three, so that you can improve your odds of success.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  To the millions of small business owners out there, we appreciate you. We see your early mornings, late nights, and all the hard work in between. And with the US Bank Business Essentials card, you don't have to go it alone. With unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase, because we know your community is counting on you to be here, there, everywhere. So yeah, we don't just appreciate you, we support you. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association pursuant to a license from VC USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply.

• 16:03Speaker 00

  The holidays are the season business owners get pulled in six directions. More calls, more requests, more chances for things to slip through the cracks. Hoping you catch it all isn't a plan. That's why today's episode is brought to you by QUO, spelt Q-U-O, the business phone built so you never miss a call or a customer. Ever have a lead call or text at 10:00 PM? QUO's AI agent handles both 24/7. It answers questions, gets to the details and can text them a link to book an appointment. By morning, you've got the summary and can jump right in. And nobody should have to ask customers to repeat themselves. In QUO, every call, text and voicemail lives in one thread. So anyone on the team can

• 16:45Speaker 00

  jump in already knowing the whole story. If you have a business where your customers call or text you, this is a no brainer. You must have QUO. Money is on the line. Always say hello with QUO. Try QUO for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com/mba. That's Q-U-O.com/mba.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Bringing it back to what Grace might be thinking, she is really good at something. What if I am really good at something? How much do I weigh up that skillset versus is there really a need for it or much demand for it?

• 17:21Speaker 00

  I'm going to try to put this as simply as possible. There must be a demand for what you are good at. All right. There must be a demand, full stop. There's no way around that. All right. And the best way I could put this is you can sell pretty bad food to starving people. Okay. People coming out of a late show and there's nothing but like a kebab shop open. It's not the best food in the world. It's pretty bad, actually. Greasy, not really, you know, presented properly and people will buy it because they're really hungry and there's nothing else open. Okay. But I can't sell the best food in the world, the best cuisine in the world to a group of people that are fasting. Okay. They're not going to eat. All right. That's just, there's no demand here. So your skill really

• 18:03Speaker 00

  only matters if people are hungry for it. And this is kind of hard to absorb sometimes because sometimes we're like, maybe my skills are not wanted. But what really you need to look at is like, who needs your skills? Sometimes you just need to change your audience and that really changes everything. So your skills are really just the starting point. Then the finish line is how can I fulfill a demand with those skills?

• 18:27Speaker 01

  And are you going to get to how much of a demand? Because I would argue in all of these cases, even the yoga teacher example, or let's say Grace who's really good at something, there is probably some demand.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're going to share some exercises that you could do, even this, this weekend to figure out, is there a demand in the market for what I have and how much of a demand? And if it's worth you actually spending your time and money and energy to starting this business?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  I'm excited to hear your answer as, and what possible things people can do. And then I always think about the fact that there's that ignorance fee. There's that time in the beginning of a business journey where you are experimenting, where you're learning so much that even in this process, that maybe you might not hit the nail on the head with the first business idea, you're getting so many other benefits and so many other skills.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  In that process.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  I think I just want to touch on this ignorance fee thing. A lot of people don't understand what I mean by this. You are probably very good at your skills or whatever you do. Like I have a very close friend. He's a photographer, right? I've known him for years and he is very good at what he does, but he's horrible at business. Doesn't know how to sell his products and services. He doesn't know how to get gigs. He doesn't know how to, you know, get testimonials. He doesn't know the exercise of making money. So this is the ignorance fee. Like, how do I actually sell the thing I have and utilize my skills and build new skills as a business owner? So there's some things you're going to stumble upon, some things you're not going to be great at in the beginning when it comes to business. And that's fine. But if your skills are highly sought after and you have

• 20:00Speaker 00

  a demand and you understand that audience very well, this is going to be enough for you to overcome some of these, you know, small mistakes along the way. If this episode is helping you get unstuck, subscribe to the show. Why not? Hit subscribe on whatever app you're using right now, whether it's Apple, Spotify, YouTube. I want you to hit subscribe because we have an upcoming episode. Nicole and I are doing a Q and A Wednesday episode on how do I know if my business is failing or if I should keep going? You know, a lot of people are not sure. Like, is this a dip right now? Is it just about to get successful? Or is this just a disaster and I should just quit and start a new business? So we actually explain what are some of the signs, what are some of the signals, what are some of the things that will tell you in black and white that, hey, this is failing.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  You need to, you know, shut it down, start something new. Or no, you're on the right track. Keep going. Keep persevering. You're almost there. So hit subscribe so you don't miss that episode. It's coming soon.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  All right. So we've touched on being very good at your skillset and using that as the foundation for a business. You've talked about this before. I think it comes up in this question as well. Passion. Where does the follow your passion advice fall into this? Because I think you've talked about this on the podcast before. You had a clothing business called Zen Home Designs.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  And you was profitable, was doing really well. There was a need, all of that, hit all of those. Well, let's see if it hit all those elements because you closed it down, right?

• 21:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Because you hated it.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Let's be honest.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Tell us about that.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a great catch. And let me be precise about this because I believe there's a few rules you need to follow. Rule number one is that you have to be valuable. That comes first. Regardless of how you feel about the business, if you enjoy the business, if you don't enjoy the business, it's not really a successful business if you're not providing value to other people. Like, a lot of us, we want to believe that if I'm passionate about something, then other people will be passionate about it. That's not always necessarily true. So you have to always be valuable. Passion doesn't really pay anyone. It doesn't add any value to anyone. It doesn't matter how passionate I am about gummy bears. If I can't really take that passion and package it into something that people actually like, making it funny, making it entertaining, making it something, then there's no real value for other people.

• 22:17Speaker 00

  Okay. Rule number two is you need to find the value and the enjoyment in what you do. Okay. So, and why? You have to find some sort of personal values and personal enjoyment because business is a long road. It takes a while to get successful. There are challenges, like I mentioned, there's going to be some cyclosis in your world, right, coming at you? So it has to be enjoyable enough so that you don't quit. And that's what happened to me. I quit because I got burnt out and I was doing it because I was making money and it was successful and I liked the winning of it. But that gets old very quickly if you're not actually enjoying the day to day.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it gets you to a certain point, right?

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  That you can enjoy the success of being an entrepreneur, but the day to day, you've got to wake up feeling like inspired, happy, ready to go to work.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I woke up this morning, I went to the gym. I knew that today I'm going to be doing these episodes with you. We're going to record two episodes today, have some discussions about things I love. I love talking about business. I love sharing what has worked for me, what has not worked for me, helping other people. Later, I'm going to be like reviewing a script for an ad read we're going to be doing. So like, all the stuff I enjoy, it's not painful. I get personal satisfaction at it. So I'm able to do this every day. And in order for you to get good at anything, you need to be consistent. And if you don't enjoy it, it's hard for you to be consistent. So you mentioned Zen Design, my clothing line, my custom tailored clothing line that I had. The business was successful. I mentioned this in a previous episode. Products sold really well. Customers really loved what I had. There

• 23:49Speaker 00

  was real demand for it, like almost too much demand. I couldn't fulfill all the orders. Most customers were actually more passionate about the products than I was, which was a big sign for me that like, I don't know if I'm in the right business. And I closed it down because I was really burnt out. I was on a full time job as a teacher. I was a chair department at the university we were working at together. And I was also running this quite busy and successful business and I just got burnt out. The truth of the matter is if I really enjoyed the day to day, if I enjoyed creating new products and making new styles and geeking out on what sold well and what didn't sell well, working with models, like human models to shoot these new lines of clothing and putting them up on the website, all that kind of stuff. I enjoyed that. I'd probably be like, hey, I'm quitting my job.

• 24:34Speaker 00

  I'm going to do this full time. This thing is doing well. It's selling. And that would be like my exit out. But I actually would escape to my job because I enjoyed that more than the business. So that was a big mistake. That was a big mistake for me for picking a business that I wasn't passionate about, something I didn't really enjoy. Passion is like a very loaded word. I would say like, you just enjoy it. Like, it's not a pain to show up every day at work. You actually look forward to it.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  So what drove you then to keep going with that business? Was it the business skills? Was it, what else was it giving you?

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Well, I think it's because I had a lot of small businesses on the side, leading up to that, some wins, some losses. And this was like the first big win I had. And it's like, I'm a very competitive guy. So like, when I play sport, when I play any kind of competition, even business, I had a win. I was like, well, I can't just quit now because I'm winning, you know, like, this is great. I love the feeling of being significant, of providing value, of being successful at business. But that doesn't last forever. You know, at some point, it doesn't serve you. And it's like, okay, this is great. Now I'm just a slave to my customers. And yeah, that's the lesson I learned very early on.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Something to look out for, for sure. Well, that brings us to a really good point about the wrong reasons, going into a business for the wrong reasons. So maybe can you give Grace and the viewers a bit of an insight into what are some of the wrong reasons that people pick a business or go into a business for the wrong reasons?

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. Three come to mind, three big wrong reasons to start a business. The first one with the bullet is because it's working for somebody else. A lot of people see somebody else being successful and they're like, oh, I'm going to do that because it looks like I'm going to win. I'm going to be able to successful with that kind of business. You saw somebody crush it in some sort of online course or running this type of physical business, whether it's like, you know, a retail store. Maybe they got into like crypto and they're like, oh, the crypto is where it's at. So I'm going to do that too. Just because it worked for somebody else doesn't mean it's going to work for you. Why? Because of everything we talked about today. Like, that person has a particular skillset, has a particular set of experiences that fuels that business. There's circumstances. There's luck involved.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  Like, we can't forget that that is a thing. Luck is a part of the thing. Timing, you want to call whatever you want, serendipity. This person might have a better network than you, whatever. Like, this is the thing about business education that is challenging for me, is like, there are some fundamentals I want to share with you. There are things that I know work. But at the end of the day, you have to try it because you and your circumstances is different than me and my circumstances. So you have to be very careful about taking advice and just, you know, not taking it with a grain of salt, just taking it for face value. So that's reason number one, which is just because it worked for somebody else, I think is going to work for me.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  I want to stay on that one because it's a bit of a sticky one for me. Because I think we've heard this advice where if it's working for someone else, then it's a proven product, it's a proven service. That means there's demand for it, right? So let's leave that for a moment because that exists. But I see where you're coming from with a real example from my life, actually. I haven't shared this before, but as you know, my dad worked a lot of pizza shops in his day. He was a blue collar worker. And just before he retired, he worked at a pizza restaurant. And he passed away. About 10 years ago. Thank you. And one of the things that he used to always come home

• 28:05Speaker 01

  after a shift at the pizza, the restaurant, was he would tell me and my brother, we have to open a pizza shop. Because he would see the place was packed. It was a restaurant in Sydney that was always packed. If you drove past it, there'd be lines outside. He was really good at his job. He could make pizzas better than anyone. And so he saw, well, this is like free money. I mean, he saw the profit margins, he saw the customers, he saw how busy it was all the time. So why not open a pizza store, a pizza restaurant? And my brother and I were like, no, dad, we have zero interest in this business. But I could see from his perspective that he could see this wildly successful business. I know how to do elements of it.

• 28:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  It's got to work for me. And so to your point, though, what I think he was missing, and I realize this years later, is that he's not seeing all the other things that support a business. He's seeing it from an employee perspective or someone who's driving by. And he's not seeing what goes into the infrastructure, the team, the hiring, the reputation, the marketing, the sales, the engine that really supports that business.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Is not immediately obvious, is it? I can understand where he was coming from, but it's not that obvious to everyone. So can you go a little bit deeper on this point?

• 29:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, your dad wasn't completely wrong, but he was a little bit a victim of like success bias. Like, he just happened to work at a very successful pizza restaurant. There's a lot of pizza restaurants, like go out of business that he hasn't seen and he doesn't know why they went out of business, right? There's many reasons why this pizzeria is probably successful beyond, you know, what we could see, you know, and it could be location, it could be word of mouth, it could be as simple as like, this person is opened to like 10 restaurants before and knows exactly how to create the perfect menu that's not overwhelming. Like, there's so many little things that we don't see because we're not in the business itself. We've never done that before. But most importantly, I think that sometimes we just get into businesses because we feel like we want the result.

• 30:04Speaker 00

  But are you actually going to enjoy the process of serving people day in and day out in a pizzeria? Because the journey is really what we have. You know, like, a lot of us, we're just like, well, that makes money. Like, well, that's not the only thing we got to consider.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you're seeing the success and you want to copy that, but you're not seeing the day to day and imagining the day to day. I think it's such a great point. It's such a, it's a trap, I think, that people fall into.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. And that kind of leads me to wrong reason number two, which is the business doesn't really fit your life or what you imagine your life to be, or the lifestyle that you want. No one really thinks about this a lot of times when they start a business. They see an opportunity, they just think like, hey, this looks like a good idea. Some businesses require constant travel. Some businesses require you to be on a 2am call. We had all hands every month when we ran Webinar Ninja. We had a global team of 30 people across the world. So we'd usually do shifts and every three months, somebody would have to get up at 2am to attend this, you know, all hands. And that was sometimes with us, you know. And if you have kids to look after, if you have to get up early, if you have, you know, maybe an elderly parent you have to look after, maybe that doesn't

• 31:12Speaker 00

  fit your lifestyle. And maybe having a global team and a startup and all that kind of stuff is just not what you want. You maybe want the success of a startup, but you don't really want the lifestyle. And this is the thing, like, I looked at Webinar Ninja for 10 years. We built that company, right? The success of that, the exit was fantastic. And that moment of celebration is fantastic. But really, if I look at that moment in comparison, that was like, maybe we celebrated for a day versus 10 years. Like, I decided to spend 10 years of my life doing that. I better enjoy the process. And luckily, we did. We loved building a team. We loved building a great product. We loved doing the webinars. It was enjoyable. I look back at those 10 years. Yeah, there were some struggles and some hard times, for sure. But it wasn't like a waste of 10 years because of the way we really enjoyed every moment. You know, so yeah, there is the success, but that's

• 31:57Speaker 00

  not the only thing.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  I can't help what's coming to mind right now and I wish there was something like this for adults. And I suppose adults can do this, but as students, I had this experience and we get this experience in Australia. In year 10, there's a period of time where you're deciding what careers you can do and you get an opportunity to go. And it's not like

• 32:14Speaker 00

  10th grade, yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, in 10th grade, it's not like work experience, but you get an opportunity to go and be part of a work that, or a career that you may be thinking of doing. And at the time, I know this is going to make everybody laugh, I wanted to be a police officer. And so I went and did a few weeks following around the police officers in their day to day. And wow, was I not ready for what I saw on TV compared to what they actually did day to day. The forensics, the all the gooey

• 32:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, you see the worst of society.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  You see the worst of society and I was like, okay, this is like absolutely a no. And I know that's a, that's a pretty extreme example, but it really hits you when the day to day is so different to what you imagine.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  I don't know if we can tie that to Grace's question, but my perception of what being a cop was, was not the reality that I experienced.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think

• 33:07Speaker 01

  That's where it breaks down, right?

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Didn't fit in your lifestyle. You experienced it and thought, oh, I don't want to have this kind of life, you know, and go home with all these problems, you know?

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  So it's good to actually not just fall in love with the idea of the business, but to maybe even like, you know, intern, go get a job at a startup or whatever you want to do, or even like just ask a buddy or a friend that has a business like that. Like, hey, can I just like hang around that day and just see how it's like, you know? You might realize, oh, most of it's boring. Most of it's not actually that stimulating. There's a third reason that I want to share that's the wrong reason to start a business. And it's a funny one and it's a little bit off script, a little off notes because it's something that I kind of hesitated to share because it's a little bit hard to understand. But a lot of us, we have dreams, we have business ideas that we've had for years. Some people have for decades. They've had like, I've always wanted to start this type of business, right?

• 33:59Speaker 00

  And it's going to lead to the next thing we're going to talk about. It's like, that is really not a great business to start now. Right? Like it was when you first thought of it, right? Like, you know, like you had the concept, you had the idea, but you've been sitting on it for like five, six, seven, 10 years. Things change very quickly in the marketplace. And you know, you're just like, I gotta do this. I've always wanted to do this. And you just go in without validating, you go in without thinking that's going to be successful because like you've been thinking about it's so big in your head, but the world has changed since then. And it's kind of hard to kind of like come to terms with that because it's kind of like you're, I'm not going to get to fill my dream. And this is why I always say like, the goal should always be to be a successful entrepreneur, to have a successful business.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  How you get there is all dependent on a lot of things outside of your realm of influence, like the marketplace, like, you know, your circumstance, like your skills and all that kind of stuff. So you want to make sure that you set a goal that is actually attainable, which is like, I want success in business, wherever way that looks like, you know, whatever business that is.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  And that's almost the flip side of people who jump on trends, like they see something that's hot right now with what's frozen yogurt places, jumping on those trends. It's the, it's the flip side of that. Which is why I think this, this episode and this question is so good because from either angle, it can look like a great idea, but if it doesn't hit all of those three.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Then you're missing that thing that's going to make the business sustainable and viable.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Viable and sustainable.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Should be that order.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  All right. So Grace has now narrowed it down to say two or three ideas. What if there's a tiebreaker? Which one does she go with?

• 35:34Speaker 00

  I love this question because one thing that business has taught me in 20 years is to be humble. Right? You have to, it humbles you 20 years of business. Why? Because you learn that you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you know, right? You think you know. Stop trying to decide. Stop thinking that I have to choose it. I'm so smart and I'm going to know exactly which is the best one. And it's up to me. It's not actually up to you. Let the market decide. It's very good to be humble and innocent about what you think is going to work. And this is why experimentation is so integral in success in business, right? You're going to think one way or the other, but if you can't decide, run a pilot, test it out.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  One of the lightest ways to do this this weekend is to create a waiting list. It could be a simple landing page where you could just like, hey, I'm launching this new product or service. Would you like to get on the waiting list? By being on the waiting list, you'll get like a discount or you get first access or whatever it might be. And the whole point of this exercise is to see if there's demand. And you could just create a one page landing page or website and it has an email capture. And you could just send traffic to it where you run some paid ads. You can throw $50, $100, $200 on Meta Ads, Facebook, Instagram, where you are just targeting the demographic, the audience that would be interested in this product or service. And you want to see, are people actually willing to just put their name and email address down?

• 36:59Speaker 00

  And are they interested in what you have to offer? They're not paying anything, but it's some level of interest. If no one is signing up, then you know that there's a problem here, right? But this is an easy way to just like spend a little bit of time to validate before you spend the next two, three, four, five years trying to make this business work.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  I'm wondering if depending on where Grace is starting from, and I think there could be different levels, if having, launching a landing page and a website could be a bit of a stretch. Is there any way of doing it on social media or putting together or on LinkedIn or on Facebook or wherever, you know, you kind of are on social media, outlining that offering?

• 37:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. The reason why I say landing page is because you need a little bit of real estate to explain what you do.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  And what you offer and the pains you solve and all that kind of stuff. But to answer your question, yeah, you can create a lead ad in Facebook or on Instagram where they can just put their name and image address right in the ad. But you know, it's going to be hard for you to explain it, but you can maybe do it as a reel and then like the call to action buttons, like learn more or sign up for the waiting list and then it opens up the opt-in. And that's probably the fastest way to do it. You could just do this inside and you can ask chat GPT or Claude or whatever how to do this. This takes two seconds and doesn't make any sense for me to explain it right now because it could change tomorrow. So yeah, that's the fastest way to find out. And if you are hearing this right now and you're like, oh, you know, that seems like a lot of work, you know, like stop, stop. Don't do this business. If that's a lot of work, then you don't know what is ahead of you, right?

• 38:26Speaker 00

  That's very little work compared to what you'll have to do if there is demand. If you actually have to fulfill customers, you have to give money to a supplier or to a service so that you could supply to the customer, collect money from the customers, give refunds, deal with people that are upset and angry. Like this is what business is about. So this is a very small, easy step to get you going.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  I remember with the yoga teacher, she announced it in class. And there's a captive audience there. We all have her email. The first, I think the first step before this program was even, or even launched or the website was even live was like, would anyone be interested? Email me. So there's different ways. If you're part of that community, like you said, if you're part of that membership group and you've got an offering, there's already people maybe that you could ask in that, in that community, in that group.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I think that you want to make it easier for yourself to get a response. Like I would even say that's a little bit of a weak attempt because like it's a lot of effort for me to remember her email and then to remember to email her and to say I'm interested. It's easier for her just to email me and say, reply to this email.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  I think maybe that's probably how it went.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  I'm not trying to poo poo her, but I'm just saying like, we want to make this as easy as possible for the customer.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  I think it was more about like, when you've got an audience, you're part of that community, announcing it to the community and somehow getting feedback from them.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  So testing, trialing is a really good way to find out if this is something that people actually want. If this is a business that has legs, don't trust your intuition, especially in the start. And right now you need to just see if the market wants it. And you know, I just want to kind of wrap this episode up and wrap up my final thoughts when it comes to helping Grace and everybody else who's listening, who's trying to decide. And really to wrap up, like, you don't need to decide. The market decides for you, right? You don't need to, like, the only thing you need to decide is like choose from the options that you'd like to do. You know, the things that you would actually enjoy, things that it would actually

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Skills you have.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  Yep, skills that you have, all the things that we discussed. So that leverages the skills that you already have. Yeah. So I really think that a lot of us, we are trying to make all these decisions when you need to start getting into the habit where you just get data and the data drives your decisions. Right now you don't have much data. It's all in your head, right? And maybe we asked a few friends, but friends just give you lip service. They tell you everything is good and that sounds good, but they're never actually going to buy. So you need to find out in the marketplace if this thing has legs.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  I think we covered a lot in this episode and in answering this question, but I think it's a big one. And we want to, our aim is really to get people unstuck. And I genuinely feel that a lot of people are unstuck, are stuck in this phase of deciding. And so hopefully all of these elements that you outlined and all, and all the examples we gave helps people get unstuck.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  So the last thing I want to kind of leave everybody on is, is just on that point, like, and this might be worth the whole episode. And it's if you are feeling stuck in life in general, if you want to make a change in your life, the best thing you could do is to take action, any action, even if it's the wrong action, right? Just take action and continue to take action. If you want to get healthy, just take any kind of action. Go for a walk, go for a run, do some pushups, join a gym, buy some new sneakers, whatever, like just do something, right? This, this idea of living in your head, nothing gets done here. It gets done in the real world by you trying and testing and really just experiencing what it's like to be out there. If you're not willing to put yourself out there and fail or succeed, then there's no real success.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  There's no real anything of value, right? If you're just playing it safe and just playing business and researching and doing it in your head and nothing really is going to happen either way, then there's no value there. So just take action. Don't worry about like failing so much. It's okay. No one's watching. You're going to learn. You're going to be able to iterate.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Well, the fact that Grace has taken the first step, submitted her question, go Grace. And if you want to submit your question and have Omar answer it here on Q and A Wednesdays, go ahead. Go to 100mba.net slash Q and submit your question.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  Awesome. And if you want to continue your learning, we have a recent episode that we published called, How to Validate Your Business This Weekend? If you want to do that validation process, we kind of touched on, if you want all the details, all the steps, all the frameworks, we cover it in that episode. It's called How to Validate Your Business Idea This Weekend. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks Nicole for joining me today on Q and A Wednesday and we'll check you in the next one.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Introducing Fidelity Trader Plus, the next generation of advanced trading from Fidelity. Customize your tools and charts and access them seamlessly across desktop, web and mobile. For faster trades, anywhere you go. Try the all new Fidelity Trader Plus. Learn more about our most powerful trading platform yet at fidelity.com/traderplus.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE, SIPC.