Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Guest Podcast: The Secrets to Entrepreneurial Success (Rich Dad Cash Flow Academy)
Transcript
- 0:00Today you're going to hear me on the Rich Dad Cash Flow Academy podcast with Andy Tanner.
- 0:04Make sure you subscribe on YouTube or go listen wherever you get your podcast.
- 0:18Welcome to the Cash Flow Academy podcast. I'm your host, Andy Tanner.
- 0:22Great show setup. This is where we make investing simple and we're going to make
- 0:26entrepreneurship simple today. Have a wonderful guest. We have Scott DeClairey with us.
- 0:31And we're going to talk about entrepreneurship, starting a business, starting from square one,
- 0:36some of the traits for success. Remember to like and subscribe. Hit your notification bell
- 0:42to get updates when we release new material. And don't forget to drop by your investing class.com
- 0:50where we have great education, great goodies and lots of fun stuff there. Scott, first of all,
- 0:57welcome to the program. This is going to be a great interview. I'm excited to learn.
- 1:03So let's just start off here. You're the host of a success story podcast. So you get to tell stories
- 1:11about, you know, you interview a lot of people who found success and learned from that. And you
- 1:16also have your own background in business, you know, real estate venture capital. So let's just
- 1:22start by introducing you to the listeners and tell us a little bit about your journey.
- 1:28Yeah. So I appreciate you having me on. So thank you very much. I'm going to be a lot of fun.
- 1:33I'm also a kindred spirit of fellow podcaster and that's sort of where I spend most of my time now.
- 1:38My background is in tech. I've also invested in a variety of different things. I'm successfully
- 1:44some not so successfully as most people who are probably listening to this podcast and can relate to.
- 1:50I think that you mentioned something that's interesting. You said, well, this is the this is a cash flow
- 1:55academy podcast we're focusing on teaching you about investing and obviously cash flow and you know
- 2:00finding ways to make money. But I think that people that are interested in investing are inherently
- 2:05entrepreneurial. They are trying to find ways to make money secure their futures, secure freedom
- 2:12in a way that is maybe a little bit outside the the way that our education system or even our
- 2:18parents have taught us, right? So people are looking for new ways to do things to make money to
- 2:22create well. So I think that I think that entrepreneurship and investing are two sides of the
- 2:28same coin. I think that people are usually interested in both. And if you aren't interested in
- 2:33entrepreneurship, you should at least be a little bit because it's going to massively inform your
- 2:37investment decisions if you go into certain categories because you'll be betting on entrepreneurs.
- 2:41So my background, I started off in tech from a very young age actually from a very risk adverse
- 2:48family. So going to tech was a little bit of a stretch, but I always consider myself a little bit
- 2:54of like a like a black sheep in my family because my my parents, my dad worked for government,
- 2:59my mom worked for universities and I decided to go into tech. That's still nine to five, but that was
- 3:04still a little bit of a little bit outside the norm for coming from my family, but I enjoyed a lot
- 3:10and I was good at tech sales and I made a lot of money and I sort of spent a lot of my early career
- 3:14in tech. Then I moved in, well, the sort of light bulb moment for me when I understood equity and
- 3:23ownership and entrepreneurship is when I moved from one very large company, it was a company called
- 3:28Bell Canada, which is like one of AT&T Verizon's size company in Canada for Telecom.
- 3:35Moved into a smaller company that was also in Telecom tech IT that was acquired by private equity
- 3:41and I saw that transaction play out and in my mind I'm like, wow, if I could only have had a piece
- 3:47of this company look at what kind of check I'd be getting and that pushed me down the rabbit hole
- 3:54of entrepreneurship, starting something from scratch, taking equity position, ownership,
- 4:00all of it. I found it so exciting, super high risk, but also at the time in my career I was young
- 4:08and that season of my life I was okay with that type of risk and I think that there's a lot of
- 4:14parallels between career risk and the season of your life that you're in and how much risk you
- 4:19want to put into your career working in a startup as well as investment risk. I mean if you are
- 4:24looking to invest you all have risk profiles and you are trying to figure out what season of your
- 4:28life you are in and how that ties into your personal risk profile. So a lot of parallels between
- 4:33entrepreneurship and investment. Anyways, so sort of dove into startup land, had a lot of failures,
- 4:41tried to do consulting work for startups, taking equity positions, I tried to start a couple of
- 4:47my own companies. There was one that was successful where I joined a company because I'm on the sales
- 4:54and marketing side that's sort of been my forte in my whole career. I joined a company, helped them
- 4:58scale up, helped them get acquired and that was a great success and that was sort of my entire
- 5:04career summed up in about a minute and a half. That's pretty good. After that, that's when my
- 5:10investment journey started because I now had a little bit of money to play with and I
- 5:17think like most entrepreneurs once they've achieved some level of success or even most people that
- 5:20have achieved some success in their career, they sometimes equate their operational success in
- 5:28companies to some sort of proficiency in investing which is not the case. Just because you can know
- 5:34just because you built one company or you know how to build a company or you know how to sell a
- 5:37product does not mean that you're going to be a great investor and I think that that's a journey
- 5:42that a lot of people go on especially exited entrepreneurs. They go on that journey and try and
- 5:47figure out okay what's next. Do I start another company? How do I make my money work for me? Do I
- 5:54you know I do I do the VC thing? Do I do the angel thing? Do I put money into real estate? Do I put
- 6:00money into private equity? I've basically tried all of it to some degree and we can talk about what
- 6:04I like and what I don't like about different types of investment categories but yeah that was
- 6:09sort of my journey so as employee to operator entrepreneur to investor and and now I podcast
- 6:17invests still mentor companies and and I love it. I love I love the entrepreneurial ecosystem. I
- 6:23love the investment ecosystem because there is never a day that is boring so that's what I can
- 6:31say about that. So I often catch myself maybe saying this too often maybe the listeners tire of
- 6:39it but I think it bears repeating into every conversation is there's a when you use talk about
- 6:46moving from you know from employee to to being an entrepreneur and starting up a business
- 6:54or investing either one there's a I often say that the moment you make that choice what you've
- 7:01really done is you've embarked on a journey of personal development and often in a you know
- 7:09a podcast like this one I think listeners are craving a practical how-tos you know I step
- 7:15a like like a recipe for bacon cookies you know step A step B this what you do and and yeah it's
- 7:22great but I don't know anyone we were talking before we you know went on the air you know
- 7:29as it is and it was funny because you said yeah I've had enough mistakes you know I could teach you
- 7:35a lot of stuff for the mistakes I made and I thought you know I think of the businesses I started
- 7:40and failed in and it was so interesting in your story is as I said you tell your story you said
- 7:45yeah I did some stuff and failed and then you moved on it was kind of a show of shoulders and that
- 7:50idea of failure and and what it takes emotionally mentally and and the toughness frankly that it takes
- 7:58to move on I don't think people realize that you know you're just like all the other entrepreneurs
- 8:05myself to yeah I had some failures and then you move on to the other stuff those failures when
- 8:10you're in the middle of them and the blood and the sweat and the tears and the dragons you're you're
- 8:14slaying talk a little bit about before we get into you know practicality of maybe some ideas
- 8:22and things to think about in practice and starting a business how to type stuff talk about that
- 8:29I mean did you find that that for me investing in and especially entrepreneurship it basically
- 8:35was able to just immediately pick out huge weaknesses I had and put them on display for the world
- 8:43to see it had a way of rooting out yeah I had some strengths wasn't a complete idiot but I was close
- 8:50because it's just it's just pinpointed areas where I didn't know ignorance places I didn't know
- 8:57what I was doing also just resilience and and dealing with people and failure and betrayal and
- 9:06everything else talk a little bit about that if you would yeah I think that so first of all
- 9:13failure is a prerequisite to whatever your definition of success is doesn't matter it doesn't
- 9:19matter who you look at or or which entrepreneur you look up to or which investor you look up to
- 9:25they've all failed a million times I think that what has allowed me to fail repeatedly I mean the
- 9:30you're right when you're going through it it sucks but I have never two two thoughts I've never
- 9:37completely attached my identity and myself worth to the thing that I'm building or the thing that
- 9:43I'm investing in and I've also always learned to bet on myself those are two I think very important
- 9:50mindsets that I think can be taught to a degree but it's something that I've had to work on and
- 9:54something that I've you know hindsight is 2020 looking back those two minds have served me probably
- 9:59more than any other because if I attach my whole identity to a business and it fails I feel like
- 10:05I failed as a person and that will have more of a negative impact on the next thing that I do
- 10:11than just the fact that this particular business failed or I lost X amount of dollars on this
- 10:16venture or this this startup that I put money into so I try to not attach my personal identity
- 10:21to a failure because I truly do believe as long as I'm breathing on this planet I have another
- 10:26chance of being successful at the next thing and the second thing yeah oh go ahead sorry no I was
- 10:32going to I was going to mention the second the second idea just quickly it's it's true belief in
- 10:37myself so there's a concept called a locus of control and what that concept is teaching is do you
- 10:44have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control do you believe that the world
- 10:48happens to you or you happen to the world it do you have self agency in your decision and I believe
- 10:55that when I bet on myself I have an internal locus of control meaning that I believe that if I
- 10:59want something to happen it is on me I have extreme ownership I have extreme self agency in that
- 11:04situation and if something doesn't work I'm not going to attach it to my identity but I do take
- 11:09ownership for the failure but I also know that any success is also because of me and I can trust
- 11:15myself to figure out that problem going forward so those two ideas yeah really just help me get
- 11:23through any failure that's I think those are probably the two most important concepts that I've
- 11:27internalized you know I I really hope that that I'm going to share what I
- 11:34learn from that in listening to you and I hope people don't miss miss what I think you said
- 11:40you know as an athlete you know even though I don't you know I was never a professional athlete but
- 11:45I was able to play um a division one basketball college a little bit I wasn't even a standout
- 11:51athlete but I'll tell you this a loss of a game I didn't I didn't say well I'm no longer a good basketball
- 11:59player because I lost the game I did not let a loss at any time that I can remember translating
- 12:06into my own identity as a player those were separate things and the loss of a business is kind
- 12:14of like that it's a long came and sometimes it hurts and gain losing hurts but it doesn't speak
- 12:21to who you are inside necessarily but I'll tell you what I the other thing you said that I
- 12:26briefly liked particularly in in my home country the United States is the locus of control
- 12:34you know we we just finished uh you know if you're in Canada and you're looking over the border
- 12:40at the United States you just got to grab a bunch of popcorn and watch the show and just shake
- 12:45your head and say you know you know I'm Canadian but I'm in Miami right now right well
- 12:50you know but it's got to be an interesting perspective right from from wherever you are
- 12:56and so uh when you talk about the locus of control you know politics and politicians want to frame
- 13:04every election I put this in chat GTP and said give me all the matchups in US history all of them
- 13:12you know every single election and then I said find me I had to talk about their what they said
- 13:20and without exception even in you know guys like we're saying the guy run against Thomas Jefferson
- 13:26he says this guy's an existential threat to the history you know to the future of the country
- 13:32in other words they want to take the locus of control and say it's about who you vote for
- 13:39yeah and and it's an external thing and if if we get the right person in the White House
- 13:46things are gonna be fine but boy if we don't your life is gonna and and that locus of control moves
- 13:52from what I can do in my own personal policy and that's what politics comes from is policy
- 13:59you know I have a personal monetary policy I have a personal fiscal policy I have a personal
- 14:07you know rules and standards that I don't bow to rules I raise to standards in my home
- 14:14and those rules and that that control uh is inside my house and inside of my mind and my heart
- 14:23it's got very little to do when I wake up in the morning of who the hell the president is
- 14:27they've never bought they've never bought me an asset they've never paid a bill of mine uh you know
- 14:34they they they really have a tremendously limited impact on my life warrant buffet has invested
- 14:41since 1940 whatever and he's always been in stocks he says half the time I've had a president
- 14:47vote for but it's never kept me out of stock so yeah that locus of control that you said that's
- 14:52a mindset that is so rare and and I'll I'll even add to that you know risk is related to control
- 15:03you know the more control I have over a system the less risk I take the less control I have you
- 15:09know the outcome will be what it is externally so that idea I love that phrase um the locus of control
- 15:17is it within you or is it within your boss or is it within your wife or your children or your spouse
- 15:24or or is it with your government and uh what a what a great diamond to I don't know the people
- 15:32can hear that and if they think their locus control I mean I was watching not to be too verbose on
- 15:38this but I was on the Twitter feed and someone's making fun of people that were uh that you know
- 15:46their candidate lost and they were in hysterics you know and they're making fun of these people
- 15:50and of course it's emotional but the reason they were in hysteric is their locus of control is
- 15:55there and they felt they had no control over things they felt the frustration where maybe you think
- 16:02you know I can get up tomorrow morning and I can learn anything I want to learn with a Google I
- 16:07can start a journey I can start a business I can buy a company I can develop myself and I love
- 16:16that thought when we come back from break uh I'm going to talk to you we're going to move into more
- 16:20practicum we'll talk about you know the meaning of success you do have the success story podcast so
- 16:27I love to speak about the meaning success there's a lot of definitions which is different than a
- 16:32meaning but we'll talk about that uh when we come back uh speaking with Scott DeClery they make
- 16:40different topics that could be complex very simple you're going to learn at your own pace the more
- 16:48that you want to learn the more you can learn it's been amazing for me personally as well as
- 16:53me taking the subject matter and teaching it to my children they're all very passionate about what
- 16:59it is they're teaching and how they teach it and it just comes across as so genuine if it's
- 17:03something that you're interested in then certainly they're the best teachers that I've run across
- 17:08in terms of teaching fiscal education welcome back to the cash flow academy podcast this is where
- 17:18we make uh all things investing simple we're speaking about investing and entrepreneurship with the
- 17:23host of the success stories podcast uh Scott DeClery welcome uh welcome back and uh looking to dive
- 17:33into the to the next half here tell me about this if a person says I want to start a business
- 17:39they come to you say I'm sick of my nine to five I live in the United States I have the freedom
- 17:44to start a business today uh I want to start where would you tell them to begin I think that first
- 17:53of all they have to understand that starting a business is inherently risky so we're going to try
- 17:59and do risk it as much as possible but it is inherently risky so they have to understand before
- 18:03they even decide to start a business where is their personal north star so is it focused on
- 18:08spending as much time with my kids and my wife or my husband as possible or am I 25 and I literally
- 18:16am just going to the bars on the weekend so I have unlimited free time and I can invest 80 hours
- 18:21a week because I think that when you start a business you do have to understand your personal
- 18:25north star you have to understand we mentioned this before the season of the life that you're in
- 18:29and there's different ways to start businesses be entrepreneurs in different seasons but
- 18:32know that it's going to be a lot of work and there's going to be a risk associated with it regardless
- 18:37now that being said you can look at a couple different frameworks for figuring out what kind of
- 18:41business you should start you can look at a key guy or some sort of vent diagram of your passions
- 18:49what the world needs what you're good at and what you can monetize which is just a really great
- 18:53framework to start and then once you figure out what that thing is I'm a big fan of again a
- 18:59couple different mindsets towards starting a business because mindsets are what will make or break
- 19:04a business the tactics are very easy to find I can figure out how to run a Facebook ad set
- 19:08getting a 3x row as by going to some YouTube video or I can figure out how to hire the best
- 19:12employer I can go to upwork or top-tal and tap into the gig economy or I can figure out how to
- 19:17find product market fit and post great content on social and build a funnel I can figure out the
- 19:21tactics mindsets very important because mindset will replace the motivation or the fire that you
- 19:28first get when you want to start a business which will 11 out of 10 times fizzle out in about
- 19:34month two or three or four because shit's going to hit the fan it's going to get difficult so
- 19:39a couple different mindset ideas first of all you've done your vent diagram of what you should
- 19:44actually think of building I love the idea of and I'll just rip through them and then you tell me
- 19:50what you want to focus on I love the idea of building your your business between five and nine
- 19:55and you have your nine to five w two and then you build your business between five to nine and on
- 19:59the weekend so you'd be risk you're not going all in immediately I love the idea of reverse
- 20:05engineering success so looking at what someone else has built and reverse engineering how they've
- 20:09built what they've built look at somebody who's built a business that is a year ahead of you
- 20:14that's the same type of business same type of product and then you can reverse engineer the steps
- 20:18you use to take that to markets you can learn from other people I love the idea of commit to
- 20:23something for 10 years meaning that if you are going to build this thing assume it's going to take
- 20:27longer more time or energy more money than you think it's going to take so don't don't quit your
- 20:32job too soon make sure that not only have you built the financial structure and systems in place
- 20:38to allow yourself to afford to build this thing but also the the time commitments is going to take
- 20:43so if you assume something's going to take 10 years of your life okay then maybe I don't want to
- 20:47try and speed run building a business and try and cram it all into six months maybe I can work on
- 20:52it for 10 hours a week that's fine just find a way to play the long game and do it for an unreasonable
- 20:57amount of time and I think that between all of these ideas if you reverse engineer success if you
- 21:03build it in your downtime if you focus on committing to this thing for 10 years and you have this
- 21:09venn diagram of what to take to market based on again your skills at your passion what the market
- 21:14needs what you can monetize I think it's a very good recipe for success a very good practical way
- 21:20to at least start I think that's probably healthier way to start than most entrepreneurs start
- 21:26so those ideas alone I think will be quite good for somebody to start with. That's some really
- 21:30fantastic stuff particularly the the mindset of identifying skills and passion and that combination
- 21:39is a really interesting combination because the greatest entrepreneurs don't stop
- 21:46Buffett and the late Charlie Munger these guys are in their 90s and they get up in the morning
- 21:53and they could go sit at the pool and they could put a drink with an umbrella in it they could
- 21:57travel they could do anything they wanted anything they wanted to do and the thing that they want
- 22:02to do more than anything else is go their office and go to work and so the idea that you know people
- 22:08say well I want to be an entrepreneur so I own my own business and you know I have to work
- 22:12anymore well first of all when you start you don't own it it owns you for sure the amount of work
- 22:19that I really I really appreciate that because the amount of work it takes to do this stuff
- 22:27you have to enjoy it because you are going to work weekends and you are going to work especially
- 22:31in the early times when you get that thing going and you know to to me there's certain if you want
- 22:37if you don't know what your skills are there's a great book called the happiness hypothesis and
- 22:43talks about flow state where flow state is where you have something really legitimately challenging
- 22:50and yet you know it's it's not easy to do and yet you are equal to that task and you're performing
- 22:56it well and you're you're just feeling this type of it's a it's a brand of happiness
- 23:03that is really different than love or even achievement because you're just in the middle of it
- 23:08it's a lot like in athletics when you're just in the zone and if you can find that
- 23:14and get into that uh that's fascinating stuff the other thing that really is interesting
- 23:21where you said commit to 10 years and uh that's an interesting thing I think maybe one of the
- 23:28hardest things yeah I think it's easier as an investor and I think it's very difficult as an
- 23:33entrepreneur I think it's different is as an investor I can pull the plug pretty easy and
- 23:39sell a stock that's not that's not too tough to do because you can look at it and say yeah you
- 23:44know there's just better opportunities over here but man when you put your blood and sweat and
- 23:49and heart you don't know if you're three feet from gold and knowing I think the hardest thing
- 23:55one among top 10 list of being entrepreneur is when I've been in businesses that have failed
- 24:01when to pull the plug or when to say you know never never never give up never never never
- 24:08get up so there's this there's times to divorce like there's marriages that are bad and you should
- 24:13divorce no I agree until that's your part you know you know your KPIs you need to know your KPIs
- 24:19for success that's the thing yes I do agree just just doing the same thing for 10 years and never
- 24:24pivoting and never changing and never iterating and never learning and and you know like
- 24:29what Kevin Ellery says is yeah there's a time when you take your business behind the barn and you
- 24:32shoot it that's that's valid but but I think that more people more people pull the plug for the wrong
- 24:41reasons that's all I'm saying yes there is a time to pull the plug on it but I think that going
- 24:46into it with the mindset of I'm gonna commit 10 years of my life to this thing it sets you up
- 24:51financially energy the amount of energy you got to commit to it the amount of time it just it
- 24:56it sort of creates this perfect framework for you to understand what it's going to take because
- 25:01if you sit if you say that to yourself even if you don't commit to it for 10 years or even if
- 25:05it's successful after three years good for you or if you kill it after two years the point is you
- 25:10understand what most most businesses that are successful they do take around six to 10 years to
- 25:17be truly successful not just a not just a high paying job that takes twice as much of your time
- 25:23but yeah there's the key performance indicators you mentioned that's a huge deal because as I've
- 25:30grown in business those become more and more important to to business to know how to tweak them
- 25:36to get people around you that know how to tweak them well to try not to do the very it's not
- 25:43hard for me I think be hard for some people but this comes very easy to me not to be the smartest
- 25:49person in the room that's just been natural for me easily but you got to have a great team to do
- 25:54this let's pivot a little bit to this great great podcast Scott great insights yeah you can tell pretty
- 26:03quickly when when someone has really been there and when they haven't let's talk a little bit
- 26:10about the meaning of success you have a podcast where you talk about success stories and the
- 26:17success stories and I'll throw this first let's do a definition I don't know if definition
- 26:23mean the same but what what would you say if I say define what is success
- 26:31if I was going to define success based on all the conversations that I've had over the past
- 26:36now six years it's been a minute well um time flies but yeah it's going to define success it would
- 26:44probably be one word to be freedom that's what people that's what people define success as it is
- 26:49freedom it is not it is not a financial number because most people don't actually need as much
- 26:56money as they think they do to live the lifestyle that they've imagined and dreamed of it's not
- 27:01it's not accolade it's not notoriety it's usually usually it's
- 27:08being around people that love you doing whatever you want to do with no one telling you what to do
- 27:15and I think that that's the definition of freedom and some people excuse more towards work because
- 27:20they enjoy it some people excuse more towards traveling the world some people excuse more towards
- 27:26being super present with their family and their spouse but it's freedom at the end of the day
- 27:31and it usually is actually ironically enough never directly defined by financial wealth or some sort
- 27:37of amount of money made that's just a precursor for freedom and have to agree that there's a threshold
- 27:46I believe where uh where there's a diminishing return in terms of of quality of life
- 27:54after freedom's been achieved in other words let's say you you get to a point where you can
- 28:00pretty much do what you want to do you wake up the morning and you're doing what you want to do
- 28:04um so then maybe you buy a Ferrari uh and then maybe a by Lamborghini and then maybe you buy
- 28:11something else and I just really feel that the uh the returns on on a bigger bank account
- 28:18after you've got autonomy um it gets tougher and tougher and tougher to get a return on more
- 28:26and more and more and more money I don't know I mean I even hit the hundred million dollar marks so
- 28:31maybe I'm breaking wrong maybe there's a lot of happiness no I have friends that have exited
- 28:37company for over a hundred million dollars I have not but I have I have good friends and I
- 28:42and I mean I don't see their lifestyle being significantly different than somebody who has
- 28:48exited the company for 20 or 30 or 40 mil I mean these are all large sums of money for for the
- 28:53average person uh but I mean for most people I've had this conversation there's a great uh
- 29:01finance youtuber Vivian too and we're talking about like what's your number and she's like her
- 29:06handles like the rich BFF or something like that she creates a whole bunch of finance kind of like
- 29:09this stuff um and I was I had her on the show and I was asking her what's her number and she's like
- 29:15it's 20 million because 20 million if I invest it in very low risk I can maybe get four to five
- 29:23percent back from that annually and then I'm running out of million dollars every single year
- 29:29and I mean that's a that's a fabulous amount of money because think about the things that people
- 29:32want they want vacations they want to stay in luxury resorts most people don't care about um like
- 29:40buying a sports team or owning a private island or yeah maybe with with a million dollars a year
- 29:46by the way you can fly private you wouldn't own your own jet but you fly private if you really care
- 29:51about that so you can have a private chef you can have a gardener I mean that's a fair amount of
- 29:57money for most people like most people's dreams are actually not that they're not huge they just
- 30:03want they just want to not worry about living paycheck to paycheck okay maybe it changed a
- 30:07little bit if you want to own a beautiful piece of real estate in Manhattan but I don't even think
- 30:11many people want to own a beautiful piece of real estate in Manhattan I think they actually again
- 30:15they're optimizing for their family their quality of life they're freedom so well that's a thoughtful
- 30:21question yeah it's a thoughtful question because I've thought a lot about that you know that meaning
- 30:26or definition success a lot um when I was younger probably 21 22 years old I I listened to a really
- 30:37cool audio series was on cassette date from rural night and gale called lead the field and he had
- 30:44an interesting definition for success I held on to it for a lot of years it said it was kind of
- 30:50worthy he said success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal that was kind
- 30:57of a mouthful at age 21 I had to think a lot about what that might mean as I've gotten older I've
- 31:04kind of gravitated towards something actually heard in church when I was even younger than that
- 31:08it just never really sunk in was you know to fulfill the measure of your creation and enjoy it
- 31:15find joy in that you know a bicycle is not successful until it's assembled and written by a child
- 31:23a an apple seed is not successful till it's planted nurtured grows into an apple tree and bears
- 31:31fruit in its kind and as I've thought about that gap between you know what I am now and that
- 31:40frustration of that gap before I could be the pursuit of closing that gap to to be who I to to
- 31:48fulfill potential you know I think one of the saddest saddest things is where you know I had a friend
- 31:55I had a friend of mine giving me kind of a strange compliment he was recommending that I work
- 32:00with someone and he told this someone so he says you know and this is years ago he says you know
- 32:05Andy now there's a guy there's anyone that has potential has them have filled it's that guy
- 32:09he meant it as a compliment but then when it came I says oh I think I came the wrong way you know
- 32:14but but it's an important thing to think about let let's uh I I'd be remiss this is bit out of order
- 32:21a bit of I'd remiss if I didn't talk about this you know in a way I think it'd be easier to be an
- 32:28entrepreneur you talked about you know getting a return on your ad spend the the term row as you
- 32:33used earlier I think it's yes and no I think it's easier in a lot of ways to be an entrepreneur in
- 32:41our day and age than maybe any other time we've ever had you know the the technology to communicate
- 32:49to deliver information logistically to deliver products and services and I'd I'd a dear relative
- 32:57who had a degree in computer science spent spent 30 years of his career you know trying to figure out
- 33:05the code that he could sell the software he could build the app he could come up with you know
- 33:10to make it happen and uh you know has a divorce loses you know those are painful emotionally
- 33:16financially and right towards the age retirement he starts he goes to Amazon buys a pumice stone
- 33:24that's on the end of a stick acquires some rights to that and it's a toilet scrubber and the guy
- 33:29winds up selling his Amazon business for all this cash where he can now retire and live off in
- 33:35the sunset and I said you know when you're in your computer science class as you ever think you'd make
- 33:39your your fortune with a pumice stone you know a rock on the end of a stick that cleans toilets
- 33:45you know it's amazing it is you know the the world we live in has opportunity with that said AI
- 33:52AI is kind of a game changer and it's it's there's more competition now so ease of access means
- 33:59more people are going to you know throw their hat in the ring of entrepreneurship what's your take
- 34:04your background technology how's AI going to change this for entrepreneurs is it is it uh
- 34:09gonna is it going to consolidate around the big guys and the big guys you're just going to make
- 34:15more or does the little guy still have a shot I think the little guy always has a shot so a couple
- 34:21a couple again a couple ideas on this for sure I one of my favorite graphs that I look at is a
- 34:27graph and you can go search this on google and you'll find it it's a graph that shows the amount of
- 34:31people required to build a million dollar company over time and if you go back to say 1950 maybe
- 34:37it's I'm making up these numbers maybe it's 30 or 40 or 50 people but if you fast forward then
- 34:42you look at 2024 to build a million dollar company it only takes one person and I think that
- 34:48the barrier to entry for entrepreneurship has never been lower which is great like you mentioned
- 34:52in that allows anybody to build and with no code tools and AI even non technical people can build
- 34:57technical products fabulous now you asked well what about the big guys are they just going to create
- 35:02all these solutions and the answer is no because even with even with access to no code tools and
- 35:09all these AI tools and platforms the one thing that big companies will never do is move
- 35:17as fast as early stage entrepreneurs or take as many risks as early stage entrepreneurs or build
- 35:23a culture of innovation like early stage entrepreneurs so the life cycle of entrepreneurship is small
- 35:28company starts to build something maybe it could be one person building code in developing it grows
- 35:33it makes a money it grows some more it makes some more money it starts to get some bloat it could
- 35:38either be acquired or and sometimes when it's acquired it's killed which is a totally different
- 35:43conversation and there's reasons for why companies don't acquire properly but if it keeps growing
- 35:48he's getting bloated and then eventually it will no longer be nimble enough to bring new products
- 35:53and solutions to market as quickly as again that one solo entrepreneur building at home in their
- 35:59parents basement so the cycle of entrepreneurship it allow it the barriers to entry have never been
- 36:05lower but again you should still build not because you should still build because of course you have
- 36:12the opportunity the barriers to entry are lower there will be competition but you will always have
- 36:16the opportunity to build something innovative that's solving a true pain point and you can usually
- 36:19do it much quicker than a large company so that's why when when he's an entrepreneur builds a
- 36:26solution that it would make sense that meta or Google or Amazon would just build an investors will
- 36:32say well you know how do I know that meta or Google or Amazon they're not just going to build that
- 36:38thing and then they're going to make you completely irrelevant because it will take them two to five
- 36:43years to build it and you can build it in two three four five months and also the thing is that the
- 36:50type of employee that gravitates towards a large company great point a collective collective group
- 36:57of them over time will be able to build it but companies know that if they want to have the best
- 37:02talent they are actually going to acquire the innovators that are trying to break things that have
- 37:07built solutions so maybe it's an aquahire maybe it's like maybe they just want you as an entrepreneur
- 37:13into their organization and building that thing that makes a million dollars per year in Google's
- 37:17eyes is nothing but it's your resume it's your it's your application to become a VP at Google
- 37:23pulling a five million dollar per year salary and working on innovative products so I think
- 37:28that there's always an argument to be made for somebody to build something fantastic stuff
- 37:35how do we how do we find your podcast and tell us a little bit about how people can
- 37:42you know like subscribe and and learn from these stories I think you've got one of the greatest
- 37:48jobs in the world I I mentioned before the show I I mentioned before we started the show it's like
- 37:53I didn't want to do a podcast it's like aren't you just another thing to do the learning
- 37:58um I mean it's been better it's been the best school I've ever been to yeah learning from people
- 38:06that from all walks of life from academia from business the investing world it's just been
- 38:15incredible education so how can people listen to what you do and and stay in touch with you
- 38:22yeah it's it's very easy so success story podcast.com you'll see all the audio links
- 38:27Spotify Apple YouTube's on there too we got a channel um and then all the social is at Scott
- 38:33DeClaire and I talk about entrepreneurship mindset basically if you just like more of what we just
- 38:38ripped off of for the past 30 40 minutes then you'll like my content so yeah I mean it's it's you
- 38:46find people you'd like to go to dinner with and just pick their brain forever and that's what's
- 38:50nice about guys that will share it will broadcast and not only your story but all of those success
- 38:55stories that uh there's little nuggets I had several today uh the idea that the little guy is
- 39:01always in there the idea that you've got to find a a passion stick with it the idea that uh there's
- 39:08a freedom you know that that you're seeking that's probably gonna you find that's worth more than
- 39:14than uh any material stuff and there's so much so much great uh great content in there so I
- 39:20thank you so much you've been and hang out uh just for a bit so I can thank you properly after the show
- 39:26you've been watching and listening to the the cash flow academy podcast I'm your host Andy Tanner
- 39:31so we do our best to make this stuff simple and uh don't forget to like and subscribe hit your
- 39:36notification bell and drop by your investing class.com for free goodies and and uh all things
- 39:43investing education hope you enjoyed our conversation today we'll see you next time