Latest / The Starfish Storytellers / Season 3, Episode 7: Inspiring Entrepreneurial Stories from Tomorrow's Trailblazers with Nico Hessel

Transcript

Season 3, Episode 7: Inspiring Entrepreneurial Stories from Tomorrow's Trailblazers with Nico Hessel · The Starfish Storytellers

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
• 0:04
  at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
• 0:07
  Yeah, so my journey kind of begins when I was in college.
• 0:14
  And so I went to college at Bates College up in Lewiston, Maine.
• 0:19
  I played soccer there.
• 0:20
  And I had a great freshman year.
• 0:23
  I was a goalkeeper.
• 0:24
  I started almost every game.
• 0:25
  And unfortunately, I got injured during the season and towards the end of it.
• 0:29
  And so afterwards, I had to have surgery on my shoulder and on my hip.
• 0:34
  And so that was pretty much the end of my soccer career.
• 0:38
  And I had to take the second semester off of my freshman year to have those surgeries.
• 0:44
  And I knew if I wasn't going to be able to be at that college at Bates College playing
• 0:48
  soccer, I didn't know if I wanted to go back.
• 0:51
  And so that's what kind of got me going on the entrepreneurial journey, I guess you could
• 0:56
  say, is I knew that I probably didn't want to go back to Bates College and I probably
• 1:00
  didn't want to go back to college anyway.
• 1:04
  And so I started going down the rabbit hole of YouTube, Alex Hermosi, Iman Ghazi, seeing
• 1:09
  all these other people, these other younger entrepreneurs who are doing super, super well.
• 1:15
  And so I decided if these guys are doing so well, why don't I give it a shot?
• 1:19
  I think I could probably figure it out.
• 1:21
  So I bought courses, started reading books and started my marketing agency when I was
• 1:27
  19.
• 1:28
  Kind of during that period, hadn't really dropped out of college yet.
• 1:31
  I was still just taking a semester off, but I knew that I didn't want to go back.
• 1:36
  And so, yeah, started a marketing agency somewhere in there, kind of had a falling out with my
• 1:42
  parents.
• 1:43
  There was a lot of arguments about, you know, college or not.
• 1:46
  And some unrelated to college.
• 1:48
  And so they ended up kicking me out.
• 1:50
  And so I ended up sleeping in my car.
• 1:53
  And I was lucky enough that there's super affordable, you know, office spaces to rent
• 1:57
  in my town.
• 1:58
  And so I rented an office space for $100 a month and spent, you know, every hour I could
• 2:03
  working there, trying to get clients for this marketing agency I had started.
• 2:08
  I was making cold calls, cold DMs, cold emails, submitting upward proposals, like just kind
• 2:13
  of trying to throw spaghetti at the wall and see like what sticks, what I can just get
• 2:18
  going.
• 2:19
  I probably made, you know, 8,000 cold calls during that summer and signed one client, which
• 2:24
  is my first client, which is cool, but it, you know, kind of clear that that wasn't going
• 2:29
  to be the mode of acquisition.
• 2:32
  So I had heard in one of the forces I had bought from this guy, Michael Gardner, that
• 2:38
  he was using Upwork and having just a ton of success with it.
• 2:41
  And that anyone, especially if you're in the U.S., it can just be a super good form of
• 2:45
  acquisition to get clients.
• 2:47
  Especially if you're doing marketing services.
• 2:49
  So I started trying that out.
• 2:51
  I was able to get a couple small clients.
• 2:54
  You know, luckily enough, they left me five star reviews and then I was able to get a
• 2:58
  third client who paid me $1,600 a month.
• 3:02
  And so then I booked a ticket to Mexico and started traveling and just kind of went all
• 3:07
  in on Upwork and then eventually started helping other B2B businesses use Upwork and then eventually
• 3:15
  pivoted to help also freelancers and businesses, kind of all over the world.
• 3:19
  And that's kind of, you know, where we are now.
• 3:41
  Hello.
• 3:42
  My name is Leanna Henry.
• 3:43
  And welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
• 3:46
  I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a Markham and project management firm headquartered on
• 3:51
  the east coast of the U.S. in Quaint Colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
• 3:55
  I'm your host and passionate about storytelling.
• 3:58
  I'm actually on a mission to raise up the next generation of storytellers.
• 4:02
  We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
• 4:06
  The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
• 4:10
  No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact.
• 4:15
  One step, one Starfish, or one story at a time.
• 4:19
  Every episode we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
• 4:23
  and connect with you.
• 4:24
  Then we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their
• 4:28
  own stories.
• 4:29
  So thanks for tuning in.
• 4:31
  Now let's get started.
• 4:33
  Today's episode, inspiring entrepreneurial stories from tomorrow's Trailblazers, is about
• 4:38
  our talented guest and how he's paying it forward while becoming a successful entrepreneur.
• 4:45
  Nico Hessell has been running agencies since he was 19 years old.
• 4:49
  He submitted thousands of proposals on the Freelancer platform Upwork and has helped
• 4:53
  dozens of companies and freelancers utilize this platform through his automated systems.
• 4:58
  He went on to found Upwork Outbound, which has helped other service-based B2B businesses
• 5:03
  do the same.
• 5:04
  So thank you for being on the show.
• 5:06
  I'm really excited that you're here.
• 5:08
  Yeah, of course.
• 5:09
  Thanks so much for having me.
• 5:10
  I'm excited as well.
• 5:12
  So every episode we like to get started with our guests introducing themselves.
• 5:17
  I don't know.
• 5:18
  I mean, your story pretty much walked us through your journey.
• 5:21
  Is there anything else you'd like to tell our listeners about you?
• 5:25
  Yeah, sure.
• 5:27
  So like you said, my name's Nico Hessell.
• 5:29
  I'm 21 years old right now.
• 5:31
  I've been running agencies since I was 19 and traveling the world since I was 20.
• 5:37
  And last year I lived in nine different countries.
• 5:40
  Right now I'm back in the US.
• 5:42
  But yeah.
• 5:43
  Nice.
• 5:46
  So I love your story.
• 5:47
  I've heard parts of it before.
• 5:49
  You and I met on Upwork and our agency has its sort of fingers out in a bunch of different
• 5:58
  platforms to just get our name out there.
• 6:01
  And my goal for being on Upwork was to gather some more logos so that we could obviously
• 6:08
  grow our company and get to expand and use our services to help others.
• 6:17
  But I just, I really appreciate, I think the biggest thing I appreciate about you is you
• 6:25
  didn't just create an agency and just do it for yourself.
• 6:29
  You've created Upwork, Outbound, and now you're paying it forward.
• 6:33
  And I know you're going to talk more about that in the show.
• 6:35
  But I know I have truly benefited from being a part of your community.
• 6:40
  And although I may not be out there getting as many clients as some of the other folks
• 6:47
  on our Tuesday morning Q&A meetings, I've benefited so much just from hearing.
• 6:53
  I just sit in the background and listen because there's always little nuggets that I can get
• 6:57
  from that.
• 6:58
  I just so appreciate it.
• 6:59
  But today I wanted to talk a little bit more about the entrepreneurial story.
• 7:05
  When you think about young entrepreneurs, people wonder why they're so inspiring, why
• 7:09
  do we love it so much?
• 7:10
  And I think it's really because young entrepreneurs really are just nothing short of amazing.
• 7:17
  You remind us that age is a number and just a number when it comes to being innovative.
• 7:24
  And you have remarkable journeys, but these young guns, you guys are young guns that are
• 7:29
  turning your vision into successful ventures.
• 7:33
  By turning unique visions into reality, these young business leaders are showing us the
• 7:36
  power of passion, resilience, creativity, and hustle.
• 7:40
  So based on that, would you say that's what it's been like for you too?
• 7:45
  Yeah.
• 7:46
  I would say particularly on the passion and hustle piece, I spend most of my hours working
• 7:54
  but just because I like doing it, I just like building businesses.
• 7:59
  So particularly on the passion piece, and yeah, the hustle obviously helps quite a bit
• 8:03
  as well.
• 8:04
  Yeah.
• 8:05
  We're going to talk at length about hustle.
• 8:07
  I want to have a nice conversation about that because I think you need it to grow a
• 8:13
  business, but I think as time goes on and we'll talk more about it, it's how do you
• 8:19
  find balance and have hustle.
• 8:21
  And I feel like the fact that you travel as much as you do, I think kind of speaks to
• 8:25
  that, being able to sort of get that passion of what matters to you and you're able to
• 8:29
  do that.
• 8:32
  So you shared with us in your story that you had to drop out of college and you said in
• 8:39
  one of your social posts, you knew you needed control and entrepreneurship gave you that.
• 8:46
  Did you ever learn about entrepreneurship in college?
• 8:51
  So not really.
• 8:53
  So I was in college for just a semester and I would say really where I learned and kind
• 9:00
  of got really interested in entrepreneurship was mostly YouTube.
• 9:05
  It was mostly just like self-education.
• 9:08
  I still remember watching Alex Ramosi talk about, he's obviously great.
• 9:13
  I'm a college fan.
• 9:14
  And just seeing guys, yeah.
• 9:16
  And just seeing guys like him who are crushing it and seemed like they just genuinely really
• 9:22
  enjoyed it was where most of kind of like, you could say my inspiration came from and
• 9:27
  why I really decided like I want to get into this too.
• 9:30
  I want to see what this is like.
• 9:32
  I also think for me, like I just really enjoy, it's like I played soccer.
• 9:38
  I kind of mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I played soccer my entire life, played
• 9:41
  in Bates College as well, was pretty good.
• 9:45
  And I don't know if I necessarily like soccer, but I really like just being able to be obsessed
• 9:50
  with something and have like one thing that I can just be 100% focused on trying to get
• 9:54
  better every single day at.
• 9:56
  And so I think, you know, you can't play soccer forever.
• 9:59
  And for me, it was only for, you know, 15 years or whatever.
• 10:03
  But entrepreneurship you can do for the most part forever.
• 10:07
  And so, yeah, I really like that aspect as well.
• 10:10
  Yeah.
• 10:11
  But I think the thing about entrepreneurship is, you know, Black Dog Marcom is the third
• 10:16
  company I've launched.
• 10:18
  And my two other businesses as well were passion projects too.
• 10:24
  You know, you really, first of all, it's kind of those three things.
• 10:28
  Like you really have to have a passion for it.
• 10:31
  You really have to believe that you have something that can change the world, change, improve
• 10:38
  the lives of your clients, you know, you really, and you just, you just have to keep at it.
• 10:46
  It's just, you know, and you have to be, have a thick skin, really.
• 10:52
  Because I learned so much about sales when I had to sell over $100,000 in advertising
• 10:59
  for my business, because it was my baby and nobody else was going to do it better than
• 11:02
  me.
• 11:04
  And so, you know, and it was like, you know, it was like somebody said, no, I was like,
• 11:10
  okay, next, like onto the next one.
• 11:12
  I believe in this product, you know, and I feel like you've sort of shown us that that's
• 11:17
  what you think too about your, your endeavor.
• 11:21
  Yeah, for sure.
• 11:23
  Especially because like entrepreneurship is guaranteed to have tons of ups and downs and
• 11:27
  it's like, it's never, ever a smooth journey.
• 11:31
  So I think, yeah, you have to have, in most cases, some kind of passion or just some core
• 11:35
  belief that like, you know, what you have is excellent and it's going to help people
• 11:39
  once you figure out a way to get it to them.
• 11:42
  Yes, yes, yes.
• 11:44
  So you said you started a marketing agency or content agent, I think I read somewhere
• 11:49
  a content agency.
• 11:51
  Do you still run that content agency or is Upwork outbound sort of the agency now?
• 11:59
  Yeah, so Upwork outbound is the agency now.
• 12:02
  So I started my agency, like I said, when I was 19, it's just my first business.
• 12:07
  I ran that for about a year and a half and it was mostly a content agency.
• 12:11
  We also ran some Facebook ads here and there, but for the most part, social media management
• 12:15
  based and content creation based.
• 12:17
  We had a small team of editors, a small team of graphic designers.
• 12:22
  So not a huge team, but I really enjoyed that.
• 12:25
  And then after about a year and a half, I was started buying consulting calls from a
• 12:31
  guy who I had met in one of these initial coaching programs I had bought to learn how
• 12:36
  to create the agency.
• 12:38
  And he was suggesting, you know, you're really good at Upwork.
• 12:41
  Most businesses in the US don't know how much potential it actually has and they also don't
• 12:45
  know how to use it.
• 12:46
  You should start teaching other marketing agencies and other, you know, accounting firms and
• 12:50
  B2B service based businesses.
• 12:52
  How do you use Upwork?
• 12:53
  And so that's kind of how we slowly transitioned.
• 12:57
  And I would say at the start, you know, we were, we were also mostly an agency serving
• 13:01
  primarily businesses in the US marketing agencies and kind of helping them set up their Upwork
• 13:05
  profiles, starting to submit their proposals for them.
• 13:08
  We had a few different services and now we've more so pivoted to the community aspect.
• 13:14
  For the most part, we still have a handful of clients who we actively manage their, their
• 13:18
  Upwork process and we submit their proposals for them.
• 13:21
  So for the most part, we've kind of transitioned into this community.
• 13:24
  Oh, and it's hugely helpful.
• 13:26
  And I have to say, I even when I dug in and just did what you said, it worked.
• 13:34
  Like I had a client that week, weeks of trying to do it myself, did it exactly the way you
• 13:38
  said to do it.
• 13:40
  And within three days, I had a client like, and now she's keeping me so busy.
• 13:45
  I like can't even do anything else.
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  Like it turned out to be this amazing match.
• 13:49
  So it absolutely works.
• 13:53
  So talk a little bit more about, like I know the community is really like, you know, and
• 14:01
  I know, you know, having worked for big tech companies, you know, and having sort of that
• 14:07
  subscription model become the way for that recurring revenue to happen.
• 14:15
  And I, I believe Alex Hermose backs schools.
• 14:19
  Yes.
• 14:20
  Right.
• 14:21
  Is that his, is his platform?
• 14:22
  Yeah.
• 14:23
  He's, he became a co-owner earlier, I think at the beginning of this year.
• 14:26
  Yeah.
• 14:27
  Yeah.
• 14:28
  So he, I'm a huge Alex Hermose fan.
• 14:31
  Like I, I've been a gym person since I was 15.
• 14:35
  I've worked in gyms.
• 14:36
  I've managed gyms.
• 14:37
  I've been a marketing manager in gyms.
• 14:38
  Like, you know, I'm a strong man, trainee, like I coach like a big, and I love gym people
• 14:45
  because there's like no Ponzi scheme here.
• 14:48
  It's all about hard work.
• 14:50
  Like that's, that's what it is.
• 14:53
  And I feel, I see that new, I feel that new.
• 14:55
  And I know if you're following Alex, that's, that's how we've been indoctrinated.
• 15:00
  It's about hard work.
• 15:02
  Right?
• 15:03
  Yeah.
• 15:04
  For sure.
• 15:05
  Um, I think another cool parallel is like, I grew up always just playing sports.
• 15:10
  And I think like it's a similar parallel because there's same with the gym, like being
• 15:14
  fit, being in shape, you can't buy it.
• 15:16
  You have to earn it.
• 15:17
  There's no, there's no way around it.
• 15:19
  You just have to earn it.
• 15:20
  Same for the most part, I think with athletics, you know, there are people who are, you know,
• 15:23
  have incredible genetics in there, you know, have an advantage, but there's no way to buy
• 15:27
  the skill set.
• 15:29
  Um, it's just something that has to be earned.
• 15:31
  And I think like the, going to the gym, um, and the athletics is a really close parallel
• 15:36
  to business in general, because again, you know, it's inevitable that there's going to
• 15:41
  be ups and downs and that it just requires hard work and there's no way to buy it.
• 15:45
  You just have to do it.
• 15:47
  Well, and I think you having come from being a soccer athlete, most of your life, the level
• 15:54
  of discipline that comes from being an athlete, you know, I have, I'm older than you.
• 16:00
  I have kids your age actually.
• 16:02
  Um, and, and you know, they are all athletic.
• 16:08
  And so a, the level of discipline, um, that is required, um, you know, the level and you
• 16:16
  just, it just, you're in that hard work just becomes ingrained in you, you know, yeah,
• 16:20
  it's just second nature.
• 16:21
  Yeah.
• 16:22
  It does 100%.
• 16:23
  100%.
• 16:24
  So when you started up work outbound, did you have a lot of like, did you feel like a
• 16:30
  lot of Roblox when it got started?
• 16:32
  Like, like, yes, what was that like?
• 16:34
  Yeah, so many.
• 16:36
  Um, so initially we started out, like I said, serving primarily marketing agencies, but mostly
• 16:42
  just B2B service based businesses in the US.
• 16:45
  Um, I took, you know, hundreds of sales calls and really came to the conclusion that the
• 16:51
  vast majority of businesses in the US, they think of upwork as only for cheap work.
• 16:57
  They don't think it's possible to sign high paying clients.
• 16:59
  Um, you know, we have members who have signed deals with Pizza Hut.
• 17:03
  I've spoken to Marriott, um, like huge deals, but it's not the public perception.
• 17:09
  A lot of people just don't think it's actually possible.
• 17:11
  They think it's a platform for cheap work or other stuff.
• 17:14
  So, you know, I took hundreds of sales calls and for the most part, um, we landed a handful
• 17:19
  of clients, but it was clear that we needed to pivot in some way, shape or form to actually,
• 17:24
  you know, make this work.
• 17:26
  And so at that point, I'd already been making YouTube videos for a while and, um, the channel
• 17:31
  was starting to pick up a little bit more pace.
• 17:33
  And so I, um, you know, eventually ended up pivoting to the community aspect.
• 17:38
  Um, you know, there was a brief period in between the done for you service and the community
• 17:42
  where we did a bunch of consulting calls, which was really helpful just to get to know
• 17:46
  people and kind of where they were at in their journey and like what their goals were, where
• 17:49
  they were at, what they were struggling with, which is super helpful in building the community.
• 17:54
  Um, and just, you know, building something that people can actually get use out of.
• 17:58
  But eventually we just did fully pivoted into the community form.
• 18:02
  Um, so once we did, there have been less roadblocks.
• 18:05
  There's still, you know, of course the day to day where plenty of stuff goes wrong.
• 18:09
  Um, but overall we're growing pretty steadily right now.
• 18:13
  So I'm, uh, I'm excited.
• 18:14
  I think we finally found something that's going to keep, going to keep growing.
• 18:18
  Yeah.
• 18:19
  Yeah.
• 18:20
  Yeah.
• 18:21
  No, I mean, I, I remember when I first met you, you had sort of a different model.
• 18:24
  And then when you got into the community sort of introduced that model and, um, I just,
• 18:29
  I really have a lot of respect for you to a, obviously you want to help people take what
• 18:36
  you know and pass it on.
• 18:38
  But you have to obviously have to make money too.
• 18:40
  Um, but I think it's really huge that, that you're doing it this way because, um, I find
• 18:47
  that things like things like this, um, like just like testimonial videos, things like
• 18:52
  that, like the best way to market by services is when I understand what people's pain points
• 18:59
  are.
• 19:00
  Yeah.
• 19:01
  For sure.
• 19:02
  You know what I mean?
• 19:03
  If I don't really know what their pain points are, I'm making 8,000 cold calls and nobody's
• 19:07
  picking up the phone, right?
• 19:09
  Yeah.
• 19:10
  For sure.
• 19:11
  Yeah.
• 19:12
  I, um, yeah, it's been super helpful.
• 19:13
  And like, um, one thing I did in the beginning was I just put a link to my calendar on all
• 19:17
  my YouTube videos.
• 19:18
  So anybody who was watching could just book a call with me and I could say, you know,
• 19:22
  who are you?
• 19:23
  Like what do you do?
• 19:24
  And what are you struggling with?
• 19:25
  Why are you watching these videos?
• 19:26
  Why did you book a call?
• 19:27
  And, um, you know, you don't get paid for that for the most part, but it's unbelievably
• 19:32
  helpful about just knowing who, who you're actually speaking to in the YouTube videos
• 19:37
  and the ads on the landing pages, like just in all of your marketing and your copywriting.
• 19:42
  Um, and I think that's another piece of like the hard work that most people probably don't
• 19:48
  want to do because it's like, you don't get paid for it.
• 19:50
  You're just talking to people all day.
• 19:52
  Um, but it is just spent unbelievably helpful.
• 19:57
  Yeah.
• 19:58
  Yeah.
• 19:59
  Now you're doing both, right?
• 20:00
  You are providing the marketing services to clients and you're running this community
• 20:05
  with people who need help.
• 20:06
  So that's, that's awesome.
• 20:08
  Um, you had said in one of your social posts that progress in the micro leads to progress
• 20:16
  in the macro.
• 20:18
  So I take this to mean small wins add up, right?
• 20:23
  Um, can you share a story of a small win that truly became foundational to your success
• 20:30
  today?
• 20:31
  For sure.
• 20:32
  So I think the most important or the biggest small win that, that I had was just signing
• 20:39
  the first client on Upwork.
• 20:41
  Um, so when I, so I was making, you know, thousands of cold calls.
• 20:45
  It wasn't really working, sending, you know, cold emails, cold looms, cold DMs, nothing
• 20:49
  was really working.
• 20:51
  And I had heard, like I said, a guy in a coaching program talk about Upwork.
• 20:55
  And so I started submitting proposals.
• 20:57
  A lot of it didn't, you know, they didn't work out.
• 21:00
  I wasn't getting replies.
• 21:01
  Um, but what he had said to me made a lot of sense.
• 21:05
  And so I wanted to keep trying it.
• 21:08
  And, um, eventually started, you know, figured out, maybe I should submit proposals to a
• 21:11
  few smaller jobs and just get something going.
• 21:15
  And that's what I did.
• 21:16
  And then I got a job for $60 that took me like five hours to do.
• 21:22
  So less than ideal, but he left me a five star review.
• 21:26
  Then three weeks later, he hired me again, um, again for $60, it took, you know, four
• 21:31
  or five hours and again left a second good review.
• 21:34
  And so, um, you know, my third client directly referenced those two reviews on our call.
• 21:40
  And I don't know if he would have taken my proposal seriously or really taken the call
• 21:44
  with me if I hadn't had those.
• 21:46
  And, um, so I would say, you know, those two, just getting those first two small projects
• 21:50
  were super important.
• 21:52
  Mm hmm.
• 21:53
  Mm hmm.
• 21:54
  Well, you're, you're building the foundation really.
• 21:56
  Exactly.
• 21:57
  Right.
• 21:58
  Yeah.
• 21:59
  Yeah.
• 22:00
  Yeah.
• 22:01
  So let's talk about hustle.
• 22:02
  Um, I read an article about young hustle and it was the rise of the hustle culture and
• 22:07
  it was referencing millennials primarily.
• 22:11
  And the, the, the angle on it initially was that the millennials are killing themselves
• 22:16
  because they're working too hard and they're not taking care of themselves.
• 22:19
  Um, so it talked about how, you know, hard work is definitely important, but you should
• 22:25
  also seek a balanced approach to life as well.
• 22:29
  Um, how are you balancing running your company, companies, um, you know, being the head of
• 22:37
  the community and still managing self care or social life and any other personal pursuits.
• 22:45
  If there's hours left in the day, I don't even know.
• 22:49
  So I, uh, I spend probably 90 or 95% of my, my waking hours working just because I like
• 22:57
  it.
• 22:58
  Um, there's not really, there's probably nothing I would rather do.
• 23:02
  Um, then just be able to have an empty calendar and be able to sit there and do, you know,
• 23:06
  deep work all day.
• 23:08
  Um, I just, I just love it.
• 23:10
  I, uh, the other thing I really like is being able to travel.
• 23:13
  And so like, you know, having the freedom to go wherever I want, whenever I want, you
• 23:17
  know, if I want to pack up my bags tonight and go to Japan, like I can do that in theory.
• 23:23
  And so, um, like I think the other thing I really like is like meeting other entrepreneurs
• 23:29
  who are doing cool things, building cool businesses.
• 23:32
  And so, um, like I went to Asia to Thailand because I knew there were two other entrepreneurs
• 23:37
  there who were running a much bigger agency than I was and I wanted to learn from them.
• 23:42
  And so I, I could just go, I could just book a flight to Thailand and, um, you know, live
• 23:46
  in Bangkok, live in Chiang Mai for a while and just like be with these guys every day
• 23:50
  and learn what they were doing.
• 23:52
  And so I would say in terms of balance for me, it mostly comes down to just, you know,
• 23:57
  just working because I like it.
• 23:58
  Um, I don't have a ton of hobbies.
• 24:00
  I play chess, I go to the gym, but for the most part it's, it's work because I like doing
• 24:06
  it.
• 24:07
  Do you sleep?
• 24:08
  I do sleep.
• 24:10
  Yes.
• 24:11
  Okay.
• 24:12
  Good.
• 24:13
  Good.
• 24:14
  I'm, I, uh, I don't drink caffeine.
• 24:16
  And so all I have is really great nutrition.
• 24:20
  Yeah.
• 24:21
  Like hard workouts and sleep.
• 24:25
  That's it.
• 24:26
  I can fuel for the love, the demands of the business.
• 24:31
  So yeah, yeah.
• 24:33
  Keeping the body like healthy is such a huge, like something that I probably didn't put
• 24:40
  as enough of a, cause I tend to like, when I really dive in, I go, you know, to the extreme
• 24:44
  of like just doing, you know, spending all my hours working.
• 24:48
  Um, but, um, I mean, even a few, I mean, like maybe a month ago, a few weeks ago, I had,
• 24:53
  you know, surgery, I had an appendicitis and, um, kind of one of those like, you know,
• 24:58
  moments where like, yeah, I should probably, you know, take a little bit better care myself,
• 25:02
  like start going to the gym again, make sure like, you know, eating well and stuff, because
• 25:05
  it helps.
• 25:06
  Like you do need the proper fuel.
• 25:08
  You need the proper environment to be able to work, you know, this hard.
• 25:12
  And I'm lucky enough to, I have lots of caffeine.
• 25:14
  Um, but, um, yeah, I couldn't agree more.
• 25:19
  I had, uh, I had gotten injured.
• 25:21
  I had a sick, I got injured lifting and, uh, I had not warmed up enough and I was doing
• 25:29
  a heavy lift and, and I pulled and I twisted and I got a sciatica.
• 25:34
  Uh, that's the worst.
• 25:37
  And I was literally on my back, like for the, for a whole month and it was a, it was a lesson
• 25:43
  in acceptance and patience, but it really kind of gave me a wake up call around, I'm
• 25:49
  the head of this.
• 25:50
  Yeah.
• 25:51
  What's my plan?
• 25:52
  If I'm not the, if I'm not running this and there's clients counting on me, what's my
• 25:57
  plan?
• 25:58
  I literally was taking zoom calls, camera off on like laying on the floor.
• 26:01
  Yeah.
• 26:02
  You do what you gotta do.
• 26:03
  Right.
• 26:04
  Exactly.
• 26:05
  It's a cool thing that you brought that up because that was similar for like, for me,
• 26:08
  I was, I was doing everything in the community, answering people, answering all the, I still
• 26:12
  offer one-on-one support to everybody.
• 26:14
  So answering all the DMs, answering, and, um, you know, we have hundreds of members.
• 26:18
  And so it gets to be a lot of inflow.
• 26:21
  And once I had, you know, I, I, my mom's a doctor.
• 26:25
  And so I, you know, I was having pain called her and she's like, yeah, go to the hospital.
• 26:28
  You probably have an appendicitis.
• 26:30
  And I had a similar moment was like, I was like, oh shoot, like I don't have anybody
• 26:34
  else to help me with this.
• 26:37
  And luckily enough, I've had, you know, someone who's in the community previously who still
• 26:40
  is in there kind of become an admin, which has been super cool.
• 26:45
  And so, but yeah, I couldn't agree more.
• 26:46
  I think a lot of times it takes one of these like extreme kind of like wake up calls for
• 26:51
  you to actually, you know, implement what, you know, I probably knew I should have implemented
• 26:55
  before, but just hadn't.
• 26:56
  Yeah.
• 26:57
  It's important to have a backup.
• 26:58
  It's definitely important to have backup.
• 27:03
  You know, I know that, um, I know Alex talks a lot about that.
• 27:08
  I mean, he, he is the epitome of hustle.
• 27:10
  Yeah.
• 27:11
  You know, and he's, he's shown how, how that works.
• 27:14
  Um, so I, I really respect him.
• 27:17
  Um, so I was thinking about, you know, we have different listeners.
• 27:24
  Our podcast has been downloaded all over the country.
• 27:27
  It's been downloaded all over Europe.
• 27:29
  Um, and, you know, different speaker, different guests have different, um, circles on their
• 27:36
  social media.
• 27:37
  So, you know, we've gotten to meet like we meet a guest and then we meet a friend of
• 27:41
  a guest and then they become a guest and so it kind of all like grows that way.
• 27:46
  Um, so if there, if we have any entrepreneurs out there that are listening, right?
• 27:51
  Um, and they're starting, they want to start a business.
• 27:54
  Maybe they want to start a business like yours.
• 27:56
  Um, you know, what's one of the most important pieces of advice that you could give them?
• 28:04
  Good question.
• 28:05
  Um, I would say there are two that come to mind.
• 28:09
  So I would say number one is like most people don't fail.
• 28:13
  They, they quit.
• 28:14
  Um, so I would say that the only way that you can lose or fail or whatever you want to call
• 28:18
  it is, is literally just if you stop doing it, if you quit, because if you just keep
• 28:22
  doing stuff and you're consistent, even if you're only putting in a few hours a day,
• 28:26
  like eventually you're going to see some form of success.
• 28:28
  It's, it's inevitable.
• 28:30
  So the first thing would just be like, you know, we already talked about it a little
• 28:33
  bit, but there's no such thing as like a super smooth path.
• 28:37
  Um, and you know, it's not supposed to be like that because you learn lessons by, you
• 28:41
  know, not having the smooth path and that's how you get better and how you, you know,
• 28:45
  you level up.
• 28:46
  So that would be the first thing is just like, you know, you can't, you only can fail or
• 28:50
  lose if you decide to stop doing it.
• 28:53
  Um, the second piece would probably be like getting obsessed and like being able to be
• 29:02
  like, there's a great quote.
• 29:04
  Like, if you're not obsessed, someone else who is is going to take you over.
• 29:10
  It's not the exact quote but you're in it probably, but like being able to, to just
• 29:14
  become obsessed with this.
• 29:16
  Um, you know, I think about business all day.
• 29:19
  It's essentially all I do just because I really like it, but just gives you such an advantage.
• 29:24
  Um, being obsessed, being able to work hard because there are so many people who just
• 29:29
  like start businesses, but don't work hard and they don't, they're not obsessed.
• 29:32
  They're just kind of like doing these businesses, but you can learn and it is a skill set to
• 29:36
  just be obsessed about this thing.
• 29:38
  Um, I think, you know, there's no way that, that you can lose.
• 29:44
  I agree.
• 29:45
  A hundred percent.
• 29:46
  I think also to, um, focused work is, uh, winning work.
• 29:53
  Yeah.
• 29:54
  Unfocused work ends up being mediocre work.
• 29:58
  Yeah.
• 29:59
  For sure.
• 30:00
  I think that, um, if you don't have any, like if you, cause I, I agree with you.
• 30:06
  I hear what you're saying about being obsessed.
• 30:07
  I absolutely like you have to believe to your toes that your, what you're doing is going
• 30:14
  to make a difference and you will the best person to lead this thing and to do this thing.
• 30:20
  You have to believe that because if you don't believe in, nobody else is going to believe
• 30:22
  it.
• 30:23
  Right.
• 30:24
  Yeah.
• 30:25
  You got to believe it.
• 30:26
  Um, but then I think people can be obsessed, but then be like flighty.
• 30:30
  You know, and they're, and they're not focused, you know, and I think I see in you, someone
• 30:34
  who's so focused, you know, you really, um, you know what you're doing, you know what
• 30:39
  you want to do.
• 30:41
  And I've seen, I've even seen you.
• 30:42
  I've not even known you that long, but I've known you long enough to see you pivot.
• 30:46
  You know, you've found other avenues of ways to be able to get the message out.
• 30:50
  Um, so I really think it's super important to be focused.
• 30:54
  I, I follow this woman.
• 30:57
  Um, she, her company's called the house.
• 30:59
  The bold her name is Aaron Balsa.
• 31:02
  And she is, puts out these really great newsletters, these marketing newsletters and she's done
• 31:07
  like big enterprise research papers, like a white papers and things and she paid a gazillion
• 31:13
  dollars to do them.
• 31:15
  She's really snarky.
• 31:16
  Like she's really like, she's got that like young like edge to her, but if that's what
• 31:20
  draws people like she gets their attention and, but she was able to, one of her newsletter,
• 31:26
  she was talking about, she had just had another baby and she was talking about how like she
• 31:31
  took off like a long weekend to go to France or something.
• 31:36
  And she talked about like sitting in a hot tub or something and drinking French wine.
• 31:41
  And, um, she took a break, you know, because she found herself as obsessed as she is about
• 31:48
  what she's doing.
• 31:49
  She absolutely lost her focus.
• 31:51
  And, um, that can be a death sentence if it goes on too long.
• 31:56
  Yeah.
• 31:57
  I mean, you think about like big companies, right?
• 31:59
  They, you know, like they have worker strikes and they start bleeding millions, right?
• 32:04
  It's like, you know, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 32:07
  Yeah.
• 32:08
  I think, um, one thing that, that kind of has helped me maybe avoid some of that.
• 32:13
  Like I definitely see, you know, tons of value in like stepping back and looking at the bigger
• 32:17
  picture a little bit.
• 32:18
  Um, one thing I would say that's helped me and I guess another piece of advice that
• 32:23
  I would give to somebody else if they're starting out trying to start a business is like, there's
• 32:28
  nothing, but an Alex Ramose talks about this all the time, but like there's nothing better
• 32:31
  to invest in than your education.
• 32:33
  Um, and that's something I have never really stopped doing.
• 32:38
  Um, you know, when I started, I bought courses, you know, a bunch of them for thousands of
• 32:44
  dollars trying to learn just like, what do I do here?
• 32:46
  How do I set this up?
• 32:47
  Um, you know, after I was able to get a few clients, uh, I started buying consulting calls
• 32:52
  from a guy that I had met who's a coach in one of these, these programs.
• 32:56
  So I always bought like, you know, courses, consulting calls, books, mentorships, masterminds,
• 33:00
  like whatever you can get your hands on to learn these skill sets because skills compound
• 33:06
  over time.
• 33:07
  And it's the one thing nobody can take from you.
• 33:09
  Like this is impossible to take your skills from you.
• 33:11
  You'll never lose them.
• 33:12
  So I would just say like, try and define the skill sets that you need to, you know, be
• 33:18
  successful at whatever company you're trying to start, whatever avenue you want to go in
• 33:21
  and then try and, you know, buy the knowledge to get those skill sets.
• 33:26
  And I think that helps you avoid a lot of roadblocks and just like some of those things
• 33:30
  that you'll never know unless you speak to somebody who's like just miles ahead of you
• 33:34
  in the same avenue.
• 33:36
  Um, and that's just been super helpful as well.
• 33:39
  Well, I think you have this curiosity about you.
• 33:44
  And I think that's huge.
• 33:45
  And education, like you said, comes in so much from so many different places.
• 33:49
  Yeah.
• 33:50
  You know, like investing in your education doesn't necessarily mean you're going to invest,
• 33:53
  you know, you're going to go into debt to go to college.
• 33:56
  Yeah.
• 33:57
  There's so many places and like you, you've lived it.
• 34:02
  So your experience is goal to people who haven't done it.
• 34:06
  Like other people have been your mentors.
• 34:09
  Yeah, for sure.
• 34:11
  Yeah.
• 34:12
  I, um, I think if there's one thing that's like helped me, you know, achieve what I have
• 34:17
  so far is just being able to get around people who are in the same avenue, but miles ahead
• 34:21
  of me.
• 34:22
  Um, you know, like the guys that I went to meet with in Thailand were the same guys
• 34:27
  that I was buying consultant calls from.
• 34:29
  Um, and, um, are just so smart and so far ahead of me.
• 34:33
  And so being able to just be just being around them, even if you're not talking about business
• 34:38
  has just been just incredibly helpful.
• 34:41
  That's awesome.
• 34:42
  That's great.
• 34:43
  Well, that is all the time we have for today.
• 34:47
  I really appreciate you being here, Nico.
• 34:49
  I just loved your story.
• 34:51
  I, you know, it's just so inspiring.
• 34:53
  So I really thank you for coming and thank you for sharing with us.
• 34:57
  Yeah.
• 34:58
  Thanks so much for having me.
• 35:00
  And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts
• 35:05
  or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple podcasts or Amazon, thanks
• 35:11
  for listening.
• 35:12
  We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
• 35:16
  Happy story telling.