Latest / SliderCuts This Is Ownership Podcast / I LOST £30,000!

Transcript

I LOST £30,000! · SliderCuts This Is Ownership Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I lost£30,000 trying to go out on my own.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, I wanted to build an app.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was a booking app to be exact.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I had all these ideas on how a booking system should run.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And being very honest, my ideas were in front of all the booking systems.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: There was no booking system for barbers or in the hair and beauty world that had better ideas than the ones I had.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And because I got tired of these booking systems not being as good as the ideas I had, I said, you know what I need to do?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I need to build my own one.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I started the journey.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I got proper developers, designers, everything that I got a cost price of how much it was going to cost to get almost like the first draft out there, and I started, and it took long.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember how long I was building it for, but I got about£30,000 in when I realized this isn't going to work.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no refunds.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to take the hit.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know who I am already, my name is Mark Mackyver, and this is the slider cuts.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is ownership podcasts, where I talk all things real business ownership and beyond.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm talking about a massive mistake that I made.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Massive.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll explain to you the mistake I made and what I should have done and what I've done since then.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the massive mistake I made was I built or was building this booking system.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what I was gonna do was because my ideas were so in front of everybody, right?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna white label it, and I thought to myself, do you know what?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: As a barber myself and as a brand, I would love to have a white label booking system that it didn't have anyone's name on it, so I could put my name into it, you know.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so if there was a booking system at that time that would have come and said, Listen, we'll embed it into your website, we will give you your own app or have your cider cuts branded on it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'd have been like, Do you know what?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do that, love that, great, you know.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought, no, I'm doing that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, yeah, that's what I want.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want someone else's name on my thing, so let's do that.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm gonna build it, white label it, wheezy.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: When I tell you how hard it was, right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: The amount of decisions I had to keep making, and then because it took the time of like a year and a half, what started happening, and this is what made me actually cut it off because it was gonna cost me about 60 to 70,000 pounds to get the first kind of like print, you know, out there.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: But 30,000 pounds in, I started realizing the ideas that I had a year and a half ago that this booking system now had, some of the other booking systems started having those things.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And to be fair, some of the booking systems from I had spoken to some of these developers and some of these people, right?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the ideas I had, I had told people as well from before, like, you know, you should do this, you should do that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And people would be like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll we'll do it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what people don't realize is when you ask for something, you may feel like, oh, why is it not there?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like a month later, two months later, and you don't realize how much coding needs to happen to in it, how much testing needs to happen, because many things can come out, and then you suddenly a month later, there's bugs, so you just don't realize it's it can't just be quick.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But there were things which you know I told other developers, and there's just other ideas I had like some really good ideas, but a year and a half in, I was just like, rah, these systems are all catching up, they're all doing the ideas which I I have right now, and I haven't even got this booking app out yet.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, they are moving a lot quicker than me.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I made a decision to cut it.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some may say, Oh, that's a failure's mentality.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you go to war with them?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: You should have, you know, just stepped up.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, because you know what I realized?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I felt I was being arrogant and prideful to some degree.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not I'd say me building that and thinking it's gonna be simple is arrogant.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not the feeling of like, oh, I'm better than anyone, but it's arrogant to think that, right?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Also, the idea where I was just so caught up on ownership, and you know, you need to have your own thing, and you know, if I'm gonna have a booking system, it needs to be my booking system, and that was the moment when I stopped because I just like there, I had to be honest.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I looked around and said, they're level with my idea, and my idea is not even out yet.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time I get this out, where are these booking systems gonna be?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, these guys focus fully on building a booking system.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing this as a side thing on top of running my business, and well, it's just before I open up um the barbershop, which was a bad time to lose money, you know, and I've got my barber shop being opened up and I've got all these other things going on.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, I had to be honest with myself, this is not gonna work.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna, you know, spend another 30,000, 40,000 pounds, and it's still not gonna work.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I made a decision to stop.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the biggest lesson in this was stop trying to go out and do things all yourself, instead, partner with those that are experts.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt like to have my own thing and you know, ownership and branding and so on, I need to have my own booking system.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I came to even realize that it's just I got caught up in a phase, I got caught up in a mindset of the time as well.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is what everyone was saying, ownership, you know, you should own your own thing, have your own thing.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I got caught up in it.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when I looked at it, and don't quote me on this, but like Mercedes, if you go book yourself into Mercedes, they're not using their own booking system.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's someone else's, it's someone else's booking system that they're using.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're a big brand, but they're not even thinking to themselves, well, you know, we need to make sure that everything is Mercedes-owned and so on, and we're doing everything.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, they partner with experts, and that was the big lesson I learned then.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to go out everything yourself and partner with experts.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So there's booking systems out there who are experts, they are they have built systems, they focus, you know.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: The system I use right now, Fresher, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: They are fully focused on building a booking system.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's their morning, afternoon, evening, and night mission to build a good booking system, and they've done that.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, why would I try and build my own thing as a side thing and trying to go to almost like not war, but let's say war with these guys when they are experts, partner with them.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by partnering with them, I'm not talking about you know, you need to align with the brand.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm talking about use their system, is what I mean.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: If they've got a good system, use the system.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if they're focused on that, what you'll see is, and this is what happens with Fresher right now, the booking system.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sorry, Fresher, the booking system, is literally they're just always updating things, you know, monthly.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: This update, that update.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look at their system, to be very honest, because I'm a I love gadgets, I look at their system, and sometimes I'm just like, Yeah, my system was never gonna be like this.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because, yes, in the beginning, like years ago, I had these great ideas, but some of the things they're doing now, I'm just like, whoa.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you may say, Yeah, it may not have been as good as that, but and you may be saying, you know, yes, your ideas may have run out, but if your business starts growing, and this is true, you hire experts and they come in.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not trying to have a booking system, I want to run a successful barbershop, you know, I want to put out good content, I want to run a successful community group.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who don't know, I have a community group called School of Owners.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're like a barbershop owner or salon owner and you want to learn how to run your business better, click the link in the description and join my community group because we teach barbers how to structure their business better.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not only barbers, sorry, barbershop owners and salon owners, how to and beauticians, you know, beautician shops, how to structure themselves better, how to run their business better, how to maximize money, and everything to do with ownership within the hair and beauty world, right?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a side point.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I this is what I want to do, so I should be spending my time focusing on those things there, not about a booking system when there's people out there which know what they're doing and they want to focus on that, and that's what they want to be experts in.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I just had to learn a valuable lesson that cost me 30,000 pounds, and I don't actually regret losing that 30,000 pounds because I think it was a good wake-up call, and it allowed me to think at the time actually, I need to start partnering with those who do things best instead of me doing things substandard, but being like, Well, it's mine, at least you've got my name on it.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, I want to give the best, the best quality, the best service.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's other people out there which are doing things better than me, I'd rather partner with them, and that's why when I say partnering, like I'm saying partner, I'm saying use their system.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what I mean by partnering.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about you know becoming a brand ambassador or anything like that.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about just using their system, and that's what I've done.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that was a valuable lesson which I learned.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was good.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, this is just a quick message to say don't get caught up in the hype.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Partner with those who are experts.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're growing a business for yourself, don't think that you need to do everything yourself.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make the mistake I made and lose 30,000 pounds or less or even more.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is just a quick message to you guys.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: This has been another episode of The Slider Cuts.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is Ownership Podcast, where I talk all things, real barbering, ownership, and beyond.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, if you want to join my community group, School of Owners, you're a barbershop owner, a salon owner, click the link in the description.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget, guys, if you're liking these episodes, let me know in the comments and subscribe.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: See you next week.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or should I say, see me next week.