Latest / Forge Fire Protocol Podcast / Ignite Your Startup for a $10 Million Exit
Transcript
- 0:02Imagine breaking free from the grind and building a business that lights you up, ignites with purpose, and delivers the ultimate reward.
- 0:12Forge Fire Protocol gives ambitious entrepreneurs the proven five-step system to choose the right business, launch it successfully, scale it strategically, and exit on your terms.
- 0:26Turning vision into lasting wealth, forged in fire, built for legacy.
- 0:35All right, everyone, welcome back to the ForgeFire Protocol Podcast.
- 0:39So we just came off of a phenomenal podcast on some massive, massive changes that have been happening because of AI and some of the incredible tools that are available to us in the industry.
- 0:52And so today, this episode is really all about what that has led to because quite frankly, we've been building out, on top of the ForgeFire Protocol book, we've been building out the entire ecosystem
- 1:05for um uh for the protocol everything that that business um that entrepreneurs would need to go from ideation from that first idea all the way to that 10 million exit okay literally walking them through we can't make the decisions we can't guarantee your success
- 1:24That's really up to you pulling the trigger and doing the things you need to do and making the right decisions.
- 1:28But what we can do is give you every tool along the way that's going to get you there.
- 1:31All right.
- 1:31So because of what we've learned and because of what we've been working with on AI, especially after that last podcast, which was just crazy.
- 1:41I think we all agree with that one.
- 1:45We've been able to iterate so fast and make so many changes and advancements that
- 1:51the protocol is the whole ecosystem is almost ready for release in fact uh it has brought us to the point where uh we said you know what we can launch a massive challenge and so i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm just gonna tease that i'm gonna wait until the next podcast episode for us to talk about the challenge all right but but what we do need and so what we're going to talk about today is we are iterating so fast
- 2:15that what we need are people to review, take a look at what we're building, and give us some feedback so that way we can make sure that it's really refined and we can deliver a protocol system, an ecosystem that is really top-notch and second to none.
- 2:35So I want to bring in, obviously, Mike and Steven.
- 2:38You guys, we've been building all kinds of stuff.
- 2:40So what is it?
- 2:42What would you guys say is your favorite part of what we've done so far before we get into what we're really looking at for that testing?
- 2:47Well, I mean, I think we just got to go back to our mission.
- 2:50I mean, what's our core mission?
- 2:51Our core mission is to help 10,000 entrepreneurs reach a $10 million exit valuation in three to five years.
- 2:59So it's so exciting as we've built out a platform that can take people from idea perspective.
- 3:05all the way to that exit.
- 3:06Or if they already have an idea on a product, we can take them from where they are today, help fortify that foundation that they have to help make sure they're built to scale.
- 3:16And then we can help them scale.
- 3:17And the systems, the questions, the whole process, everything's built out.
- 3:22It's plug and play.
- 3:23You can just jump in and use it.
- 3:25And I think the capability that someone has to come in here and interact and succeed at no matter what level they are,
- 3:33It's phenomenal.
- 3:33And I think a lot of people are going to realize that they skip steps.
- 3:36I mean, we were talking earlier.
- 3:38The amount of entrepreneurs that you know that are successful that said they never did the 72-hour market test and how much time and money they wasted
- 3:47They didn't do any market test.
- 3:49Right.
- 3:49Nobody knew about the 72-hour.
- 3:50That's out of the book.
- 3:52Right.
- 3:53But what I meant is like going through that process.
- 3:55But also, you've told a story before where you were at the bank and the bank was saying, at least people come to lend money, but they've never done the preliminary steps required to qualify for that money.
- 4:05Or to give them the reassurance for the underwriters to give them that money.
- 4:08Yeah.
- 4:09And I think that's what people don't understand is it's a system.
- 4:13It's just following the right steps.
- 4:15But in order to do that, you can't wing it.
- 4:18No, you can't.
- 4:21Winging it gets you started.
- 4:22Winging it can get you success.
- 4:23Winging it can get you momentum.
- 4:26But there comes a time where you have to establish structure.
- 4:30And it's every business has it at different maturity levels.
- 4:33But if you want to go to that next level, you want to scale, you need structure.
- 4:36If you want to reach this plateau, then you've got to have structure.
- 4:40You want to open up the ceiling and go, well, you've got to have the structure, not just for where you are today, but for each step as part of your progression.
- 4:45So you're not doing that on your own.
- 4:48That's where you see a lot of successful CIOs use groups like Vistage, where they'll buy into like an entrepreneurial operating system like EOS just to help put some structure in their business.
- 4:58It's required.
- 4:59It's some required.
- 5:01It's structured and it's required.
- 5:02And that's, I mean, again, we have the entire operating system and that's, what's so awesome.
- 5:08And right.
- 5:08This, this operating system is, it blows everything else away.
- 5:11Uh, what we've been able to build in such a short time, but you said something magical because, you know, I, I've launched businesses.
- 5:19I didn't do those tests.
- 5:21Um,
- 5:21Now I do, of course, but back then I didn't know what the heck I was doing.
- 5:25And we've had different people coming in looking at this and say, wow, I never did that before.
- 5:28I never, at the time, I never thought of it, right?
- 5:32But here's the other thing.
- 5:34A lot of people, entrepreneurs and others, they have this, they get some success and they have this imposter issue in their minds.
- 5:42Imposter syndrome, yeah.
- 5:43Yeah, imposter syndrome.
- 5:43Thank you.
- 5:44And what it is, is they're like, well, how can I be here?
- 5:48I don't even know how I got here.
- 5:50Well, they wung it, they were winging it, right?
- 5:52I don't know if wung is a word, but they were winging it and they had some success, but they don't know how.
- 5:59So they haven't had to replicate that, how do they?
- 6:01They can't, they don't know how.
- 6:03But having systems, having SOPs, having an operating system you can build on, you know exactly how you got there.
- 6:09You can track, okay, well, this part was a mistake, this part was a really good suggestion or a good activity, good whatever.
- 6:16And so let's make sure we're doing more of that, less of this.
- 6:19Right?
- 6:19So if you know the steps and you know what you need to do, and you've got a track to run on, like you said, Mike, you can always keep building and you can grow.
- 6:27And it's not by accident, it's by intention.
- 6:30And that matters.
- 6:32Right.
- 6:32And when you have the system, you understand your value and you understand what you're able to bring to the table and you understand these things that you can't get otherwise.
- 6:39I mean, I'm going to bring this up briefly because this is a point in time, but Dolly Parton passed away a couple of days and a lot of people are familiar with Dolly in a lot of different ways.
- 6:46A lot of people do not understand the genius of this woman and how incredible she was and how insanely philanthropic she is.
- 6:54And I'm not going to go off right now on stories about her.
- 6:57What I'm going to say, if you go back and
- 6:59You can't find a platform where there isn't positive, positive, positive, positive.
- 7:03Tell me when that happened last that you can remember.
- 7:06Where every single story you see is positive about somebody.
- 7:09I don't remember that in my entire lifetime.
- 7:11No.
- 7:12Not once.
- 7:14I haven't seen one negative story.
- 7:17And that theme with Dali Parton that you just brought up, and she started with a dream right in the beginning.
- 7:23And that's many people who are here today and are listening that are out there.
- 7:28they have a dream to start a new business.
- 7:30They haven't done it yet.
- 7:32And they may not be sure how to or what steps to do.
- 7:35And right here in the Forge Fire Protocol, we have that.
- 7:40We have the blueprint to start, to test your idea out, scale it, and bring it to fruition.
- 7:47And it's really,
- 7:49you know, taking your side hustle spark to an eight figure exit and how to build that $10 million buyout machine in three to five years.
- 7:58And the key part is, with the AI leverage and zero employee blow, you don't need a lot of employees to do things today to have a successful business and to scale it.
- 8:09And that's what you really find here in the forge.
- 8:12So if you investigate it, make the investment in yourself.
- 8:16Take a look.
- 8:17Open it up.
- 8:18The opportunity is right here in front of you to not just dream anymore, but to put it to reality for your new business.
- 8:26Yeah, and I'm going to actually just reference Dolly Building on that one more time for my last time today.
- 8:30But I do, again, find it very important and extremely inspiring personally is number one.
- 8:37we talk about decision and you have an idea, but what are you deciding to do the day after she graduated high school?
- 8:45She got on a bus and went to Nashville the day after that's a decision.
- 8:51She was telling people in advance, Oh, I'm going to, what do you do when I do graduate?
- 8:54She got laughed.
- 8:54She said, had a story where she said she got laughed off the stage.
- 8:57I basically got laughed and extremely embarrassed, but she's like, I didn't let them know how much it hurt me.
- 9:01But they said, what are you going to do?
- 9:02She's like, well, I'm going to Nashville and I'm going to be a big singer.
- 9:05And everyone laughed at her.
- 9:07She's like, every single person laughed.
- 9:09She's like, and I'm like, that's weird.
- 9:10Why are they laughing?
- 9:11That's what I'm going to do.
- 9:13But that's the conviction of a decision.
- 9:15When a true decision is made.
- 9:17And you're just going to go and do that.
- 9:18And the only thing I want to touch on that's a follow-up to that story is she talked about always being able to take care of her family.
- 9:24She had 11 brothers and sisters.
- 9:26Her mother and father.
- 9:27Her entire county, which was impoverished.
- 9:29The amount that she did, not just to take care of her family, but her brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins.
- 9:35She took care of everyone.
- 9:37and gave them jobs within it.
- 9:38Then she went back to her county, reinvested all this money in their county, built Dollywood in her county, in her area, and just gave so much back.
- 9:50She took care of millions.
- 9:53She really did.
- 9:54Just by making a decision and following through and trusting on herself and by being a good person.
- 9:59And I only bring that up because that's the impact.
- 10:02You guys don't get that.
- 10:02I think a lot of people don't understand.
- 10:05the power of conviction, and the power of decision.
- 10:09Yes.
- 10:10It's not just about you.
- 10:11It's not just about you.
- 10:13I think it's almost selfish.
- 10:14I think it's extremely selfish.
- 10:16If you have an idea that can help people and you keep it to yourself.
- 10:21Yeah.
- 10:22You know, it's funny.
- 10:23Many, many years ago, I was at a conference.
- 10:26I couldn't even tell you what year it was.
- 10:28It was a long time ago.
- 10:30And I remember hearing a speaker from stage and he was saying, and he asked,
- 10:34where's the richest place on earth?
- 10:37Right?
- 10:38And you guys know, anybody know here?
- 10:41No, I haven't heard this.
- 10:42If you haven't heard this, the richest place on earth, and everybody says, you know, New York City, they say different places.
- 10:50No, the richest place on earth is in the cemetery.
- 10:53Why?
- 10:54Because the dreams, the knowledge, the ideas, the inventions, everything,
- 11:00that has been in people's minds and in people's hearts that they never ever took action on and built out, those things were buried with them.
- 11:10Those ideas died with them.
- 11:13The richest place on earth is a cemetery.
- 11:15And so when you think about what you have inside of you, I mean, cancer probably would have been cured long ago if it wasn't for people in the cemetery.
- 11:26I mean, that's kind of harsh, but that's a reality.
- 11:30So what do you have inside of you?
- 11:31What is that business?
- 11:32What is that idea?
- 11:33What is that solution that you have inside of you?
- 11:35And are you ready to release it?
- 11:37Are you ready to say, okay, I need to do what Dolly did when she was, what, 18 when she left high school?
- 11:43And she just took action.
- 11:45She went and she said, I'm going to go.
- 11:46I'm going to go to Nashville.
- 11:49I'm going to be a singer.
- 11:52And she made it happen.
- 11:53Was it easy?
- 11:54I guarantee you it was not easy.
- 11:56You know, I don't know what she went through.
- 11:57I don't have her whole story, but I know it wasn't easy.
- 12:00But she did it.
- 12:02Anything worth doing is not easy.
- 12:04All right.
- 12:05So what we wanted to do is we said, all right, we're going to create something.
- 12:11The book is great.
- 12:11The book guides people through.
- 12:13And the book is supposed to be available on, I believe it's the August 29th.
- 12:19It should be available on Amazon.
- 12:21And then it'll be available in some other places.
- 12:23So feel free.
- 12:25And it's called The Forgefire Protocol.
- 12:28But outside of that, we said, all right, it's great to have a book.
- 12:32I mean, I've got books all over me in my office.
- 12:35I mean, bookshelf after bookshelf.
- 12:37And I've read so many books.
- 12:39I've taken action on many of those books and many of the things I've learned, which has helped me to get to where I am and what I do.
- 12:46But I can't say I've taken action on every single book and I've used everything I've learned through those books.
- 12:53Or if I did, I'd be much further ahead.
- 12:55Right.
- 12:56We all go through books and books are great.
- 12:58But what is that next level?
- 13:00What is the next thing?
- 13:01And the biggest thing, I think, for a lot of people and you guys can correct me, but I think a lot of people, they say, I have this idea, but I don't know if it's a good idea or not.
- 13:11And one, I don't want to get laughed at by my friends.
- 13:14All right.
- 13:14Now, Dolly, work through that.
- 13:16All right.
- 13:17Which is she didn't expect it.
- 13:19But we all know friends and family, they can be ruthless sometimes.
- 13:22Right.
- 13:23Siblings or whatever.
- 13:24But also, I don't know if it's a real good idea.
- 13:26I don't know if it's going to work.
- 13:27I don't know if it's as good as I think it is.
- 13:30And they never they they live in fear.
- 13:32They never take action.
- 13:35All right.
- 13:35And so if you live that way, that those those things are going to die with you.
- 13:41And what we wanted to do is give you a track to run on where I don't care what your idea is.
- 13:46I don't know if it's a good idea or a bad idea, right?
- 13:49But where we can give you a tool and actually stay on this podcast through the end because you're going to have access to a free tool that you're going to be able to use where you're going to be able to evaluate at no cost to you whether an idea is a good idea and should be taken forward or not.
- 14:03All right, we're going to literally give you the, what we call it, the green, yellow, or red light, right?
- 14:10And we'll get into that further.
- 14:13But it comes down to if you get an idea, how do you take it forward?
- 14:18Right.
- 14:19So we are looking and guys, was I on track with that?
- 14:22First of all.
- 14:23Yeah.
- 14:24Yes.
- 14:24And I don't think I just wanted to add to that, too, is think about one of the probably, if not the most, one of the top three most influential people in the last 2000 years.
- 14:34OK. Jesus.
- 14:36Mm hmm.
- 14:37Jesus didn't start his ministry in Nazareth, where he was from.
- 14:41No.
- 14:43He left, and he went to Capernaum first.
- 14:46Yeah.
- 14:47Okay?
- 14:47But even Jesus, right, even Jesus didn't go just to family and friends to say, hey, guess what I'm doing?
- 14:55And just went out.
- 14:56He left the...
- 14:57There's more to it, obviously, than that, but I'm just trying to paint a very high-level picture.
- 15:02Okay?
- 15:02Conviction, decision, service.
- 15:06I see a lot of people with the idea, too, are afraid to tell someone because they're afraid someone's going to take it or someone's going to steal it.
- 15:11Now, first and foremost, that scarcity mindset is defeating.
- 15:15That in and of itself is a defeatist mindset.
- 15:17Yep.
- 15:18But we can get to that later.
- 15:19Not important for today.
- 15:20What is important is that, again, coming in right now, you get the free tool to validate that idea before you even speak it to anyone.
- 15:30Validate it.
- 15:31Yep.
- 15:32All right?
- 15:32It's something proprietary and huge.
- 15:34Fine.
- 15:35Let's set up a generic NDA and ask them a question.
- 15:37You can do this now online.
- 15:39Okay.
- 15:40In minutes.
- 15:41Online, AI.
- 15:43AI, right.
- 15:43You create a very generic NDA.
- 15:45If you're really nervous about the idea getting out there, someone signs it.
- 15:49So that conversation they have and that feedback you get is private.
- 15:52Yeah.
- 15:53Okay.
- 15:53So that's just an excuse.
- 15:57It's really important, though, that people make the decision and take action.
- 16:01We talked about earlier, if I want to buy a house, I don't need money.
- 16:06Until I make the decision that that's the house and I say that I make an offer on that house, now I need the money.
- 16:14But until that moment, I didn't need the money.
- 16:16I didn't need any money.
- 16:18And that's what I think people don't realize.
- 16:19They kind of group it all into one holistic thing and then they get overwhelmed and they get paralysis by analysis.
- 16:26Just make a decision and take action.
- 16:28It's really not that difficult.
- 16:30One of the other things that I think stops people, and when they have an idea, they're like, okay, I think this is a good idea, and I'd like to go forward, but I don't have the money to build something.
- 16:41I don't have the money to hire these programmers to create this.
- 16:45I've been there.
- 16:47Right.
- 16:47Exactly.
- 16:48We all have, right?
- 16:50If you're an entrepreneur, you've been there, right?
- 16:52Mm-hmm.
- 16:53And so you don't move forward on something that really could be phenomenal.
- 16:57And really, you know, the whole thing in business is you get paid for the service you provide.
- 17:02You get paid for your contribution to society.
- 17:05Right.
- 17:06That's what it's about.
- 17:07The bigger your contribution, the more you help, the more you serve, the more you get paid.
- 17:12That's capitalist.
- 17:13It's a beautiful thing.
- 17:14Okay.
- 17:15And so...
- 17:17When you're looking and you're saying, hey, I've got this thing.
- 17:20I think this is a great idea.
- 17:21I don't know how to have a program.
- 17:22I don't have the money to do it.
- 17:24I don't want somebody to steal the idea.
- 17:25Like you said, I think that's a very valid piece, by the way.
- 17:28A lot of people have that scarcity mindset.
- 17:30All right.
- 17:31And so they don't move forward.
- 17:35Things like that paralyze people.
- 17:37And we have built out, here's what we built, right?
- 17:40We built, I can't wait to get to the challenge.
- 17:42I almost don't wanna wait till the next podcast, but we have to, right?
- 17:45Because that is so huge, but you definitely don't miss the next one.
- 17:50And in fact, if it's already out, binge it with this.
- 17:53I'm just saying, it's gonna be that good.
- 17:56So when you're thinking about, all right, I've got this great idea.
- 18:02I don't know if it's real or not.
- 18:04And if it is, I don't know how I could possibly get it built.
- 18:07Here's what I'm gonna tell you.
- 18:10Do the test first.
- 18:11We're gonna give you the tools to do a 72 hour market test.
- 18:13We can find out if it's really not at no cost to you.
- 18:16All right, freebie.
- 18:17This is something we've built.
- 18:18We've been, ever since we've been able to get all of this access, we've been building out stuff like you would not believe.
- 18:23The technology and things we've put together.
- 18:26And I mean, app after app, program, software, all kinds of stuff that we've been building.
- 18:34systems that are just it's amazing i can't believe how fast this has been uh and how much we've accomplished um but if you have an idea that is valid it's validated through this test at no cost right now you can say okay how do i move this forward we're going to be able to show you ways in the protocol in our ecosystem utilizing our operating system where you're going to be able to
- 18:59next to nothing.
- 19:00In fact, I can tell you that our force fire protocol app would have been well over $100,000 to build.
- 19:05All right.
- 19:06Initially, I was looking at something that was about a $50,000 build, and it would have taken many months.
- 19:12It's already built.
- 19:14And it was built for under $2,000.
- 19:17Is that fair, guys?
- 19:21Yes.
- 19:21I want you to think about those numbers.
- 19:23Over $100,000 build for under $2,000 in
- 19:29a matter of really days.
- 19:30It's under 100 months.
- 19:32I'm going to interject for a second.
- 19:33It's even less than that because that $2,000 also went into the build of like five to seven other apps that we realized along the way we needed to help optimize and streamline our efficiency.
- 19:46So that $2,000 isn't just for this.
- 19:49That $2,000 you're referencing has built out part of the ecosystem, the foundational ecosystem for the entire tool.
- 19:56And what you were just talking about too, if people don't understand is
- 19:59In intro economics, whether it be, let's say macro economics, right?
- 20:03My daughter was just talking about this yesterday, but the decision she had to make, and it was the perfect approach.
- 20:07She goes, well, what's the opportunity cost?
- 20:10Before she did it.
- 20:12I know the answer, but tell us, how old is your daughter?
- 20:1519.
- 20:1619.
- 20:17And what did she say again?
- 20:18She said, what is the opportunity cost?
- 20:20She was evaluating the cost between doing like a work where she could work for a place and get free room and board.
- 20:28compared to a place where she was gonna have to pay, but she had the freedom to work, get the job she wanted, work the hours she wanted and make.
- 20:34So she was trying to weigh the decision and she was like, wait a minute, well, what's the opportunity cost?
- 20:39And for those of you that don't know, that's basically
- 20:42the value of the next best alternative when you give up or make a choice.
- 20:46So for example, it's a trade-off.
- 20:47Like every time you spend time, money, or resources on one thing, you're losing the chance to use them on something else.
- 20:54It talks about, for example, your time, there's value associated with your time.
- 21:00And it's a hidden price.
- 21:01It's not your out-of-pocket cash expense, but rather the profit or benefit that you miss out on.
- 21:05So my question to a lot of you is if you accurately look at yourself and keep these ideas in your head,
- 21:12What's the opportunity cost?
- 21:15How much are you losing that you could have made by getting that idea out there and serving thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions?
- 21:23That is deep.
- 21:25Very much so.
- 21:26And if somebody out there is thinking about it and saying, well, 4-5 protocol, okay, it sounds good, but why should I make an investment here and make it?
- 21:38in this program versus another one.
- 21:41And it's really what sets the forge apart from anything else is that the reverse engineering, the $10 million exit from day one, that's really the key here.
- 21:53There's a big industry flaw in mainstream platforms.
- 21:56They really treat an exit as an afterthought, you know, something that happens decades down the line, if you get lucky.
- 22:03They optimize for top line vanity revenue, ignoring, you know, churn and founder dependency and illegal disarray that can really destroy their valuation.
- 22:15multiple times during the due diligence that comes out and the forge fire advantage Every step is built on exit value design.
- 22:24That's really key.
- 22:25Exit value design buyers do not Have the founder hustle they buy predictable cash flow and clean transferable systems, you know by installing our five number dashboard our
- 22:39You know, our MRR, your burn rate, runway, your churn, your LTV, you know, the CEO evaluation test and organization, organized, organized data room that has everything from month one to business commands.
- 22:53Really, you know, you know, you're going pretty deep there.
- 22:58The design and that multiple exit.
- 23:00But that's what sets it apart.
- 23:02That 10 million dollar engineering, the 10 million dollar exit from day one.
- 23:07That's what sets us apart.
- 23:09It does.
- 23:09And having that target and having where you can go.
- 23:14But that's what the whole protocol, that's what the ecosystem is built to do.
- 23:19But it's built to do it piece by piece, part by part.
- 23:24Walking somebody through.
- 23:25Exactly.
- 23:25There's that solid blueprint.
- 23:26Right.
- 23:27Exactly.
- 23:28The solid blueprint.
- 23:29This is the blueprint to get there.
- 23:31Whether somebody follows it, that's different.
- 23:33All I can think of, though, is whether you're on a boat or a plane, if you don't chart your destination,
- 23:40I mean, on a boat, you have a chance.
- 23:42You might get there.
- 23:43But on a plane, if you don't set your destination, then you're either going to have to emergency land or you're going to crash.
- 23:48You're going to run out of fuel.
- 23:49Yep.
- 23:50And I think that's a great analogy for what a lot of people do is they don't chart their course.
- 23:54They don't set a strong exit and understand what their goal is.
- 23:57So they're not heading towards this direction.
- 23:59And then every time they come off course, because we all know planes iterate consistently and keep on going back on track, back on track, back on track.
- 24:06And even the slightest change can move them halfway down a course
- 24:11continent, just by a slight alteration and path.
- 24:14But the most important thing is you will run out of gas and you will be exhausted and you will fail.
- 24:20Now, failure can be a lesson if you allow it to be along the way.
- 24:23A lot of us have learned a lot from our things that didn't work out.
- 24:28But you need that destination so you can know where you're going and you can know once you got there and then say, okay, now what?
- 24:35Well, and it's, you know, people when they start businesses, and this is
- 24:39Again, folks, we're going to be giving you the tools.
- 24:41We're going to go into this deep, but it's really important to understand this real simple concept, right?
- 24:46And I say it because I did it.
- 24:48I did the things you shouldn't do, right?
- 24:51I launched businesses without doing a market test beforehand, all right?
- 24:56I thought they were phenomenal ideas.
- 24:58And so I've done it more than once, all right?
- 25:00That was not smart.
- 25:02Have I made some money doing it?
- 25:03Yes.
- 25:04Have I lost some money doing it?
- 25:05Yes.
- 25:06So it goes both ways.
- 25:08But even beyond that, understanding whether you've got something that's marketable is one factor.
- 25:14Understanding what your exit is, even thinking that there's going to be an exit.
- 25:18What is the plan?
- 25:20Right?
- 25:20Why am I doing this?
- 25:22Understanding that is a whole different piece.
- 25:25Right?
- 25:26Sometimes it's just, hey, I just don't want to have to work a full-time job somewhere else.
- 25:29I want to be able to work for myself.
- 25:31I want to build something for myself.
- 25:32I want to build something for my family.
- 25:33Those are the things we think about.
- 25:34Right?
- 25:36You know, that may be good for today, but what is the long term?
- 25:40What are you doing and what are you committing to do for the next 30, 40, 50 years or whatever it is?
- 25:47Right?
- 25:47Because we all have a certain amount of time on this planet.
- 25:50We all have certain things that we're really placed on here, I believe, to accomplish.
- 25:56And it's difficult to accomplish a lot of things when you're punching a clock every single day, 40 hours or whatever.
- 26:05every week for 40 years.
- 26:08And, and, and what have you gotten out of it?
- 26:10And we don't even get those watches anymore.
- 26:12Right.
- 26:14Now I may be, I just, just in saying that I might have shown a little bit of my age or, or let's say senior experience, but you know, a few minutes ago, I almost raised my hand like Horshack.
- 26:26If anybody remembers Horshack.
- 26:27Right.
- 26:29So you guys, you're closer to my age.
- 26:30So it works.
- 26:31But, but you know,
- 26:35this really comes down to do you have an idea?
- 26:39And this is, this is what we want to get to in the, in this podcast.
- 26:43If you've got an idea for a business, first of all, you need to take action.
- 26:46You need to find out if the idea is valid, but you're not going to go to friends and family to do this.
- 26:51Okay.
- 26:52What we want to do is we're going to give you a tool to do this.
- 26:55All right.
- 26:55And so I'm going to see if I can put it up on the screen.
- 26:59Um,
- 26:59for the uh for the podcast so you can see it if you're watching video but i'm just going to tell you what it is and it's super easy it's app app so app.forgefireprotocol.com it's our website with app dot in front of it okay so forgefireprotocol.com is our website app.forgefireprotocol is for the app i'd like you to go there and so there's two things that we need so first of all go there
- 27:28um it's going to ask you to you know just click get started mike's pulling it out for me great thank you um it's going to ask you to get started uh in the top right uh there's actually a couple places where you can get started here it goes oh you're already in the app sorry that's fine i'll bring it up right here as if i wasn't okay you know yes yeah because it automatically logs you in it makes it so easy by the way this is a mobile app and a uh desktop and
- 27:53completely built.
- 27:54So this is what it looks like.
- 27:55Those of you who can see it that are on a video.
- 27:59So it's app.forgefireprotocol.com.
- 28:01And if you hit the orange get started button or create your account, what it does is it brings you to a place where it says, what is your email?
- 28:09So all you're going to do is put in your email address and say, send me an email code, a sign-in code.
- 28:16We don't use passwords.
- 28:17We just simply have you, we send you a code.
- 28:19And once you get that code, you put
- 28:23Okay, so this is we're giving you a freebie.
- 28:26You're going to get a chance to take a look at the app.
- 28:29And I'll tell you why this is so important to us in just a minute.
- 28:31But you're going to be able to get in.
- 28:32So everybody that is looking at this in video, not on audio, you're seeing what the app looks like.
- 28:38All right, this is over $100,000 app.
- 28:40This build out is huge.
- 28:42And it's not stopping.
- 28:43We've got a whole series of additional things there.
- 28:45But there's a few things that you're going to have access to when you first come in at no cost.
- 28:49One is...
- 28:51Underneath you scroll down, you'll see on the left-hand side, Spark.
- 28:53Mike, if you'll put your cursor over there.
- 28:55On the left-hand side, you'll see Spark.
- 28:57You click the drop-down, and you're going to see 72-hour market test.
- 29:02This is for all of you that have an idea.
- 29:04We're giving you a test that you can do free that will help you to figure out if your idea has legs, if it's a valid idea.
- 29:17All right, and we don't just give you some ideas on how to do it.
- 29:20We literally give you a guide.
- 29:22We walk you through, we give you the checklist, we give you the tools, we give you the scripts, we give you the AI prompts.
- 29:28It's all there.
- 29:30It's all there and it's all free for you to use.
- 29:33All right, it's that simple.
- 29:35And so you can see in the top, download the PDF guide, you're able to do that.
- 29:40As you scroll down, you'll see the different phases.
- 29:43We're actually breaking this up.
- 29:44We get some feedback from some people that said, hey, if you can show just a small portion at one time, that'll be better.
- 29:50So we're breaking it up.
- 29:52But it doesn't matter.
- 29:53That's the kind of feedback we're looking for.
- 29:55But I want you to understand what's available here.
- 29:57So when you get to the AI research, that's the first phase of the sprint that you do.
- 30:06when you're doing this 72-hour market tech, all right, we give you three key prompts that you can use that will give you all the information that you need.
- 30:13You can use them in Grok, you can use them in Cloud, in ChatGPT, in Gemini, whatever your AI model is that you prefer.
- 30:21And for those of you who don't have an AI model that you like, pick one.
- 30:25Pick one, you know, my personal favorite is Grok.
- 30:29Some people really like Cloud, whatever it is, all right?
- 30:32But pick one, get a free account set up,
- 30:35And for those of you who are not into AI at all, I will tell you, it multiplies you.
- 30:41I get so much done, so much because of my interactions and usage of AI that, I mean, I am massively more productive, massively more, right?
- 30:52So we're going to give you exactly what to put in.
- 30:54You don't know what to put in.
- 30:55You don't know how to use it.
- 30:56We're actually showing you.
- 30:57We make it easy.
- 30:58You can just copy and paste right into the AI model and hit submit.
- 31:02And then boom, you get your answers.
- 31:05Right.
- 31:05So I mean, one quick thing there is like in that first four hours, we talk about this and I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but you run these three prompts and you type in the information and all you're doing with this prompt, by the way, is anything inside the brackets, you're just placing your information inside there.
- 31:17That's the only change you're making as of right now.
- 31:19Okay, that's the way tools currently built.
- 31:20That's what we're doing.
- 31:22You type in your information and you paste it.
- 31:24See that right there?
- 31:25Market reality check.
- 31:27That's what it says right there.
- 31:28So it's going to give you a true real-world assessment of your idea, how marketable it is, and it's going to go through a series of other responses that's extremely valuable for you to take a look at.
- 31:38Then it's going to go over the customer language extraction, and it's pulling out –
- 31:41The language customers use who are looking for this type of solution or have these types of pains that your issue resolves.
- 31:47And then it goes down to the competitive teardown and differentiation.
- 31:49You know, what's out there already for this?
- 31:52Who are you competing against?
- 31:53What's the pricing that's being sold out there?
- 31:55That information
- 31:57is at your fingertips in the first four hours.
- 31:59And the reason why that's so important is before you go to book in phase two here, these next 20 real humans, and we kind of go about the whole process for booking these as well and finding the right people.
- 32:10And we kind of tell you what to do.
- 32:12You don't even have to worry about 90% of that.
- 32:13We're just telling you who to reach out to.
- 32:15We're going to give you prompts for what to say.
- 32:18And you take it and just make it a little bit of you if you want, or you just copy and paste it as is, whatever you prefer.
- 32:22Bottom line is at the end of that, you're going to have market data confirming what this is giving you that confidence that you have the right idea.
- 32:29Then you're going to have these 20 people to go to to ask questions and validate it and get feedback from them, which then leads to the conversations.
- 32:35Don, I don't know if you want to elaborate on what this is right here.
- 32:38Well, this is key because the conversations that you have, and by the way, everybody that you're doing these conversations with, they're not friends and family.
- 32:46These are people who are target clients, right?
- 32:49You're not going to have a conversation to tell them.
- 32:51That's not what it's about.
- 32:53You're actually going and talking with them, either phone, email, or in person,
- 32:58Right.
- 32:58And you're getting a survey completed.
- 33:00You're basically getting some questions.
- 33:01We give you the questions to ask, right?
- 33:04Because if you're going to have, if you're going to have a successful business, it's a few criteria that you need to have, uh, that show up.
- 33:11And these conversations help you to find out if that exists.
- 33:13So for whatever product or idea you have or service that you have, there has to be a need for it.
- 33:20So it's going to solve a pain.
- 33:22It goes back to the value we provide for society determines what our pay is.
- 33:26Right.
- 33:27There has to be a pain on the other side that says, I'm going through this.
- 33:32If you can solve it, then that would relieve me massively.
- 33:37So if there's a big pain, something that's very painful for a business owner or a consumer or individual, then that's the first key.
- 33:46We need to know about the pain.
- 33:47We also need to know, are they already trying to spend money or are they already spending money to figure out if this pain, if they can cure it?
- 33:55Right.
- 33:55If they are, that goes down to money signals, which is the next section.
- 33:59Uh, and that's really talking about, all right, I'm spending money to try and fix this.
- 34:03I haven't fixed it.
- 34:04I'm still going through this pain.
- 34:05I need a solution.
- 34:07And what's really happening is, all right, they're saying they've got money to spend and they want this thing fixed.
- 34:15All right.
- 34:15So you, by providing a solution, that's really going to work for them.
- 34:18All right.
- 34:19Because of this great idea that you have now,
- 34:22When you go through that with them, you're asking them some simple questions.
- 34:25Okay, so if you could get this outcome, would that solve your pain?
- 34:29Yes, that would.
- 34:31What are you paying right now to solve it that's not working?
- 34:34I'm paying X amount.
- 34:36Ah, okay.
- 34:37So now you know they're spending money.
- 34:38You want to be able to move that money from whatever that solution was that didn't work over to yours, which does, which goes into your pocket, right?
- 34:44That's bottom line.
- 34:46But then also you're asking them a real simple question, a really important question, and that is,
- 34:52Um, what, what would you be willing to pay for something like this?
- 34:58That solves that problem.
- 35:00What do you think it would be worth?
- 35:01Right.
- 35:02And then you ask, well, you know, what would be a no brainer price?
- 35:05Like if you had that price, you couldn't say no.
- 35:08Right.
- 35:08And what would be a price if, you know, that would just be too high for that solution.
- 35:13When you get those answers, first of all, you know, that they're willing to spend money.
- 35:17So, so those are people that you can ask, Hey, would you like to get on a wait list?
- 35:20Because this is coming.
- 35:22Would you like to put down a deposit at that point?
- 35:24You can ask that question, but not before because before it's all research.
- 35:28Okay.
- 35:29This is not about selling them This is about getting information But every single thing that they've said you're taking notes on all right You're recording every single words They said because that's your marketing later.
- 35:40By the way, they're giving you your marketing this 72-hour test is absolutely phenomenal at one determining if your business has legs if your idea has legs and two I
- 35:53what the pricing is going to be and how you're going to market for number three.
- 35:57It's all there.
- 36:00Yeah.
- 36:00And the bottom line is you're going to take all that information and you're going to decide you're going to move forward because you have a proven idea or you're going to pivot.
- 36:06You need to change the pricing, the model, the pitch, the client, et cetera, who your target market is, or are you going to kill it and move on to something else?
- 36:12And that's essential too.
- 36:13So you don't waste time.
- 36:14But the most important thing here is,
- 36:17We call it the 72-hour market test because you can condense it into that amount of time.
- 36:20You can condense it even earlier if you can get those people on the call, if you can set that up and be efficient.
- 36:25We're giving you all the tools.
- 36:26It just depends how hard you're going to hustle and how hard you're going to hit the ground.
- 36:29You can condense that time frame.
- 36:30You can turn it into 24 hours if you're fast enough.
- 36:32You're going to get that preliminary information quick, and that's what the benefit of AI is.
- 36:37But the bottom line is you have an idea.
- 36:39This is why we want to talk to you, and this is why we're here right now, and especially on this podcast.
- 36:43We're giving you this tool for free.
- 36:46This validation tool is free.
- 36:48We want to bring you into the ecosystem because we want your feedback.
- 36:50We want to hear you say, I love this, but for example, when you go down to here, I'm losing you right here because of this.
- 36:56I don't understand that.
- 36:57Can you explain that better?
- 36:58Or, hey, can you zoom in so it's big like this so I can read it better?
- 37:04Whatever it is, it's like we're looking for feedback.
- 37:06Are we going to take every recommendation and implement it?
- 37:09No, absolutely not.
- 37:12But if we hear the same thing five to seven times,
- 37:1610 times, like, oh, wow, okay, everyone's having the same issue.
- 37:20We probably should fix that.
- 37:22At the same point in time, we're going to get additional ideas.
- 37:26One thing that you say could impact millions of people using this app because it could be something that we're not seeing.
- 37:31That's the power of that mastermind.
- 37:32You said briefly that when people die in the cemetery, that their ideas die.
- 37:37True, but when they were alive, their ideas are still in the ether and are still in their family members and in the other people they talk to.
- 37:43You're just not talking to them because you're keeping it to yourself.
- 37:46You get involved in the community of people who are like-minded people
- 37:49And some of those ideas still live on in others.
- 37:51And then they can bring that to the table.
- 37:53And now you're giving a fire and a spark to that idea for someone who's no longer here.
- 37:58And now it becomes part of you and your foundation.
- 38:00So we're at time today, but I think the most important thing is we want help.
- 38:04And we're looking for people like you that want to bring your idea to the table, validate it, and then once you validate it,
- 38:11Then we'll talk about the challenge in the next episode.
- 38:13Right.
- 38:14Yeah, we're going to get to that challenge.
- 38:15And the easiest way to reach us, by the way, you can go to support at forgefireprotocol.com.
- 38:22And you can email us your thoughts.
- 38:25That's probably the easiest way just to get it so we have it in writing.
- 38:28In fact, you know what?
- 38:28I'm going to add...
- 38:31a button over here.
- 38:33This'll be, this'll, this button will be there.
- 38:35This is how fast we can iterate stuff.
- 38:37This button will be there before this podcast is even able to be listened to.
- 38:42And it'll be up late live later today.
- 38:44So, um, we, we can move so fast in this, uh, but we'll have a button that says suggestions.
- 38:51So all I want you to do is just click on that button.
- 38:54Um, give us your name so we can give you credit for it, by the way.
- 38:56So please, please share your name when you do that.
- 38:58And, um, and, uh,
- 39:02and your email, because who knows, we get a really great idea.
- 39:05We may send something special out too.
- 39:07Who knows?
- 39:08But this is a great tool, and we need your feedback as we're building this.
- 39:12We're finalizing the last pieces, we're revising it, so that way we can release it.
- 39:18for the challenge.
- 39:19And yes, you need to know about the challenge.
- 39:21So again, if you're listening to this and the next episodes are already out, binge it, go to that next episode, because I'll tell you what, this challenge is for you.
- 39:29If you've got a business idea, or you're just starting a business, or you're not even sure, but you want to, you want to be part of this challenge.
- 39:38So we'll see you in the next episode, guys.
- 39:43That's it for this episode of the Forge Fire Protocol
- 39:47Take at least one step from today's episode while the fire is still hot.
- 39:52Don't let the insight cool.
- 39:54Our goal is delivering real value for you and your business.
- 39:58Subscribe now to never miss an episode and help other ambitious entrepreneurs like you find the show by leaving a review on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
- 40:10Want the complete five-step system, the tools, the scorecards, and the exact playbooks we use inside the protocol?
- 40:18Head to forgefireprotocol.com and sign up now to step in to the full forge.
- 40:25Because we are Forged in Fire, built for legacy.