Transcription
Big mistake that, uh, people make is they, they don't focus.
And that's the one that you're talking about, which is, do I start a new business? Do I fix the business I'm at? And the woman in the red dress is always my, my joke. But the new opportunity always looks more interesting, which is why it's so compelling as a sales pitch. It's like, most sales pitches are red women in the red dress. And that's, you do it that way because that's what convinces the most people. I teach each other.
Of course, that's what convinces most people to switch opportunities because you say, "If you only knew, it's so much easier over here, right?" But the reality is that all businesses have difficulty. It's just what difficulty you want.
And so different styles of businesses have difficulties at different stages. Like, information businesses, for example, are the easiest businesses to start, hardest to scale. Software businesses are the hardest businesses to start, the easiest to scale. E-commerce is somewhere in the middle, right? You have to have capital, but then there's scale, they have logistics, supply chain issues on the back end. So like, there's kind of difficulties on both sides. And so every type of business, service, for example, easy to start, harder to scale. You can scale, just takes longer because you have to train people and recruit people. And people are the business. And so like, there's always difficulty with whatever business you have.
And what happens is when you switch opportunities, you then start at zero. You quickly get success because you pass the levels you already know, but then you run into the same boss again.
And so what ends up happening is now you have two businesses you're CEO of because you couldn't end the other one because you still need to live. And then you start this other one. And so maybe this is the better opportunity, but you still have this old one and then you can't give it up because you're like, "But I have customers and I have to keep my promises there and I have my, what do I do about my team?" And there's all these questions that surround that, which is why you can own as many businesses as you want, but you can only run one.
Mhm.
And that's the thing that everyone messes up. And especially if you're small, you don't have the resources to run two. So you have to make the hard decision. You have to say, "No, I'm going to continue to fix this," because it's my belief that every business can get to $100 million a year. Every business.
Even solopreneur.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I wouldn't say solopreneur is an organizational structure, not a business.
So, whatever business that solopreneur is in, if they sell wallets, if they sell paintings, if they, I mean, whatever it, whatever it is that you sell, you could sell $100 million worth of it. For like, I can't think of a business. Now, if you're like, "Well, you can't say that for a local dry cleaner." I'm like, "Yeah, then you open more," but I consider that still the same business, right?
And so, the question then remains, why isn't your business a $100 million business? And whatever the answer to that question is, is the problem you need to solve. And if you don't know how to solve it, which is what most entrepreneurs are faced with, they then think, "Oh, it's not me. It's the business, it's the industry, it's the market, it's the vehicle, right?" And sometimes I regret that I talked about how switching opportunity vehicles, because like, if I had played out the other alternative, I'd probably have 200, 300 gyms right now and I'd still be just as rich.
And so, did it, like, maybe I make less money now than I would if I had stuck with it? I don't know. Like, and we can never know. But I can say that the equal opposite of that is if you do one thing for 50 years and you get better at it, you're probably going to make a lot of money.
That is a great permission, because I think ever since I heard you first actually talking about opportunity vehicles, I was like, "I might not be in the right opportunity vehicle. I might like, do everything wrong because I'm just drawing in a boat and everybody's on."
It's such a compelling visual, and it's just, it speaks to the pain. It's just the ultimate easy button is if I only had this other vehicle, and if I were just doing the same thing I'm doing now, I would get 10 times more than I'm getting or 100 times more. And the thing is, is that sometimes it's true, but it's so attractive that nine times out of ten, it isn't true because you're, it's only true when the model is the limiter.
Mhm.
But most times, it's not. It's just, it's a limiter if you, if you measure on a one-year time horizon.
But Mr. Panda has a chicken shop, and he's worth 10 billion. So, like, is that the, is having a Chinese chicken store like the best opportunity vehicle? No. Did he make it work? Yes. So it's just, it's just expanding the horizon of. And that's why starting a business that you actually care about the customer is ultimately the thing that matters the most in the long run, because if you really care about the customer and the product that you deliver, then you don't do it for the opportunity vehicle reason and the making money reason. And then making money occurs, but because you stick with it, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger because you keep improving it because you love it. It keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and you maintain your reputation because the only reason you did it to begin with is because you care. That's actually the unlock, I think, that many people are missing. It's like, "Oh, what niche do I go in?"
Is it like, start wherever one you want. Yeah.
But do the one that, like, it's either some pain you overcame, something you're very passionate about, or it's a professional skill. But I, I'll say this other thing that I think is worth doing, is that people have this fallacy that they've made the wrong pick. Like, "What if I picked wrong?" Right? I picked the wrong business. I picked the wrong niche. The consolation I can give you is that if you stick with it, no matter what, all businesses end in the same place, which is you have a team of five to seven people. You have a head of marketing. You have a head of sales. You have a head of IT, head of legal, head of ops, head of finance, and they're really all competent people, and they run the business. And so your actual day-to-day is the same.
Whether you're selling, you know, shaving cream or you're selling communities or you're selling private equity, fundamentally, you're going to have a team of people that those functions of the business have to occur, and they're probably rolling into you. And so if you think about that as the natural extreme of any business, then it kind of doesn't matter what you do to get there if you like the game of business.
Yeah. And so that's kind of how I see it is like, if I'm worried about picking the wrong thing, it's like, well, no matter what, I'm going to end up in the same place as long as I stick with it.