# The Reality of Entrepreneurship

Channel: Greg Isenberg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhsfJfdxefo
Duration: 60 min
Language: English
Words: 10186
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/bhsfJfdxefo

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[0:00] what is the thing that you find the most difficult and painful about entrepreneurship the most painful part about being an entrepreneur to me is the uncertainty period Anything could happen you know if you're building a SAS startup for example you wake up every day and you check product hunt and you're like I hope that you know if you're competing against figma figma didn't launch something to compete directly against you there's like 800 lb gorillas literally everywhere uh could squash you in in a moment and I just think that the uncertainty and the slot machine nature of being an entrepreneur it is tough it is it is

[0:41] really tough you have to be at peace with it if you're not able to be at peace with the uncertainty then you'll never survive as an [Music] entrepreneur J cream is back hello what's up dude I'm sipping here I'm sipping over here sipping time baby I'm sipping some B I don't know if it's pronounced b b it means mouth in French it means mouth oh no I'm sipping on some mouth yeah wouldn't be the first time hey how are you doing man I'm good I'm uh at the cabin in the woods on the Lake Canada very nice feeling good just had a Nitro cold brew oh [ __ ] which uh which

[1:41] makes you feel real good there's about 350 milligrams of caffeine in it so that's an average cup of coffee I think has 80 oh that sounds dangerous yeah so I'm ready to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about because I'm in The Matrix okay uh all right so before the before you hit record I asked you if it was going to be okay to bring this topic to you and you just pressed record so you don't know what it is yet so it's how the podcast works I like it um I've been pushing so I've been running my company for 14 years coming up in

[2:20] September uh AJ and smart and there's been many and and basically the topic I want to talk about is kind of like burnout and keeping going as a self-employed kind of solopreneur entrepreneur like I guess my first question is do you ever feel just like [ __ ] like I I just have so much going on there's just too much I just want to get rid of it all and go sell it and live in a cabinet in the woods in Canada so I guess my first question before I even ask any other questions because I want to learn some [ __ ] from you here is do

[3:00] you get to those phases where you're just done with it all I don't like I don't yeah I don't I don't let it get to that point you know if I'm if I'm ever if I'm ever feeling like I'm overwhelmed and too much stuff is going on I just I just take a step back like instead of you know here's one thing I'll say I actually work every day like s days a week I'm working some amount of time and I know that's not what you're supposed to do but I do it because especially in the mornings for me I notice that like I'm really like I get

[3:38] like one hour of work is like in the morning is like eight hours in the afternoon at night for me so if I notice that I'm like getting close to being burnt out like maybe instead of working two hours every day uh or on a weekend type thing I'll just you know I'll go to 30 minutes so I'll just or or or I'll go to zero you know um so I I'm very conscious of about the burnout and I just don't get too close to the Sun so talk to me about this you do you work every day by the way which I think is who gives a [ __ ] like there's no rules

[4:15] about when you can work and when you can't work and I think it's ridiculous that yeah everyone's trying to jam everything into the Monday to Friday uh and actually that could be causing a lot of burnout because you're jamming it all in there then you're like now is my time where I take take my break and now I'm back so you said you work best in the morning so the reason you work every day is just so you can work every morning instead of having to work full days just Monday to Friday like how much do you tend to like what's your workday look like well I work every day because I

[4:47] don't look at it like on a week to week basis I'm like okay I've got like some stuff to do this year and some goals I want to hit this year and I and I want to hit them and so my aage average day is like I wake up I I wake up pretty early and I have three things I need to do every single day and if I do those three things by 2 pm I'm out but if it takes me longer you know I I don't stop until I finish those three things every day how do you figure out what those three things are are you doing any sort

[5:21] of like I don't know task making exercises or prioritization things or is it just like you wake up and you're like here's the fires or here's the interesting things to do or well what does it look like I think people who over optimize on like this whole productivity system stuff like take it too far you inherently you inherently know that there's like two or three things that you need to do just do the thing and and also can we be honest it's not like we're toiling away mining you know doing mining you know going down in a m shaft we're literally pressing buttons on the internet that's like our

[6:01] work you know absolutely and it's so fun it is so fun I think so I'll tell you where my struggle comes from so I agree it's fun um I also don't have productivity systems and honestly most of the people I know who have like really detailed product productivity systems are generally entrepreneurs they pretend they are going to be entrepreneurs but all they do is just make like systems but they don't make any money at all um actually know someone who is H I don't want to yeah it could be it could be too close let's say I know a person called Kevin just because I have this book here right uh

[6:41] who obsesses about systems and reading all the books and reading all the entrepreneurship stuff and collect all these systems and literally has never made $ one do as an entrepreneur mainly Works in corporates but talks about being an entrepreneur all the time and so I would generally agree with you productivity stuff is just like not for real business people here's the nonstem system I'll give it you the non-system hit me Greg eisenberg's non-system system is this wake up relatively early what's early for you whatever no for for who you know for some people that might be 8:30 for some people that might be 4:30 so whatever it is for you break up

[7:24] relatively early take out a piece of paper or an iOS note and pick three things that you need to do do the three things and don't get burned out don't fly too Coast to the sun you know like that's that's what it is that's that's all it is quick ad break let me tell you about a business I invested in it's called boring marketing.com so a few years ago I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world they were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google and the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that

[8:04] could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses I wanted that I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses I wanted to rank high in Google that's why I like SEO and that's why I use boring marketing.com and that's why I invested in it they're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day Sprint with 100% money back guarantee who does that nowadays so check it out highly recommend boring marketing.com okay let me ask for some context here feel free to cut any of this out I will not cutting any of this out but I'm

[8:42] gonna ask questions as if I'm as if you might cut stuff out but great I'm just gonna ask freely okay yes um many times when I'm talking to entrepreneurs who are very relaxed um and I'm confused about why they're so relaxed h i find out that they're already ludicrously rich so I'll give you an example I know an entrepreneur who talks a lot about you know not pushing too hard and and like it's all easy and it's all fine and I found out that he got like an a$8 million kind of inheritance uh a very long time ago and then I was like of course I wouldn't be [ __ ] burnt out

[9:26] if I had1 million in my bank account so my question is were you always this CH well first of all do you have like crazy inheritance and you just don't give a [ __ ] about money and it's all good 100% of the money I have and the wealth I made has been self-made from inheritance from inheritance 100% of the money I've made has been from inheritance and uh and winning the lottery you know yes yes yes no I think uh this system is a system I developed when I was 18 or 19 okay so when I had nothing when I had no companies when you know when I was

[10:06] just getting started this is what I developed so so it's not like now that you know I quote unquote made it or or have a little bit of money it's it's like yeah I'm way more chill it's like no no I it's I've always this is how I've always been you seem very very chill but you also seem to get a lot done um and so I'm like you can't wrap your your brain around it honestly I I yeah it's It's tricky because I'll tell you for me one of the things that gets me or or the times where I'm the least chill is usually when a part of the business is

[10:52] not working necessarily or very well and I can tell that it needs like an overhaul in order to start working well again um for example like last year the consulting or like the corporate Consulting and corporate training side of the business just needed a massive overhaul and I could tell like basically stagnating Revenue stagnating profits actually the profits were starting to slowly go down and I could just see [ __ ] like in a few months time this is going to be hitting the break even point and then we're going to start losing cash flow and I see a project of that size and sometimes I'm just like I'm just not in

[11:34] the mood to do that right now like I'm not in the mood to take it on and this could be related to the way I have not necessarily hired and staffed up in the way maybe you have like uh too at LCA who seems to just be able to take things and run with them but Laura and I at AJ and smart uh definitely have this feeling that if if we if something starts to stagnate it's not possible to fix it without me personally jumping in or Laura personally jumping in do you still get dragged into things like that or are you just totally are you out of this

[12:15] sort of Revenue cash flow day-to-day stuff I drag myself into it I don't that you know we have a bunch of companies under lay checkout and a lot of you know it a lot of the times some of them are struggling more than others and but a lot of the people running it don't want to bring me in because that's like you know an area of Last Resort and they want to fix the problem themselves and and that's that's amazing right yeah but I don't want to make it seem like I'm so chill that I'm just like all right yeah good luck all these companies I like I'm I'm not I'm I I I really care

[13:01] about these businesses seeing full potential so like I I'm I'm in the slack I'm looking at things I'm asking questions but you can do those things and not work 20 hours a day sure and actually just to be clear and I know this is becoming a therapy session for me thanks Greg um I don't work an abnormal amount of hours it's more like the the amount of hours I do and sometimes it is three or four hours they uh they can be quite consequential for the business like they can be the ones that make the decision that makes us uh the money for the next six months um and

[13:42] so and then and obviously I have experimented with stepping out and and being out of the business for quite some time uh and then like more stagnation sort of kicks in so I guess at least today I feel like I'm still very much need did and that I guess that stress of knowing that if I just take my eye off the ball something can fall apart any person running Su successful business will now say well your business is not robust enough you're right uh and that's what I'm trying to figure out but yeah like that's the stuff that kind of stresses me out doesn't mess with my

[14:19] sleep it isn't all the time um but it does there are like sometimes weeks where I'm like oh man now I want to sell the compy like whenever I'm annoyed with AJ and smart I'm like [ __ ] this I'm just taking the money out and I'm done you know that that that comes to my mind yeah I mean of course it comes to your mind but I think people are gonna I think people are going to listen to this and are going to be like sh this is champagne problems Jonathan obviously we're we're running a this is a um entrepreneur podcast like it's it's a

[14:54] we're not trying to help people figure out how to do important life although we're yeah we're talking about [ __ ] anyone saying they're champagne problems they're coming to this podcast to listen to two relatively successful entrepreneurs talk about stuff [ __ ] you [ __ ] all you guys I'm just I just think that someone's listening to this and being like burnout you know like I'm just trying to get Financial Freedom right now I want to like retie my parents I want to do all these things I need to BU you know buy a house have you seen the have you seen the price of coffee lately you know

[15:31] someone okay that's your audience okay let me ask you let me change the topic uh maybe wait I thought all all your audience were millionaire uh entrepreneur no maybe maybe I mean to put a bow on this topic I think that realistically you can get a lot done in eight hours a day just figure out yeah what what are the most productive hours and and slap Do Not Disturb mode and have a cold you know a Nitro cold nro cold brew and uh see you in outer space do you use Zin do you use nicotine pouches I'm not I'm not a I'm not a Zin not a Zin boy no oh man yeah I also I

[16:20] mean I only realize now that Zin is these pouches that they also sell in Sweden so like uh easy access but I heard they can be quite add Ive yeah yeah I think uh I think that that's what they say nicotine is uh what is it it's like more addictive than heroin or something like that oh my God okay yeah I'm I'm I'm stay I'm gonna just continue drinking mouth yeah until until further notice okay wait I just want to make sure I got so I so you basically just don't ever get to the point where you feel overwhelmed or stressed you don't go too close to the

[16:59] that's right great dude and I mean of of course I get stressed like okay business revenue is down 30% month over month we lost our biggest client I don't know that you know our technology is built on this API and they just shut it off that's stressful but being stressed isn't going to help the problem you know what helps the problem is figuring out what is your most productive you know time zone how do you get in the state to get most productive right and and then what are the things that you need to do to move the needle the quickest and go and do that and that's it and just do it

[17:37] every day yeah and I know that sounds like really simple but that's what it is everything else is noise and fluff and and and this is the system that worked for me the non all right dude yeah [ __ ] Superman over there so you so the unfortunate answer to this question is you are as chilled as you seem unfortunately do your would your employees say that you are a chilled person to work with I don't know I don't know CU I think when when they see me it's always in a moment of there's something wrong and me being like you know ask I'm also very direct

[18:18] so ah do people say that about like I know that people say about me that I'm very direct but also like I don't talk about the positive things I'm just talking about the ne I'm like a very much a firefighter um I jump in and I'm like this is broken this is broken this is broken we need to fix this this this this this let's do this this this this this goodbye um and that obviously rubs people the wrong way and I've heard obviously negative things coming out of that uh like no one no one who works with me would say oh Jonathan's so chilled it wouldn't be what they would

[18:56] uh talk about me publicly yeah I don't I don't think people say that inter I mean I don't know but I don't think internally people are like Greg is super chill because it's the same situation like when I when they see me I'm generally in with a fire a firefighter hat on yeah yeah all right dude all right and it's and it's like you it's like yeah like here's all here's here here are all my questions like let me collect all the data points once I have those data points then it's like okay based on this here's what we need to do that da da that da da da also why didn't

[19:30] we do these three things and and the reason why I I I say that is because I you know I don't want to be I don't want to dress up as a a sexy firefighter you know just topless but like not in shape I always said that for you because I know that you'd appreciate that I love it I love it and I don't want to do that because I sorry you know I want to spawn many firefighters within the organizations right so yeah um as a hold Co entrepreneur that's what you're trying to do you're trying to build the um you know the reflexes for the

[20:13] companies within themselves to come and come and be like whoa who you know Michelle is the firefighter because she sees something and she sees revenues down or she hears that you know Twitter's API you know is is being shut off or whatever it is okay okay well you can tell I came to this uh session today uh in a stressed mode and I just wanted you to say you get stressed too but [ __ ] you Greg yeah yeah I mean I do get stressed but but you never get to the point where you're like [ __ ] this thing [ __ ] LCA I'm selling it I'm done with all this I'm

[20:57] going to go live in a cab and then I'll get I'll think about what I want to do in about five years no I don't I I can honestly say that doesn't cross my mind I I get to that point multiple times per year not just with a like just it's part of the way my brain works sometimes I'm like ah but why that that business has generated like millions of dollars of profits for you why would you go and just decide hey it's no longer for me well first of all I'm very grateful for the revenue and profit it generates and I love the business and it is a big part

[21:32] of my life um it's just sort of part of how my brain works I would say like sometimes I just hit a wall and get sick of something and I just want to move on to something new and interesting uh I generally hold myself back from doing that and like stay on the Core Business uh and and the problem is sometimes it's also worked out really well like I remember a couple of years ago like seven or eight years ago I was so sick of just Focus or relying on client work to make money and you maybe know the cash flow kind of variation when you're

[22:06] just doing client uh Consulting work and we started the education business with in-person training then online training and that complete like that moved our run like burn rate from like three months to like 15 months to 18 months and I was like holy [ __ ] just being super annoyed at something sometimes generates interesting things um yeah I mean what I often say is I'm not the right person to be the CEO because I'm the the I am the person when I get annoyed with something even if it's making money I'm like I don't want to do this anymore I don't want us to do this

[22:43] anymore and why don't you just hire a CEO um Laura and I have talked about this and multiple times and I think yeah one part about it is I is the idea of looking for someone sounds annoying um and I and I've heard that process is very difficult and and like often doesn't work out um the other part is like maybe I'm just not ready to let it go just yet um the other part is I did bring in a CEO for the Consulting business and [ __ ] [ __ ] hit the fan majorly so I did let that one happen although it did work well for two years

[23:24] like brought in a CEO kept the numbers stable it didn't really grow and then it was like um yeah it's but well that's a bad answer because it's a bad answer like okay the hiring okay I've hired a CEO before and it didn't really work out is like is like saying well it's a lazy answer you know I I didn't say I wasn't lazy I I had a broken heart before therefore I'm never going to date again basally that so that that's a that's a bad answer how do you think can you assess whether we should have a new CEO can we do an assessment you you own so

[24:01] many companies the assessment is yes this is the assessment if you if you if you are having racing thoughts from time to time that you want to sell the business and like it's only when I'm annoyed with it how many times per year do you think that thought hits you um four times maybe per year no Nob brainer there's this is if that thought is coming at least once per quarter then see you later Life's too short for it you'll hire someone who actually cares a lot about about it more now you have to be okay with the fact that CEO might be worse than you and it might not work out

[24:41] and it might take three CEOs for it to work out and that's just the nature of yeah I know and it's crazy and you know or you might get lucky um but I think that that's just the reality of of giving your baby to someone else I'm not against it I think you know we're we are doing sort of a big relaunch in September I I talked to you a little bit about it off the podcast and I think that's the point where I like I basically have the vision for the next 12 months which I'm very excited about and very happy about and very proud of

[25:21] um and I feel like once that's in place that's the next 10 years worth of stuff for the company to do and I think I'd prefer I prefer for in that decade to be more in the role of the person who's bringing product ideas and bringing the maybe be like being the the sounding board for someone else who's running it versus being the person running it and making the decisions yeah it's a it's a constant conversation dude this is I have no idea if any of this is interesting for your audience I'm just telling you I just answered your question sorry I mean you're like you're like the audience is

[26:01] here to learn how to start a business and we're like so when you're 15 years into it and it's already making millions here's the small problems that you're gonna you know I think uh if I were you I would also become a hold Co entrepreneur yeah I have to talk I don't even really know what that is like so I would basically have a holding company and then that would own AJ and smart and that would also own own other companies and I would be on like the board of these companies yeah exactly you know what you know what I don't like about that for me yeah I really do not I I

[26:40] really optimize for peace like I like peace and calm and quiet and not a lot of stuff going on I don't even like traveling because it like annoy it kind of breaks me out of my routine and I love my routine I had a holding company which I shut down in December and I was doing Investments and I was looking into this concept and I think the way my brain works that would feel a i I'd love to be I'd love to help other companies with their products and their strategy with no paperwork at all and like I heard Jason freed saying this recently if they make [ __ ] tons of money

[27:20] and they feel like reimbursing me for the for the work I did great but I I don't know if I actually want to have I don't know if I want to do the paperwork for the and I know I wouldn't personally be doing the paperwork I wasn't personally doing the paperwork for my holding company and my company it's just that world of adding what do you think a holding company is well my the holding company I had which I started it's just a vehicle for owning other things yeah but there's lots of legal and paperwork behind that it's a it's a whole other company I mean

[28:00] this is the same dude this is the same uh same thing as the CEO thing where it's like your heart your heart has been broken by paperwork in the past therefore you're like I hate it yeah I hate it no I hope some people in the comments understand me here but I feel so much better when I'm working on one thing like doing like it's I like Simplicity and peace and I would always choose that over complexity even if it means way more money yeah but why why don't you just abstract away the paperwork so for example I own a holding company a co-own a I'm a co-founder in a

[28:38] holding company lay checkout and there's deals that get signed all the time and paperwork but and Inked Up but I'm not involved in signing them I just trust other people to sign them and then I don't yeah yeah I don't sign every deal like like $450,000 deals will come in which I won't even see it's more that I feel like I'm going to come across like a complete idiot on this call because this is the truth the TR because my entrepreneur friends also think I'm stupid when it comes to this stuff it is there's more noise when I have holding company plus AJ and Smart Plus a few

[29:27] other things going on there's more text messages there's more emails there's more slacks and it doesn't matter how in like automated and incentivized everyone is someone will always come to me and say yeah you know I'd actually like to talk about my compensation for doing this thing in this company and I I simply don't enjoy the amount of new open threads it creates someone we know we know you and I know Sam somewhat Sam ovens he has a SIM similar brain in a way that he like hyper focuses on one thing and leaves infinite money on the table because of wanting to avoid complexity and so for

[30:10] me for me I view that as as more complex than I want to go to even though everyone tells me I'm stupid about it and I don't disagree with them so I agree it's stupid that I won't do the whole Co thing but it just makes me feel stressed it's the reason I also don't own a place I don't I I have a very simple easy setup life I think that you can still have an easy simple life if you just abstract away things and I think the what you need to do is is figure out how you can abstract away the things that you really don't

[30:49] like abstract away meaning giving it to other people correct dude it always comes back yeah it always comes back it like as in for me it it still like let's say um like there's always things that come back to the legal owner yes you know what I mean eventually yeah obviously but you know it doesn't it it doesn't have to happen like very frequently you know it happens per quarter yeah exactly I am literally talking about that level but it's like all right you're I don't know again what you want to put on the podcast I have a kid in the picture that makes everything 10 times louder and 10 times more

[31:37] complicated and she's not in the kindergarten and now there's an outbreak of a vomiting bug and now I have this thing over here and I have this thing over here it's it makes me feel stressed and and like loud even when one thing per extra thing per quarter comes in whereas when I'm just running one business it's still lot of stuff but dude you know what I think I need to talk to you about this CU maybe you're right maybe I'm just doing way too many things that are completely unnecessary but I have these phases where I like step out of everything and then I'm like all right I'm free and

[32:13] then I get bored and then I'm like I'm going to go in and then I'm like I'm overwhelmed and finding this Middle Ground between bored and overwhelmed I find very tricky you need to do and people listening should do this too is like just an audit a straight up audit of all the things you do is it necessary is it unnecessary what can you abstract away what can you not abstract away and then what's your goal what what is the goal you want to you know come to and and and I think that's that's it that's that's like that's going to help you like that's the framework that's the

[32:49] non-framework framework um so you have some serious thinking you got to do Jonathan do you have a financial goal like big p so that's the I think that's one of the issues I have is that I don't know what I'm actually working toward like I don't have like oh this would be the number I would love to have or this is the thing I'm trying to do like with AJ and smart I'm like 10 million Revenue but it's like a random thing I pull out of my head it's not a do you have for yourself personally do you have like a financial goal on a yearly basis or like when you

[33:27] want to retire like when do you want to have be financially free something like that am I coming across as like really neurotic and weird on this episode just the way I wanted this couldn't have gone better so I have a financial rate of return that I want to hit in my portfolio which includes liquid and non liquid and I have goals for each of my individual businesses um which um you know some are financial and some are not but they're all kind of made up goals it's just pretty arbitrary but it's just you need you know what is what isn't measured what is it what's the expression what isn't

[34:17] measured doesn't get managed something like that something like that that's the that's the basic measure something that's a basic idea that's the basic idea I mean if you don't basically if you don't you don't if you don't measure are you gonna say the same thing again uh if you don't measure you don't manage uh we did this uh a few times ago in the Pod St into the river the river's moving exactly so I'm not good at sayings I'm not good at sayings but I am good at balance you still go for the sayings yeah I still go for it that's the type of guy I

[34:56] am I appreciate that you do actually put out the podcast unedited like this yes I mean in a way it can be painful to watch because there are any awkward silences between you and I are actually just still in there I'd appreciate if your editors would remove some of that uh but I I think it's cool that you're willing to just put it out there and including the fact that you say these saying and then forget them and just doesn't matter I mean I think it's great just this is like the real the real life of of entrepreneurs right this is this is it this conversation you

[35:34] know everything we're saying is real and and and and that's what I want to put out there so what is I think this could be the title uh and this could be the clip here coming up because I feel like what is the thing that you find the most difficult and painful about entrepreneurship um so I my answer to that question is that I do do have the feeling that there's a lot of weight on my shoulders to make the decisions that move us forward and the financial wellbeing of the people who are employed by me and and like the the direction and all of that and then sometimes I'm like

[36:12] man I wonder could I just make the same amount of money not doing all of that and not having all of this responsibility so for me definitely there's this feeling of wouldn't it be great if someone else would just tell me what to do sometimes um and instead of having to be basically creative all the time uh what do you find painful or negative or what like what sometimes really gets you about being an entrepreneur I'm trying to get [ __ ] anything out of you man the most painful part about being an entrepreneur to me is the uncertainty period so anything could happen you know

[36:55] you wake up you know if you're building a SAS startup for example you wake up every day and you check product hunt and you're like I hope that uh you know if you're competing against figma figma didn't launch something to compete directly against you there's like 800 pound gorillas literally everywhere that uh could squash you in in a moment and I just think that the uncertainty and the slot machine nature of being an entrepreneur just it is tough it is it is really tough and you have to be at peace with it if you're not able to be at peace with the uncertainty then you'll never survive as an

[37:34] entrepreneur at all at all so uh that's another reason I like being a holdco entrepreneur or multipreneur as I call it because you know if you have a bunch of Revenue lines and product lines even if one of them suffers from one of these 800 PB gorillas or or an upstart or a BL Swan event like co uh it's okay and because you have other Revenue lines that are doing well and then I would say because I guess we're just different types of entrepreneurs I would say that it would be difficult for me to go all in on one of them and really like I don't know I feel like right now with AJ

[38:19] and smart we've the last couple years we've been sort of like are we a training company or are we a consulting company and I I think actually we're about to go in a direction that will be more akin to the way you're doing it today um where we have a bit more separation between between the brands and actually maybe maybe all of this bullshitting I've been talking about in this episode is going to be all undone when people see the the relaunch because it's a bit more hold Coy um but I yeah I think for me I struggle first of all uncertainty absolutely I think if you

[38:56] inherently are struggle with uncertainty I don't think you'll even go into entrepreneurship like you have people I feel like might you might because like there's a lot of people listening to podcasts like this and just seeing entrepreneurs out there and they're like I want that and then once they take the plunge and their heartbeat goes from 120 to you know their resting heartbeat goes from 120 to 180 overnight then and uh they're like what did I just sign up for what have I done what have I done like you know this your podcast talks a lot about ideas and I think ideas are great and all

[39:40] but you can't no but you can't come on the startup ideas podcast dude not love theast one startup idea by the way I'm gonna give a startup idea at the end of this podcast okay okay okay and then talk smack about startup ideas yeah no no no no no no no listen I think you'll agree with the next thing I'm going to say ideas are really important but the person who's actually executing the ideas and their mindset and their abilities is just as important if not more like if you took any of Cody Schneider's ideas his second name is Schneider right yes okay if you took any

[40:17] of Cody's ideas but you were really worried about uncertainty all the time and you were still like I don't know you just had this and you also got uh overwhelmed very easily and you had a lot of fear you'd have a harder time than someone who is more entrepreneurially inclined you you'd struggle with it more and so I think ideas are execution is just extremely important you came on the podcast to say execution is everything execution ideas podcast oh no startup execution podcast I mean obviously execution is important right you can't just come up with ideas but like when I say yeah debate me yeah I'll debate you I'll debate you actually

[41:03] yeah then let me put my statement more clear I do actually think execution is more important than the ideas themselves and I've seen people try to execute the same ideas as I do but they give up much quicker than me and so therefore it's as if it didn't matter in the first place ideas and execution are really important you can't do that one that's debate if we because I'm going to agree with that I'm going to agree with that the reality is this if you have really good ideas on a product a niche how to grow it and then who to hire to execute on it

[41:48] then you're Gucci oh yeah yeah you're right yeah you are right on that one I I guess when I say execution I mean the actual ability to follow through and even hire that person yeah yeah I mean tomato tomato you know what I'm saying tomato Tomo all right what's your [ __ ] startup idea all right here's just so you can say this is the name of the podcast so yeah I told you the topic wasn't necessarily related uh I'm here in Canada in in in the small town and uh every Saturday there's this farmers market and I've noticed that this farmers market over the years has gotten busier

[42:32] and busier and people are getting just cultish over it and I've noticed this in in when I'm in Miami the farmers markets and other places there's farmer markets and it's just this whole like shop local shop organic vibe that I think uh and I don't know how it is in Europe similar similar yeah similar like really cult they become super overcrowded everyone loves them I also love them um yeah I don't know what you're going to say next but that part is similar what I'm going to say next is that I think that so this town that has the farmers market is a really small town but there's so many

[43:16] people that come during on Saturdays that it's like really good for the town they find out about the town they're coming from all over uh there's then the you know restaurants are popping up and and all these sorts of things and I think that there's an opportunity to basically be the person that manages organizes farmers markets and then goes to you know you can go to cities and be or or towns and and Villages and be like hey like we want to set up this farmers market give us some space you you you curate the merchants the business model could be you take you either charge like

[43:57] essentially for the merchants or you just take like a percentage of Revenue and you're making the world a better place cuz you know shop local shop organic all these things so I just think that there's an opportunity this is a non-digital idea but I just think that there's like a pretty simple idea where if you if you care about shop local you can probably convince a lot of these entrepreneurs to set up shop you don't need that many of them maybe like six or 10 to start and definitely make and I think you can make a few thousand do a week just get going and then the last

[44:36] thing I'll say is you can what I like about this idea is you know if it works in this small town you can bring it to other small towns and uh replicate the model so I actually think that this is like a several million dollar year idea I love it and you could even like okay so the idea would be you're you're running is it like a two-sided Marketplace as well where you're also essentially bringing the customers by being also the advertiser for the event yes okay so that's really cool because what you could also do and you know if you want to get funding you have to say the word

[45:16] AI so you have to use AI to find the perfect towns where you can set this up where you can say find me we used this amazing AI to find the towns which do not yet have farmers markets but have all of the supply and are surrounded by a lot of demand and so we find these Center points and we turn them into these third spaces where people from different towns can come together and and you could also then expand it to I don't know if you guys like flea markets in Berlin are also super popular yeah and they like combine flea markets with farmers markets and it's like a

[45:54] whole thing you could just expand out to anything where this concept of local also like local art local Pottery local furniture making uh I love the idea I think it's great yeah yeah that's the idea and that's and you're giving it away because you know no one can execute it I'm giving it away because I would like to see a lot of nitro coffee for that one that's true I I do I do I would like to see more of these pop up and I just think think that it's one of those like really validated ideas the hard part about the idea is just getting these entrepreneurs to agree to show up

[46:37] on a Saturday morning or whatever because they have to staff it it's like a big logistical thing as well because uh well that also gives it sort of like a moat because if you can get this working it's really hard to compete with there's there's a I'm not going to reveal where I live but there is a market near to where I live and the company obviously who runs the market you know they set up the tables they set everything up so that the different companies can just come like uh there's a place here if you Google it called Mar tala noin and you rent the space they

[47:12] create they have the space they've now expanded it out onto the streets it's unbelievably popular and it's gone from being a farmers's market to now there being events on like Thursday nights and sat like Saturday there's like this cheese event and then there's a chocolate focused event that [ __ ] is like expanding like crazy and I never thought about it being an actual I never thought about the idea that you could be the middleman in between all of these places even then finding the location even like renovating the place being the person who brings all the tables you could really like Corner that market in

[47:49] your area are you going to do it probably not you got enough but you got your whole Co you can just like you abstract it out abstract it out I'm I'm I'm really into digital ideas right now okay yeah and but I think someone should do it how would you start something like that would you start by going to the suppliers would you start by looking for the space like what would be the early steps if someone in your audience actually wants to give this a try what would be like some of the yeah tomorrow this would be the first thing to do step one would be I'd

[48:32] create an audience in my town so I would you know local like restaurant reviews and and Hotel reviews and things like that like build a email list or Tik Tok following in my local Town once I have that then I have leverage with the merchants and I say like hey I'm thinking about creating this you know flea market meets farmers market by the way I think there's like a name that you can own there like what is that you know what is that called you know flea and farmer I know put it together farmer flee to mouth yeah yeah something like that and you know if I was able to pull

[49:18] pull this together and get hundreds of people to come on a Saturday would this be of interest and that's all you need you just need them to say yes and then once you have five or eight or 12 of those you go to the the the city and there's there's always someone or town and there's always someone there who's like their job is is Commerce and in my little town in Canada uh that I'm that I'm that I'm in um I actually met with like the government official and and he was just like you you'd be surprised you can like walk right in and into the town hall you know

[49:54] these are small towns and and uh and just be like hey like is you know in this case like is Deni around and and you just like have a chat with him and and and you'd be how the these these people are open to having conversations with citizens or people who live there um and uh and then and then you get them to support it in some in some way and then once you have both sides it's then then you you you know I don't think you're going to need that much of your own cash to uh to actually get this going so it has a lot of the

[50:29] ingredients I like for a business idea doesn't require a lot of cash to get going it's something that could be replicated um it's it's there's also probably an opportunity to create like the brand for for this Cate for this type of experience like for example in New York I think they have something called schoras Borg have you heard about this I've heard the word schoras Borg but not the the event I think it's like uh you know someone's gonna kill me on this because I'm getting it wrong but it's basically like in Brooklyn and a few other places I think there's just like you know a huge

[51:11] huge almost like a food truck festival all the different schoras Borg of food and there's it's kind of like this in some ways but then it becomes a brand you know it's like oh you going to sh MarBorg this week you're going toborg and they're able to like you know if they opened one up in Portland Oregon I'm sure uh that would get Buzz as well another another example of someone who's done this by the way is Timeout so they have these timeout like food halls where they went to um like the popular but Landmark food institutions in cities and then they create like a uh what's it

[51:58] called the food court so instead of having like Subway and McDonald's it it's it's like the the local scharman that everyone knows in the town yeah yeah I remember I think I was in like Sweden recently and I and I was looking there was like this timeout food court and I was like what the why timeout timeout what I didn't get the connection with the magazine and so for me I just had no idea what that meant it's like I'm going to take a little break take little time out uh okay so this idea is super interesting I have the boring agency that can go along with it so

[52:37] let's say the hold co uh that creates this farmers market will have another business we'll own another business which is like the business that you can hire to help you basically invent and conceptualize and create the logistics around events like this this I honestly think if you had like one of the most difficult things to do I'm going I'm flying to paloalto in a couple of weeks to run a training event and selling the event and the tickets are like 10K each was a 100 times easier than arranging the event and organizing it and getting the catering sorted and in the end we spent approximately 30,000 it probably be more than

[53:20] $30,000 uh to get it all organized and we couldn't find anyone to help us with this we ended up almost doing every element of it ourselves or at least we didn't find any influencer or brand or YouTube channel that talks about setting up events in a way that it would make us reach out to them and contact them and I was thinking just when you were talking there is we need the Greg Eisenberg or we need the you know specific INF we need me for in the facilitation world but for event management which is first of all seen as a job no one really wants to do and it's

[53:56] like always in the top lists of most stressful jobs to do as well but it is a thing that a lot of companies want to do events especially now postco a lot of companies want to go back to doing more in-person things and it is really difficult to find anyone to help with that to help with the logistics literally the the brief would have been we're running an event in paloalto it's four days long uh there's this many people can you [ __ ] help us figure this out and like we'll give you a 10K commission whatever the commission is on the on the thing uh and we couldn't find

[54:33] anybody so we did it ourselves so for this uh idea that you have it would be amazing if you as the entrepreneur if you were starting it could call up event inperson Co and say hey Greg like we're thinking about doing this thing in this town uh I really do not want to be involved in the logistics of it for the first one at least can you do like an event Sprint for us and get it off the ground next time we'll do it all ourselves because you'll have connected us with all the people but how do we get this event off the ground can you do an

[55:07] event Sprint for us like that type of company desperately needs to exist someone who is very good at organizing stuff and enjoys that and gets pleasure out of it needs to start an event management company that isn't a website with pictur of big speakers and PA systems on it it's a it's a person it's a video of a person showing you how to do it all yourself Greg content style but for event management honestly I think it would be a game changer I think you could start it in basically every city and these people will be booked out forever yeah yeah so there are experiential agencies that do like you

[55:49] know if you're uh Evon and you want to you know throw an event at you know Wimbledon there's big agencies that do that a buddy of mine owns one I think he does like 30 million a year in Revenue um oh my God those are like these like brand activation things right yeah so that exists um but you know I think for smaller companies um more like new types of events like the ones we're talking doesn't exist and I wonder what you can do also on the business model to make it different and interesting like maybe you can do like rev shares and maybe you can make it a product IED

[56:33] service and some capacity so there's a lot there's a lot here yeah if you want to look at what I was looking at go to Google or if your team wants to show this you Google event Management Palo Alto Palo Alto like one of the wealthiest places on the planet and hopefully you see the opportunity I'm talking about oh man I don't I don't want to [ __ ] on any of the companies I just want to say we ended up having to do it ourselves you don't want to but you will I didn't I really I really but also like this you know Laura organized our paloalto event

[57:14] booked the location booked the catering she's our head of marketing right this is how difficult and and every day of her time is worth a lot of money 100% it's crazy good idea good pod good friend did I did I save my uh did I save myself at the end there after [ __ ] all over the podcast and saying it's all about execution you you always save yourself I think if you if you enjoyed this episode give us a like on YouTube if you're you know and a comment just because we we we do read every single jarn comment we literally do like and reply to every single one as well and

[57:52] we're like texting each other about the comment so like it and comment and if you are listening to this on Spotify or apple podcast rate review and then join us on YouTube where the fun is yes please and thank you so much Greg for having me on the podcast again thank you so much for Greg's audience also for the really kind comments and uh yeah your audience is really great and like Greg said we genuinely read every single one makes our day uh when you guys have something to say absolutely no criticism is accept it no just kidding if you want to make fun of Jonathan Go For It Go For

[58:32] It Go For It Go for it but don't do that unless you give us a thumbs up on YouTube if you want to follow Jonathan you can follow him on his crappy username on X ice cream J ice cream by the way it's a perfect example of my piece thing I just don't use social media because I don't want to keep going into all the services and seeing what's going on going on you you can't you can't I just told people to follow you and then you're like I don't use social media you know I'm worried I'm worried that uh no no I'm using Twitter now I'm

[59:06] using X because of you there we go thank you and I'm enjoying it I'm enjoying I only downloaded I only went back to X after being on the episode with you a couple of weeks ago um for the first time in seven years or something so I'm actually having a lot of fun on there now okay there you go okay I'm following your advice I'm trying to follow your anyway all right go build some internet audiences people go build some internet audiences there we go later me building an audience bye everyone bye [Music]

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