October 16, 2024 • 46 mins
In this episode, we’re asking the question of, are side hustles the new normal? In recent surveys, nearly 50-percent of the population has a side hustle in addition to their full-time work. What starts as a side hustle often begins with a spark of passion or a desire to explore an idea outside the confines of a regular job. It's a space for creativity, a chance to build something meaningful on your own terms. But as this small venture grows, it presents a unique opportunity: the chance to transform that side hustle into a full-fledged startup.
To explore this growing trend, we’re delighted to talk with Chuck Temple and see if a startup might be part of your future of work.
Read the transcript @https://bit.ly/3FoHVcm
Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/4dKKgK1
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(00:03):
CHUCK TEMPLE (00:06):
Everybody has ideas, right?
The people that actually getout there and talk about it
and get feedbackon it, then those
are the people that are going toat least get to failure quicker,
if not success quicker.
The risk isn't talking aboutit and getting feedback.
The bigger risk is not talkingabout it and getting no
feedback, and then wasting yourtime and your money or other
(00:27):
people's.
That's the bigger risk.
JILL FINLAYSON (00:32):
Welcome to the Future of Work podcast
with BerkeleyExtension and the EDGE
in Tech at theUniversity of California
focused on expanding diversityand gender equity in tech.
EDGE in Tech is partof CITRIS, the Center
for IT Research in theInterest of Society
and the Banatao Institute.
UC Berkeley Extension isthe continuing education arm
of UC Berkeley.
(00:52):
In this episode, we'reasking the question of,
are side hustles the new normal?
In recent surveys, nearly50% of the population
has a side hustle in additionto their full-time job.
What starts out as aside hustle often begins
as a spark from apassion or a desire
to explore an idea outsidethe confines of a regular job.
(01:15):
It's a space forcreativity, a chance
to build somethingmeaningful on your own terms.
But as this smallventure grows, it
presents a uniqueopportunity, the chance
to transform that side hustleinto a full-fledged startup.
To explore thisgrowing trend, we're
delighted to talkwith Chuck Temple
and see if a startup might bepart of your future of work.
(01:37):
Chuck Temple is a highlysuccessful entrepreneur,
having founded threemillion-dollar industry-leading
companies.
The first of thesecompanies, DVD Your Memories,
was started on a shoestringand with no outside funding,
yet went on to becomeone of the largest, most
successful personalmedia transfer companies
in the United States.
With no formalbusiness education,
(01:58):
Chuck decided togo back to school
and receive hisMBA from UC Davis
with a focus onentrepreneurship in 2016,
the same year he won the firstplace in the prestigious Big
Bang!
Business Competition.
Chuck, along with hisbusiness competition partner,
went on to found theElectric Scooter Guide.
And within oneyear, that company
(02:18):
became the world'sleading resource
for the personalelectric scooter market.
He's also a formerExtension Instructor.
And currently, Chuckresides in San Francisco Bay
Area with his wifeand two young sons.
His latest endeavor is apickleball event management
platform.
Welcome, Chuck.
CHUCK TEMPLE (02:35):
Hi.
Thank you for having me.
JILL FINLAYSON: Great to have you. (02:37):
undefined
You know, for many people,turning their side hustle
into a career is the dream.
It's a dream of autonomy.
It's a dream of getting paidto do things you've loved.
And you even documentedyour first startup
in the book Startupto Sold, How I
Built My Side Hustle into aMultimillion-Dollar Business.
It sounds really glamorous.
It actually sounds almostfictional, so I was wondering,
(02:59):
what is the reality ofstarting that first company?
CHUCK TEMPLE: Everybody, I think, (03:02):
undefined
has a different path totheir first business.
And for me, it wassimply a necessity.
I was kind of a broke andstarving college student.
One thing led to another,and all of a sudden I
realized that there was a lotof personal media out there.
This is 2006.
And personal media being slides,photos, videotapes, old movie
(03:25):
films, stuff like that.
And there was a demand for it.
I could feel thatthere was a demand,
but also I just found that Ihad a passion for the business.
It was my first realbusiness, and I had never
had a business class before.
And so for me, the differentpieces of that business
became this really,really interesting puzzle
(03:47):
where you have marketing andoperations and equipment,
and just all these differentlevers and switches and dials.
And each one, you cankind of twist and turn
and become better at.
And I thought it was thiskind of ultimate game to play.
For me, that's how I got going.
But the basics were,is there a demand?
And at that time and inSan Diego, there was.
(04:09):
And I could feel it.
I didn't have anystats to back that up,
but I could feel it becauseI knew a lot of seniors
at the time.
And they were always saying,I have all this stuff.
What do I do with it?
And then the passionwas there for me
to do this work because it'ssomething that I could do,
and I enjoyed solving problemsfor these people, which
is what I think businesses are.
JILL FINLAYSON (04:30):
That's amazing.
So you basically found therewere all these people who
had pictures, butdidn't have a good way
to store them or view them.
And you're like,I can solve that.
CHUCK TEMPLE (04:38):
Yeah.
And it wasn't something thatyou need a lot of high tech
for, right?
It was kind of--except for movie film,
it's all somewhat prosumer-gradestuff that we would buy.
And so it was something that Icould do without a lot of money
because I had no money.
I started on a credit card, anda college student doesn't have
a very high limit creditcard, and mine wasn't.
My current roommate at the timeand I bought a slide scanner,
(05:00):
and that's how we started.
JILL FINLAYSON (05:01):
You could see that there were
some people who needed this.
But in a broader sense, where doyou think good ideas come from?
And how do you knowit's a good idea?
How do you define a good idea?
CHUCK TEMPLE (05:11):
I would say maybe three things.
So demand, personalpassion, and the fact
that you have theskills and capability.
And then maybethere's a fourth one,
which is, do I havethis problem personally,
so that you can empathizewith your customer.
And I think, though, if therewas a Venn diagram of those four
things, if you were centeredin the middle where all of them
(05:34):
meet, then you probablyhave a good idea.
However, as you goforward, passion, OK.
That's like, you eitherhave it or you don't.
And do you have--
these are pretty binary things.
But demand is probablythe most tricky one.
And the way that I alwayskind of look at demand
is kind of throughthese tests, right?
And so you could, say,start with the $0 test
(05:56):
and figure out whether ornot there is a demand at $0.
And $0 could just beasking people, right?
It doesn't cost you any money.
And then if it's provencorrect, then you
can go to, say, a $50test where you maybe
make a really simple websiteand put a form on there
to collect emails, and just putyour pitch out there, and then
(06:18):
try to send people to it.
Maybe attend a farmers market,or somehow get your idea out
there.
And if that works, then you cankeep building up to a $500 test,
and then a $5,000 test,and work your way up.
But the mistake I think a lot ofpeople make, and what I made--
every entrepreneurprobably has at least one
unsuccessful business.
And the one where Ifailed, I failed because I
(06:40):
didn't follow that advice.
I did a-- let's just say a$80,000 give or take test before
doing a $200 test.
We did it backwards, and we ranout of money for the $80,000,
and my co-founders quit.
And then I did the$200 test, realized
(07:01):
that there was no demandfor that particular product,
and then moved on.
JILL FINLAYSON (07:06):
Yeah, I think that is an area where people--
they do fall in lovewith the problem.
Maybe they have the problem, butthey don't talk to enough people
to see if there's customerswho are willing to pay
to solve that problem.
CHUCK TEMPLE (07:18):
Yes.
You fall in love with it.
Like, maybe your passionbecomes too high.
Or for me, I had justfinished business school,
so I thought, oh, OK, Iknow what I'm doing now.
But then the ideaI thought was good.
And so my two co-founders and Ijust ran with it and developed
it and spent $50,000, $60,000on development costs to make
(07:38):
an app.
We ran out of moneybefore it was even done.
But then what Iended up doing right
is I hacked togetherthe software
to do this particular thing--
I'll just tell you what it was.
It was called Vira.
So basically, theidea for this thing
was a virtual assistantthat was web-based
where you just push one button.
It automatically connects youto a live virtual assistant
(08:01):
that's, like, face toface with you, right?
And we thought thatwould be awesome.
And I had assistants ready,and the app and the technology.
I mean, you could imagine.
This is 2016.
It was a lot of moneyto develop this.
We even made it-- literallywe made-- it's so funny.
We made a commercial.
We went to Los Angeles,got a producer,
and literally made acommercial with actors.
(08:22):
Yeah, lookingback, it was silly.
But the commercial's awesome.
And my girlfriend, who'snow my wife, was actually--
she was in it on a nonspeakingrole, which is kind of fun.
So it's cool to havethis commercial.
But anyway, fast forward--
I don't know.
We spent five, six monthsbuilding this thing.
I got investors.
I mean, it was the whole deal.
And then once weran out of money
(08:43):
and it kind of failedand the co-founders,
we all kind of split up, Ihacked together something
to do this with.
I think it was some voicerecording program that
dropped a voice note intoDropbox, which then texted
the assistants or something.
Basically, it was likealmost free software, just
to see if anybody would use it.
(09:04):
And I don't know.
I gave it away for free.
And even for free, almostnobody used this tool.
And so basically,the idea of having
this on-demand virtual assistantfor the majority of people, it
just wasn't viable atthat time, at least not
for us, or for me theway that I was doing it.
And this was something that wasbuilt using almost free tools
(09:26):
and doing it myself, doingthe assistant work myself.
It still didn't work.
It's still-- people would useit once, and they just didn't--
for whatever reasonwith their life
and the psychology ofpeople, it just didn't work.
JILL FINLAYSON (09:37):
So this is your first red flag.
If you give it awayfor free and no one
uses it or no one comesback, that's not a good sign.
[LAUGHS]
CHUCK TEMPLE (09:44):
Yes.
And that's after youalready even built.
I think for this idea,it passes the $0 test.
Like, you talk to people andthey say, it's a good idea.
You try to raise some money.
Friends and family,they give you money.
That's a $0 test.
It's when actually--wanted to build the $200
test website plus a littlebit of really cheap software,
if that doesn'twork, then I'm done.
(10:05):
And that could have been onemonth and almost no money
invested, and I wouldhave figured out
how to basically moveon quickly because where
you get stuck in businessis when you have an idea,
you think it's really good,but you spend way too long
trying to figure that out.
And it's all about, how fast canyou disprove your hypothesis,
(10:27):
I would say.
Your hypothesisbeing like, this is
going to work because ofthis reason, whatever it is.
However fast you can getto that answer, that's
part of what makes,I think, people
successful as an entrepreneur.
JILL FINLAYSON (10:38):
And how do you get them to tell you the truth?
Because as you said,people want to support you.
They want to be encouraging.
How do you get themto tell you the truth,
as if they wouldactually use it?
CHUCK TEMPLE (10:47):
Yeah, well, if they don't use it for free,
well, that's a good answer.
And then if theyuse it for free,
but then you needto charge some money
or you need to putsome ad on something,
or whatever it is,and that doesn't work
or there's not a wayfor that to happen,
then it would be hard to saythat there's value there.
So there's certainthings that you
could do that maybe peoplewant, but if they're not
(11:09):
willing to payanything for it or go
on a website at a regularbasis, or whatever
it is that makes-- thatpotentially can earn revenue,
then that's alsokind of a red flag.
JILL FINLAYSON (11:19):
So listen to people.
Ask a lot of questions earlyon, and move on quickly.
Even if you lovethe idea, you've
got to be willingto move on quickly.
CHUCK TEMPLE (11:26):
Yeah.
And you've got to beOK talking about it.
I think that's the one thingthat so many entrepreneurs get
really afraid of, and Ican kind of see why, right?
It's easy.
Well, nowadays it's easierand easier to build ideas.
But if they're afraid to talkabout their idea for fear
that someone's going totake it, the real enemy
here is that youdon't talk about it.
(11:47):
You don't learn aboutthe breadth of your idea.
You don't get the feedback.
Because it's really allabout business ideas,
being an entrepreneur,coming s with new things.
It's really about, how well dopeople understand your idea?
How well do they take to it?
All that stuff.
You don't get anyof that feedback
unless you actuallytalk to people.
An idea-- everybodyhas ideas, right?
The people that actually getout there and talk about it
(12:09):
and get feedbackon it, then those
are the people that are going toat least get to failure quicker,
if not success quicker.
JILL FINLAYSON: Yeah, I love that, (12:16):
undefined
because you don't want to spenda huge amount of time only
to find out later thatyou can't do anything.
You want to get thatfeedback early and frequently
so that you're developing thething that people actually want.
CHUCK TEMPLE (12:27):
Yes.
And I think thatwhen people say,
it's not really abouttaking a risk in that you
are taking a risk by nottalking about it, right?
It's not-- the riskisn't talking about it
and getting feedback.
The bigger risk is not talkingabout it and getting no
feedback, and then wasting yourtime and your money or other
people's.
That's the bigger risk.
JILL FINLAYSON (12:48):
So let's talk about one
of your next big risks.
You actually starteda juice company,
which seems very differentfrom DVDing people's memories.
How did you endup tackling this?
What was similar andwhat was different?
CHUCK TEMPLE (13:01):
Just to clarify, I was hired as a co-founder,
but the company hadalready started before me.
So juicing and stufflike that was--
I love that industry.
And it was really myonly job since college.
I had just movedto San Francisco,
had just failed at thevirtual assistant thing,
and I wanted to meetother co-founders
and just get into thevibe of San Francisco.
(13:23):
I'd never lived there before.
And so my wifekind of encouraged
me to get a jobwhere you get paid--
my only time I've ever had asalary paid by someone else.
And so I was hired as the COOfor a juice company called Happy
Moose Juice, which is awonderful company based
in San Francisco.
And we did in-housejuice making,
and it was delivered to alot of the big tech companies
(13:45):
in San Francisco,which was awesome.
But then there waskind of a mass--
call it HPP, High-PressurePasteurization,
I believe, kind sideof the company that
was trying to get into grocerystores and bigger stuff
like that.
JILL FINLAYSON (13:56):
So what was the same,
and what did you have to learn?
Because this was a moreperishable product.
Did that changehow you approached?
CHUCK TEMPLE (14:04):
Oh, yeah.
So what I love aboutjust life in general
is that there's somany things to learn.
And there's business, right?
There's just so manydifferent types of businesses.
So every business I'veeither worked in or been in
has been reallycompletely 100% different.
So media transfer.
Obviously, s is perishablein the nature of decades,
(14:24):
whereas juice is perishablein the-- sometimes a few days,
a certain ingredientwill go bad.
And so the first thing that Idid was analyze their process.
And then after analyzingit, basically kind of
created an ERP systemin Google Sheets
to basically figure outtheir whole operation.
(14:47):
So from the stock that camein, how many days it lasts,
what juices we're going tomake, how much of this kale
we needed in thisjuice, blah, blah, blah.
It was really fun to getsuper deep into the weeds.
And that's a good way tolearn the business also.
But consumer packagedgoods and juice in general
is just really differentbecause it's about scale
(15:08):
and it's about big partnerships,and it's really interesting.
JILL FINLAYSON (15:12):
You've done all these startups.
Let's see.
We've got a successfulstartup that you sold.
We've got a startupthat failed, and we've
got hired to co-lead, co-found astartup that was already going.
What made you decide to stop andgo back to school at this point?
CHUCK TEMPLE (15:26):
After I sold the DVD Your Memories company, when
I started I was a psychologystudent really wanting
to get into neuroscience.
I was going to take a yearoff and go to Thailand
and just teach English,and then go and try
to get my PhD in neurobiology.
And what happened wasthat business started.
I grew it to the pointwhere I thought maybe
(15:49):
someone else could growit more, and that's
the reason why it sold.
At that time, I had four storesin two states and 27 employees,
and it was runningpretty well, actually.
Like, I could-- ifI'm not growing it,
it was really onlyabout 10 hours a week
to just maintain all of thatbecause the systems were
really tight.
But I always assumeI'm just not sure.
(16:10):
I'm just not sureuntil I'm 100% sure.
And so for me, I wanted to--
since I had no formal educationin business, I felt like, OK,
I had this awesome experiencewith DVD Your Memories.
It grew.
But I personallywasn't, like, personally
passionate about the mediatransfer industry myself.
(16:30):
Just, I don't havethis type of media.
I was working with mostlyseniors at the time that
had that type of media.
And so I wanted to go to schoolto see what I didn't know
so that way, I could-- thenext business that I had
or whatever I did next, I couldbe that much more effective
at it.
And so that is why Iwanted to go get an MBA,
(16:53):
was because I had a business.
I had no business background.
I wanted to see where myholes were in my own game
because that's how Iwas successful at DVD
Your Memories was byrecognizing my own weaknesses
and then trying to fill them.
I was like, OK,on a larger level,
why don't I go getan MBA to figure out
where my holes are in businessso that I could fill them,
(17:14):
so that I could be a betterbusiness owner or entrepreneur?
JILL FINLAYSON (17:18):
All right, so share.
What were the holesthat you found?
And what did you pick upthat you wish you'd known?
CHUCK TEMPLE (17:24):
So my biggest holes were,
I would say, inunderstanding finance.
That's probably the biggest one.
And then also partnerships.
I guess it would be likeall my favorite classes.
I had this class.
Hemant Bhargava isthe professor there,
and he taught a platform--it's called Tech Competition
and Strategy, but I callit, like, Platforms 101.
(17:46):
And understanding thevalue of a platform,
that was maybe mybiggest lesson.
Also, there are some greatentrepreneurship classes
that I had, without naming allthe professors that were there.
But just how I hadmentioned the $0 test
to the $50 test,that whole concept
I learned at thebusiness school.
I would say thosewould be the biggest.
(18:08):
My strategy for business school,I'll just say this right now.
I don't really rememberthings all that well.
And so what I did is I justbasically took notes and didn't
care about remembering anything.
And so then when I started anew business or I had an idea
or I'm consulting with somebodywith an idea, whatever it is,
I would just go to thatclass, and I would just
(18:28):
go through mylist-- my note list.
And so I've done that togreat effect in every business
that I've done orconsulted with since.
That is my MO forhelping them is I just--
I go through that and I makesure that I'm covering things,
and then all the goodideas flow back in.
JILL FINLAYSON (18:44):
Yeah.
One of the things I like arefinding the golden nuggets.
So you have thiswhole long class,
but there's two orthree things that you
walk away with from thatclass that sort of changed
how you thought about things.
For example, oneinstructor that I heard
was saying how oftentimes,people working on their side
hustle or doing astartup underprice
(19:05):
the value of their goods becausethey look at the cost of goods,
they look at theirtime, but they
don't look at the value ofthe product to the consumer.
And so being able to ask them,what would be a cheap price?
What would be anexpensive price?
What would beprohibitively expensive?
And really collectinginformation about,
what are people'swillingness to pay?
And that really stuck with me.
(19:25):
Did you have any other favoritethings that stuck with you?
CHUCK TEMPLE (19:28):
Oh my gosh.
I would say because I'vebeen involved in platforms
ever since, once I understoodthat the top, I don't know,
eight out of 10 biggestcompanies in the world
are all platforms now, and twodec-- or three-- well, now three
decades ago, they probablyweren't, they were probably
oil and gas companies andwhatnot, understanding
that was how I got superinterested in platforms.
(19:48):
Then understandingwhich side to subsidize,
how to solve the chicken and theegg problem, all of those things
are what helped the ElectricScooter Guide company take off
in the beginning.
And we followed basicallythe best practices
from that professor.
And then I still keep intouch with him to this day,
and he'll give me little tipsand ideas, and things like that.
(20:10):
So staying in touch, and thenalso just having those notes.
But understanding one-sided--or two-sided platforms,
and which side tosubsidize, and why
you want to have anexclusive partner,
and just how to takea leadership role.
And gosh, there's so much to it.
And so many peopleare making platforms
now that it's very interesting.
JILL FINLAYSON (20:28):
Yeah, I was very lucky.
I was actually one ofthe early employees
at eBay, which is very much atwo-sided platform for buying
and selling.
How would you define a platform?
And what might peoplethink about platforms
in terms of their ownideas or expertise?
How might they use a platform?
CHUCK TEMPLE (20:44):
Well, I think the easiest
way to think of a platform--
I mean, they've beenaround forever, right?
So a newspaper would be an ideaof a platform that everyone--
well, maybe noteveryone can understand
because I don't know if theyounger folks have seen them.
But basically, it'slike you have readers,
and you have advertisers,and you have the journalists.
(21:05):
So I guess you could say that.
Again, I'm not coming upwith this on the spot.
But in the middleis the newspaper,
and the newspaperhas journalists.
They write the articlesthat then the readers see,
so that's two sides.
And then if thereaders are reading it,
then you have a third side,which would be advertisers.
And so then you couldstart thinking of,
do you have same-side orcross-side network effects?
(21:26):
And when you do, thenthings can explode.
And that's where a lot ofthese huge apps like eBay
have become so successful.
JILL FINLAYSON (21:34):
So tell us about this startup
that you did while you wereat UC Davis or heading out.
What was this publishingElectric Scooter Guide idea?
CHUCK TEMPLE (21:42):
So the scooter thing
had all the criteria that Ihad mentioned in the beginning.
So electric scooterdemand wasn't quite there.
And this is for personalelectric scooters,
not the shared ones thatyou see on the street.
But there's a whole, of course,personal market for scooters.
So demand was starting,but we had gotten in early.
I had a huge passion forthis because I had just
(22:02):
moved to San Francisco.
I was going to get ane-bike, but my wife
was like, think I'mgoing to get a scooter.
That actually madea lot more sense
to get a scooter becauseyou could then just
take it into restaurants.
I could still ride to downtown,or wherever I wanted to go.
I personally used it, and thenI was in love with scooters.
I wouldn't stop talkingabout it to everybody,
and that's how I knew thatI wanted to do something
(22:24):
in the industry.
I had met Justin, who was myco-founder in that company,
because he was doingbusiness classes as part
of a joint program at UC Davis.
He was a biomedicalengineering PhD candidate,
or PhD student his last year.
So we graduatedat the same time.
We won this Big Bang!
Business Competition for aninvention that he came up with.
(22:46):
Went through a few differentideas, a smoothie shop.
And then I talkedabout scooters.
And we realized thatthis technology,
it was just coming to fruitionbecause basically the hub
motor, along with lithiumion battery prices
and the size of it, made itsuch that personal market
electric scooters was like-- itwas just this time in history
(23:07):
where it was justgoing to happen.
So what we did is wefound the first problem.
So we wanted to do something.
We're like, OK, well, what canwe do with electric scooters?
But also, I had randomlystarted the subreddit called
r/ElectricScooters on Reddit.
And I was managingthat community.
And I purely just pinned a postsaying, what do you guys need?
Like, what is neededin the industry?
(23:30):
They call itcommunity management,
which is just asking questionsand people give you answers.
And they said, we wantto just understand
what these scooters are.
There's so much misinformation.
There's these brands thatare coming out of China.
What's the real range?
What's the price?
Is this reliable?
What's the battery size?
Like, half the time yougo on their websites
and you either can't read it orthere's an extra zero in there
(23:51):
because it's justso unregulated,
and it's just sucha new industry.
And so what we did is we justput it all together into what
is really just a spreadsheet.
Took a few weeks, but wecataloged every scooter
in the world, or thatcould buy in the US.
We put a spreadsheettogether with actually
the correct information.
And then of course,there's this industry
(24:11):
called affiliatemarketing, which
becomes the scootercompanies that
had affiliate linkswhere we could make 4%,
or whatever it is.
So we just put thelinks on there.
We put the data in asortable, filterable way.
That's Justin.
He's, like, the internet guru.
And that was the first product.
And that's how Electric ScooterGuide started, I would say.
JILL FINLAYSON (24:29):
That's great.
And the whole ideathat you were trying
to solve a problemthat people couldn't
get accurate information.
You were doing thework to actually find
the real information.
Well, I kind of wantto go up a level
and talk about how you actuallythink about starting a startup.
But before I dothat, can I ask, what
are the pros and consof working on a startup?
CHUCK TEMPLE (24:49):
I think there's two big pros.
Number 1, you have autonomyover your time and what you do.
You now get to be the--create your own destiny.
You get to really test yourselfand see, how far can I go?
Like, what are my limits?
Can I make something that's thisbig or this big or this big?
(25:09):
And you can just put thesenumbers in your head.
And as far as youbelieve in yourself,
you probably can get there.
So that's one pro is beingable to work on what you want,
when you want, as long asyou want, or not at all.
And number 2, I think therecan be a really nice payoff
in the end.
Without getting tospecific numbers,
I got lucky frommy first company
(25:31):
because I was the 100% owner,and it was doing pretty well.
And so when it sold, Iwas 30, and I had no debt.
And so when that sold, Igot all the revenue for it.
And that kind of setme up for basically,
well, decades to whereI still need to work,
but at least I can workon something that I want
(25:51):
to work on rather thanthe pressure of life
and having to make ends meetand living paycheck to paycheck.
That is the pro isthat in the end,
potentially you can nothave financial issues.
And for me, it wasn't, like,a massive sale or anything
to where my kidsare set up for life.
It's not that much, butit is enough for myself.
(26:12):
It was basically juststress avoidance.
I think it's those two things.
It's its autonomyand eventual payoff.
JILL FINLAYSON: And the big cons? (26:18):
undefined
CHUCK TEMPLE (26:19):
Oh my gosh.
Well, people have asked when DVDYour Memories was five years in
or something, theysaid, hey, is it really
worth it to have a company?
Because I see how hard you work.
And I would have said probablyno for the first four or five
years until it gotto the point where
I was making a lotof money every year,
and my workload wasgoing down a little bit
(26:40):
because I started understandinga little bit more.
But I would say the bigcon is that if you're
the kind of person that wantsto take things on yourself,
and probably thekind of person that's
going to work really hard too--
and when you work really hardand you spend a lot of time,
it can take over.
It can eat you up.
Like, take over yourbrain a little bit.
And so you become obsessed.
(27:02):
And when you have gooddays, you feel great.
And when you have bad days,you don't feel so great,
and you stress about everything.
At least that was my way, right?
I had one employee outof 27 that wasn't happy,
it would really eat me up.
And so maybe that's amark of a good manager,
but it's not a good markfor sleeping well at night.
I would say the stress.
The stress can be really high.
(27:23):
Even when things aregoing bad, because times
were lean at the beginningof the DVD Your Memories
company where I wasbasically almost
broke and everyone wassaying I needed to quit,
that was a hard, hard time,and the stress is really high.
But then when we startedgrowing really fast,
there was a switchthat was flipped.
And that was from--
I had discovered Google AdWords,and I discovered split testing,
(27:46):
and then I discoveredunique selling proposition.
And then within two weeks, wewent from basically almost being
broke to making 4x,5x the next month.
And then that doubledagain that year,
and it doubled againlater that year.
But when you'regrowing really fast,
it's also really stressful,just not quite as stressful
as when you're almost broke.
So I think that'sthe biggest con,
(28:07):
is that it can bereally stressful.
And when you'renot making money,
you think you're a failure.
And you have to havereally good mental health
to be able to, I think,get through that.
JILL FINLAYSON (28:17):
If people are willing to go on this ride,
let's go through the how-tos.
So what would be step 1 ofstarting your own startup?
CHUCK TEMPLE (28:24):
Of course, some people
are thinking of maybea service business.
Some people might be thinkingof a software company.
Some people might bethinking of a website.
So there's so manydifferent things, right?
But the first step,see if you have the,
I would say, four criteria,number 1 being demand.
Because if youdon't have that one,
(28:45):
the other ones don't matter, OK?
Passion, passion forit, the skill set needed
to be successful, orthe ability to get
to what I would say80% perfect-- or it's
like, if there was the bestmarketing person that you know,
how quickly can youget between know
nothing and 80% of that person?
(29:05):
So that's the third one.
That's, like, the skillsto do this business.
And the last one is, do youexperience the problem yourself?
That's the fourth one.
If demand isn't there, thennone of the other three
really matter at all.
JILL FINLAYSON (29:17):
So you've found demand.
What's step 2?
CHUCK TEMPLE (29:21):
The next step is building the smallest
and cheapest andquickest thing you
can to see if you arefulfilling that demand.
You could also saysolving that problem.
So in the case ofElectric Scooter Guide,
it was making basically aspreadsheet that was web-based
that people could go to.
(29:42):
And then basically, we putit out there, and people--
they commented on it, right?
We didn't hide it.
We said, hey, this is the idea.
Here's a little sample.
And you get this feedback,because people want to help.
They want to-- people will helpyou solve their own problem
if you just let them.
And then you have--
what do they call it?
There's probablya term for this,
(30:03):
but it's basically havingthe customers help flesh
out your product.
And that's what I'vedone in all the companies
that I've been successful in.
And that's a key factor, isgetting those early customers
or those people you're helpingearly on, being really high
touch with them.
Talk to them.
Talk on the phone,whatever you can do.
With my current startup,I have a WhatsApp group
(30:23):
that's full of the users ofthis platform that I made.
And they basicallytell me everything
that they like, everythingthey don't like.
They come up with so manyideas that I can't even
implement them all at once.
And it's amazing because you'retalking to the people that
are actually your customers,and they're literally just
telling you what to build.
So there's nothingbetter than that.
JILL FINLAYSON: And that's really, (30:43):
undefined
I think, key is not onlyhaving those customers--
I think havingraving fans, right?
People who are actuallyactively engaging with you
and giving you feedbackis another good sign.
CHUCK TEMPLE (30:55):
Yes.
Absolutely, yeah.
If people are enthusiasticabout your product,
that's a really good green flag.
JILL FINLAYSON (31:00):
And with that feedback loop,
you said, build thesmallest thing that
can solve the problem.
Do they help you prioritize?
CHUCK TEMPLE (31:07):
Yeah.
So every business isgoing to be different.
What you don't want to do,instead of spending two weeks,
you don't want to spend twomonths to get something that's
gone way too far, whichmight overcomplicate things,
and then you get feedback basedupon maybe something that's not
actually solving the problem.
It's just this tangentialfeature, or whatnot.
You build thesimplest thing that's
(31:28):
just going to solve thatone immediate problem.
I think there's a reallygood video by Y Combinator
that I was watching.
And I remember the--
I think he's the old CEO.
He said somethingabout, find the person
with their hair on fire, andyou can basically just sell them
a brick.
And that's what you'relooking for in the beginning,
is you're looking forthis huge, massive problem
(31:48):
that you can basically buildalmost anything to solve.
Then you start connectingwith your users.
You are personable.
You get feedback from them.
And you're thankfulwhen they tell you--
this is a big thing, right?
If they tell yousomething and they
can tell you don'tlike hearing it,
they're not going tokeep telling you stuff.
And that's the most valuablething that you can get,
(32:09):
is having them tell you stuff.
Anything.
Every time they tellyou anything, especially
something that's wrong--
even now, they even--
people, they say, hey,I noticed that this
doesn't work when I do this,and I'm sorry to tell you.
And I'm like, no,no, no, no, no.
Like, thank you.
This is the most valuable thingthat anybody could give me.
JILL FINLAYSON: So we got step 1, (32:27):
undefined
which is need finding, findingthat person with their hair
on fire, finding demand.
We got the second step, whichis basically prototyping, right?
Building something that will beminimally solving the problem.
So then I guess my nextquestion would be step 3.
How do you actuallybuild a real product?
And maybe you can use theexample of this pickleball
that you're working on.
How do you build somethingif you're not necessarily
(32:50):
an engineer?
CHUCK TEMPLE (32:50):
One thing that even-- it's weird.
Even engineers don'trealize is that there's
this world of no code,low code, or you can--
maybe it's going to be calledvisual programming now.
And it's akin towhen, for those people
that remember coding outHTML, and then you got, like--
I think early onDreamweaver and FrontPage,
which is called theWYSIWYG, or What You See
(33:11):
Is What You Get editors.
And you could thenjust drag your image,
drag your text onto thescreen, and go from there.
The same thing is happeningwith platform building
at this point, or just kindof certain types of software.
It's what I use.
I don't have anybackground in coding,
and built a platform as I waslearning this technology that
is now used by hundreds ofpeople a day, tens of thousands
(33:33):
of people a month.
It rivals the most complexsoftware in the industry.
It's cool becauseI built it myself,
and it's, like, thecoolest thing ever.
The other cool thing aboutthis type of software
is that you are not waitingfor a development team
overseas for you to explainsomething 100% perfect
(33:55):
and then still not get it100% right because it's
lost in translation.
You or someone on yourteam can implement changes
in sometimes seconds,sometimes minutes.
And yeah, for big stuff, itcould still take a day or two.
And so what's awesome is thatthe feedback group that I have,
they can tell me,hey, what about when
we cancel a pickleballsession, can it just
automatically emaileverybody that was signed up?
(34:16):
And I'm like, oh,that's a great idea.
And so now there's justa checkbox that says,
and email everybodythat signed up.
And then if you checkit, it just does it.
And that took me 10minutes to build.
And so this is somethingpeople should look into.
I'm familiar withone called Bubble.
It's just bubble.io.
It's probably the mostwell known for web apps.
(34:37):
It works on web andmobile, but it can function
like an app, a single-page app.
JILL FINLAYSON (34:41):
How do you go to market?
CHUCK TEMPLE (34:42):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this is the class[LAUGHS] that I
taught that did takeme months and months
and months of research toreally put it into a class
because there isso much to that.
And happy to share mynotion with your listeners.
Everything's going to bedifferent for go-to-market.
There's differentstrategies for everything.
(35:03):
For me in this case, thisis a pickleball website.
And if you're in the Bay Area,especially in the East Bay,
you can look at it.
It's dailypb.com.
And the way that thislaunched was I built it.
It took me a coupleweeks to build it.
But again, still a newbie, but Iwas a super newbie at the time.
That's why it took me two weeks.
But I launched it on theone local Facebook group,
(35:23):
people that are in my area,because it basically gives you
the open play schedule forthe area, which is-- there's
no central place for that.
I had the problem myself.
I was passionate aboutpickleball, right?
But I didn't know if the demandwas there, that first one.
And so two weekswas, OK, the max
I was going to spend onthis, and I launched it.
And hey, if one or two peoplecame to the site, OK, cool.
(35:44):
I probably won't pursue it.
But 1,000 peoplecame to the site.
And I think that group at thetime was only around 1,000
people.
And just in a coupledays, 1,000 people went.
And so that told methat there was a problem
that I was meeting.
And then when I went tothe pickleball courts
and I mentioned thatI built the platform,
(36:04):
people are so excited about it.
They're so happy to meet me.
They're like, canI buy you a beer?
Can I buy you a coffee?
This is that signal ofthe raving fan signal
that you really want to get,because for many reasons,
but for purely selfish reasons,you can activate those people
if it's time.
So you want to expand,you can put a message out,
(36:24):
saying, hey, we wantto expand to South Bay,
or we're looking for investment.
And all of a sudden,you have thousands
of people that are championingthis product for you
because they help you with it.
They recommend it toall their friends.
So that's how I launched.
JILL FINLAYSON (36:38):
That brings me to my final question
about building your startup,which is, how do you scale?
So say you start to get interestfrom these other communities
and neighborhoods.
When do you decide todo your first hire?
And how do you scale operations?
Like, are you suddenlygetting so many emails
you can't respond to them?
What does this nextstep look like?
CHUCK TEMPLE (36:57):
So every company's different.
And for my currentcompany, I would like
to be there, but I understand--
for a service business, I'lljust say for DVD Your Memories,
I hired because I was working,I think, 80 or 100 hours myself.
And business was growing, andit was the holiday season,
so I was able to hire becauseI already had money for that.
So for Electric ScooterGuide, I was doing videos
(37:19):
on my cell phone.
Of course, we got intoreview videos and everything
else along with the website.
And I was doing videos myself.
We were making, again,enough money to hire somebody
to help with the videostuff because that's
what I wasn't as good at andthat sort of thing, right?
But for software, all thecompanies I've been in
are so different that thesoftware one, I understand why
(37:41):
people do need to raise money.
And I'll give youthe reason for me,
why I'm-- process of raisingmoney is because consumer
software, it's reallyabout gaining users.
And of course, youwant them to pay money.
But it takes a lotof time to figure out
all the differentrevenue sources,
and that can-- fora single person
like myself to domarketing and try to grow,
(38:02):
but then also fix every bugand do every customer service.
And if you have kids-- that'sthe big thing in my life
that's changed that hasthe biggest impact on me
as an entrepreneur, is I usedto be able to work till 2:00
in the morning for weeks onend to get something done.
And now I've got to stop at4 o'clock to pick up kids.
And then I want tobe present for them
and not putting themin front of the TV
(38:23):
and then going back to work.
And so now having to hirepeople a little bit earlier
means that if I were togenerate revenue in one area,
it's not going to beenough for an income.
But if I were to scale myselfright now without generating
revenue, of course, thatjust increases expenses
and doesn't generate revenue.
And I think this is why, eventhough technology scales really
(38:45):
well, there is so muchto it, that, I believe,
is why companiesneed to raise money.
JILL FINLAYSON (38:52):
So this is a lot of juggling.
We talked a little bitabout work-life balance.
How do you work on astartup or a side hustle
while you have a full-time job?
CHUCK TEMPLE (39:02):
So one is find partners.
And you can do--
everybody does a bitof the work, right?
If you don't have kidsor something else that
needs to get done, youcould do it after work.
If you have enough passion,you've got from maybe 5:00
or 6:00 PM till wheneveryou want to go to bed,
and all the weekends, andyou can work on it then.
(39:23):
That's what I kind ofdid for my first one.
And maybe it's helpful ifyou're younger, in your 20s.
But even now, I probably couldstay up to 10:00 or 11:00,
but maybe not 2:00 in themorning like maybe when I was 25
years old.
But I would say, just workon it in your off time,
but work on it smart.
Check for demand first.
Then I think another big oneis talk to somebody that has
(39:45):
had a few businesses before.
Especially if it'syour first time trying
to be an entrepreneur, talkingto somebody like myself
or somebody like you thathas experience talking
to entrepreneurs,or someone that's
had a few companies that'sstarted them up before,
that will be invaluableto you at the beginning
because when you'retrying to plan out,
how do I even getthis going, the ideas
(40:06):
they're going to give you aregoing to save you months or--
you can't measure the valuethat a mentor can give you.
So finding a mentor to helpyou if it's your first time--
and even if it's not-- tobounce ideas off of and say,
hey, this is my strategy.
What do you think?
And you still make thefinal decision, right?
One of my mentorswas Noah Alper, who's
(40:28):
the Founder of Noah's Bagels.
And he told me some thingsthat I absolutely went with.
He told me some thingsthat I agreed with,
but I didn't follow, and turnsout he was, of course, right.
But these mentors, they'vebeen through it before.
And even though there's somany kinds of businesses,
business in itself,being an entrepreneur,
is a journey that actually doeshave a lot of similarities,
(40:50):
no matter what company it is.
And so finding the mentorthat's been through any kind
that you trust, I wouldhighly, highly recommend that.
JILL FINLAYSON (40:58):
To close out our conversation,
I'm going to ask youfor three tips for two
different audiences.
I'd like to know, what are yourthree tips about innovation that
could apply to somebodywho has a corporate job
or an academic job andthey want to innovate
within a larger company space?
CHUCK TEMPLE (41:15):
Number 1, if you're in a company
and you're tryingto innovate, getting
buy-in is going to be one, butdon't think it's the first one.
I am of the predispositionthat it's better
to ask for forgivenessthan to ask for permission.
And so unless you're dealingwith some crazy sensitive
information likethe UFOs at Area 51
and you want to not leak thatto the public or something,
(41:37):
if you do the research andsay, hey, there's a problem,
here's my plan orproposal, right?
So you show that.
Here's the people I would need.
Here's how much timeI would need for them.
And you show that you'vedone research first.
Then create someprototype that gets to--
in software, they call it--
I don't know what they call it.
Do they call it the aha moment?
(41:58):
Or they call it thefirst success maybe.
It's like, everysoftware program
has this internal metric.
How quickly does the person hosttheir first pickleball session?
Whatever it is.
If you can makethe most-- again,
this comes back to thisprototyping and getting
that first problem solved, butnothing more, and super simple.
(42:18):
So if you're innovatingin a company,
they're probablynot going to want
you to spend abunch of resources
if they're not sure thatthere's going to be a payoff.
But if you can belike, hey, by the way,
I used this no-code tool, orI used make.com, or Zapier
plus Bubble, and I didthis in two nights that
does this crazy coolthing, check it out,
then you can show that,that you've already done it,
(42:40):
that it already works,and that there's actually
a demand or a needthat you're solving.
Then presentingthat to your boss--
or hopefully, you lookpolitically at your company
and actually talk to the peoplethat have the political power.
That may not actuallybe your boss.
Like, the peoplethat sit closest
to the elevator or the watercooler, or whatever it is.
You rally the troops, I guess,and then you talk to your boss.
(43:02):
So now you have your simpleprototype that works.
You have your problem statement.
Then you say, Cathy andJim and these other people
that everybody respects,thinks this is an amazing idea.
Then you go forstep 3, which is get
buy-in to keep working on it.
JILL FINLAYSON (43:18):
It's sort of the free, $5,
$50, $500 that youtalked about as well.
Like, starting with no costas minimal, and piloting.
Because I think oftentimes,companies are risk averse.
So the idea of, it's just asmall pilot, it's just a test,
we'll learn from it.
And if that's compelling,let the data speak for it.
Excellent.
All right.
So now we've got thepeople who are all
(43:40):
inspired by yourstories, and they want
to go do their side hustle.
What are your finalwords of advice for them?
CHUCK TEMPLE (43:47):
Number 1, if you are afraid to talk about it,
don't be afraidto talk about it.
That's advice number 1.
I would say also, there'sa spectrum, I think,
of personalities.
From the one hand,people are all kind
of action, not worriers.
They just go and do things.
And then there's otherpeople that are worried,
(44:07):
and planning, andall that stuff.
If you are on the super planningside, give yourself a deadline.
Because in myexperience, my friends
that have great ideas thatare some of the smartest, most
brilliant people, they're alsoa lot of times really planners.
And they overthinkeverything, and they
want to plan to the nthdegree before they even start.
(44:29):
100% of thosepeople never start.
I think it's a shame because Ithink they have a lot to give.
And I think that's whatcreates opportunity,
creates value for our economy.
So this is a good thing.
And so I would say if you areon the spectrum from worry
and planning to just never thinkabout anything and just action,
if you know yourself andyou're around, like, 0% to 30%,
(44:51):
try to give yourself agoal of getting quick
as you can to a numberthat you're OK with.
You have to then switch yourbrain into execution mode
and stop worrying about the planbecause you've done it already.
I just know so manypeople that are like that,
and you've got to get over that.
You've got to say,it's good enough now.
Let's run with it.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:10):
So I hear, find demand early.
Start, because ifyou don't start,
you're not goingto get anywhere.
Learn.
Listen to what yourcustomers are saying.
And move on quickly ifthey don't agree with you.
CHUCK TEMPLE (45:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you're not findinganything, try a couple
more times if you think you'vegot something, another angle
to get in there.
But if it's notthere, it's not there.
And it's better to move onso your brain can stop kind
of thinking about this thing.
And that createsroom in your brain,
or it creates this emptyspace where new ideas can then
come into you.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:42):
I love that, the power of new ideas
and creating space for newideas rather than just getting
stuck in one little corner.
CHUCK TEMPLE (45:48):
Yeah, don't get stuck.
Don't get stuck.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:51):
Thank you so much for joining us, Chuck.
I've really enjoyedour conversation.
CHUCK TEMPLE (45:55):
Thank you for having me.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:56):
And with that, I hope
you enjoyed this latest ina long series of podcasts
that we'll be sendingyour way every month.
Please share withfriends and colleagues
who may be interested in takingthis Future of Work journey
with us.
And make sure to check outextension.berkeley.edu to find
a variety of coursesto help you thrive
in this new working landscape.
And to see what's comingup at EDGE in Tech,
(46:16):
go ahead and visitedge.berkeley.edu.
Thanks so much for listening,and we'll be back next month
to discuss the impact ofperformance improvement plans
on mental health andusing the opportunity
to reassess yourown future of work.
The Future of Work podcastis hosted by Jill Finlayson,
produced by SarahBenzuly, edited by Matt
Dipietro and Natalie Newman.
(46:37):
Thanks for joining us.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(00:03):
CHUCK TEMPLE (00:06):
Everybody has ideas, right?
The people that actually getout there and talk about it
and get feedbackon it, then those
are the people that are going toat least get to failure quicker,
if not success quicker.
The risk isn't talking aboutit and getting feedback.
The bigger risk is not talkingabout it and getting no
feedback, and then wasting yourtime and your money or other
(00:27):
people's.
That's the bigger risk.
JILL FINLAYSON (00:32):
Welcome to the Future of Work podcast
with BerkeleyExtension and the EDGE
in Tech at theUniversity of California
focused on expanding diversityand gender equity in tech.
EDGE in Tech is partof CITRIS, the Center
for IT Research in theInterest of Society
and the Banatao Institute.
UC Berkeley Extension isthe continuing education arm
of UC Berkeley.
(00:52):
In this episode, we'reasking the question of,
are side hustles the new normal?
In recent surveys, nearly50% of the population
has a side hustle in additionto their full-time job.
What starts out as aside hustle often begins
as a spark from apassion or a desire
to explore an idea outsidethe confines of a regular job.
(01:15):
It's a space forcreativity, a chance
to build somethingmeaningful on your own terms.
But as this smallventure grows, it
presents a uniqueopportunity, the chance
to transform that side hustleinto a full-fledged startup.
To explore thisgrowing trend, we're
delighted to talkwith Chuck Temple
and see if a startup might bepart of your future of work.
(01:37):
Chuck Temple is a highlysuccessful entrepreneur,
having founded threemillion-dollar industry-leading
companies.
The first of thesecompanies, DVD Your Memories,
was started on a shoestringand with no outside funding,
yet went on to becomeone of the largest, most
successful personalmedia transfer companies
in the United States.
With no formalbusiness education,
(01:58):
Chuck decided togo back to school
and receive hisMBA from UC Davis
with a focus onentrepreneurship in 2016,
the same year he won the firstplace in the prestigious Big
Bang!
Business Competition.
Chuck, along with hisbusiness competition partner,
went on to found theElectric Scooter Guide.
And within oneyear, that company
(02:18):
became the world'sleading resource
for the personalelectric scooter market.
He's also a formerExtension Instructor.
And currently, Chuckresides in San Francisco Bay
Area with his wifeand two young sons.
His latest endeavor is apickleball event management
platform.
Welcome, Chuck.
CHUCK TEMPLE (02:35):
Hi.
Thank you for having me.
JILL FINLAYSON: Great to have you. (02:37):
undefined
You know, for many people,turning their side hustle
into a career is the dream.
It's a dream of autonomy.
It's a dream of getting paidto do things you've loved.
And you even documentedyour first startup
in the book Startupto Sold, How I
Built My Side Hustle into aMultimillion-Dollar Business.
It sounds really glamorous.
It actually sounds almostfictional, so I was wondering,
(02:59):
what is the reality ofstarting that first company?
CHUCK TEMPLE: Everybody, I think, (03:02):
undefined
has a different path totheir first business.
And for me, it wassimply a necessity.
I was kind of a broke andstarving college student.
One thing led to another,and all of a sudden I
realized that there was a lotof personal media out there.
This is 2006.
And personal media being slides,photos, videotapes, old movie
(03:25):
films, stuff like that.
And there was a demand for it.
I could feel thatthere was a demand,
but also I just found that Ihad a passion for the business.
It was my first realbusiness, and I had never
had a business class before.
And so for me, the differentpieces of that business
became this really,really interesting puzzle
(03:47):
where you have marketing andoperations and equipment,
and just all these differentlevers and switches and dials.
And each one, you cankind of twist and turn
and become better at.
And I thought it was thiskind of ultimate game to play.
For me, that's how I got going.
But the basics were,is there a demand?
And at that time and inSan Diego, there was.
(04:09):
And I could feel it.
I didn't have anystats to back that up,
but I could feel it becauseI knew a lot of seniors
at the time.
And they were always saying,I have all this stuff.
What do I do with it?
And then the passionwas there for me
to do this work because it'ssomething that I could do,
and I enjoyed solving problemsfor these people, which
is what I think businesses are.
JILL FINLAYSON (04:30):
That's amazing.
So you basically found therewere all these people who
had pictures, butdidn't have a good way
to store them or view them.
And you're like,I can solve that.
CHUCK TEMPLE (04:38):
Yeah.
And it wasn't something thatyou need a lot of high tech
for, right?
It was kind of--except for movie film,
it's all somewhat prosumer-gradestuff that we would buy.
And so it was something that Icould do without a lot of money
because I had no money.
I started on a credit card, anda college student doesn't have
a very high limit creditcard, and mine wasn't.
My current roommate at the timeand I bought a slide scanner,
(05:00):
and that's how we started.
JILL FINLAYSON (05:01):
You could see that there were
some people who needed this.
But in a broader sense, where doyou think good ideas come from?
And how do you knowit's a good idea?
How do you define a good idea?
CHUCK TEMPLE (05:11):
I would say maybe three things.
So demand, personalpassion, and the fact
that you have theskills and capability.
And then maybethere's a fourth one,
which is, do I havethis problem personally,
so that you can empathizewith your customer.
And I think, though, if therewas a Venn diagram of those four
things, if you were centeredin the middle where all of them
(05:34):
meet, then you probablyhave a good idea.
However, as you goforward, passion, OK.
That's like, you eitherhave it or you don't.
And do you have--
these are pretty binary things.
But demand is probablythe most tricky one.
And the way that I alwayskind of look at demand
is kind of throughthese tests, right?
And so you could, say,start with the $0 test
(05:56):
and figure out whether ornot there is a demand at $0.
And $0 could just beasking people, right?
It doesn't cost you any money.
And then if it's provencorrect, then you
can go to, say, a $50test where you maybe
make a really simple websiteand put a form on there
to collect emails, and just putyour pitch out there, and then
(06:18):
try to send people to it.
Maybe attend a farmers market,or somehow get your idea out
there.
And if that works, then you cankeep building up to a $500 test,
and then a $5,000 test,and work your way up.
But the mistake I think a lot ofpeople make, and what I made--
every entrepreneurprobably has at least one
unsuccessful business.
And the one where Ifailed, I failed because I
(06:40):
didn't follow that advice.
I did a-- let's just say a$80,000 give or take test before
doing a $200 test.
We did it backwards, and we ranout of money for the $80,000,
and my co-founders quit.
And then I did the$200 test, realized
(07:01):
that there was no demandfor that particular product,
and then moved on.
JILL FINLAYSON (07:06):
Yeah, I think that is an area where people--
they do fall in lovewith the problem.
Maybe they have the problem, butthey don't talk to enough people
to see if there's customerswho are willing to pay
to solve that problem.
CHUCK TEMPLE (07:18):
Yes.
You fall in love with it.
Like, maybe your passionbecomes too high.
Or for me, I had justfinished business school,
so I thought, oh, OK, Iknow what I'm doing now.
But then the ideaI thought was good.
And so my two co-founders and Ijust ran with it and developed
it and spent $50,000, $60,000on development costs to make
(07:38):
an app.
We ran out of moneybefore it was even done.
But then what Iended up doing right
is I hacked togetherthe software
to do this particular thing--
I'll just tell you what it was.
It was called Vira.
So basically, theidea for this thing
was a virtual assistantthat was web-based
where you just push one button.
It automatically connects youto a live virtual assistant
(08:01):
that's, like, face toface with you, right?
And we thought thatwould be awesome.
And I had assistants ready,and the app and the technology.
I mean, you could imagine.
This is 2016.
It was a lot of moneyto develop this.
We even made it-- literallywe made-- it's so funny.
We made a commercial.
We went to Los Angeles,got a producer,
and literally made acommercial with actors.
(08:22):
Yeah, lookingback, it was silly.
But the commercial's awesome.
And my girlfriend, who'snow my wife, was actually--
she was in it on a nonspeakingrole, which is kind of fun.
So it's cool to havethis commercial.
But anyway, fast forward--
I don't know.
We spent five, six monthsbuilding this thing.
I got investors.
I mean, it was the whole deal.
And then once weran out of money
(08:43):
and it kind of failedand the co-founders,
we all kind of split up, Ihacked together something
to do this with.
I think it was some voicerecording program that
dropped a voice note intoDropbox, which then texted
the assistants or something.
Basically, it was likealmost free software, just
to see if anybody would use it.
(09:04):
And I don't know.
I gave it away for free.
And even for free, almostnobody used this tool.
And so basically,the idea of having
this on-demand virtual assistantfor the majority of people, it
just wasn't viable atthat time, at least not
for us, or for me theway that I was doing it.
And this was something that wasbuilt using almost free tools
(09:26):
and doing it myself, doingthe assistant work myself.
It still didn't work.
It's still-- people would useit once, and they just didn't--
for whatever reasonwith their life
and the psychology ofpeople, it just didn't work.
JILL FINLAYSON (09:37):
So this is your first red flag.
If you give it awayfor free and no one
uses it or no one comesback, that's not a good sign.
[LAUGHS]
CHUCK TEMPLE (09:44):
Yes.
And that's after youalready even built.
I think for this idea,it passes the $0 test.
Like, you talk to people andthey say, it's a good idea.
You try to raise some money.
Friends and family,they give you money.
That's a $0 test.
It's when actually--wanted to build the $200
test website plus a littlebit of really cheap software,
if that doesn'twork, then I'm done.
(10:05):
And that could have been onemonth and almost no money
invested, and I wouldhave figured out
how to basically moveon quickly because where
you get stuck in businessis when you have an idea,
you think it's really good,but you spend way too long
trying to figure that out.
And it's all about, how fast canyou disprove your hypothesis,
(10:27):
I would say.
Your hypothesisbeing like, this is
going to work because ofthis reason, whatever it is.
However fast you can getto that answer, that's
part of what makes,I think, people
successful as an entrepreneur.
JILL FINLAYSON (10:38):
And how do you get them to tell you the truth?
Because as you said,people want to support you.
They want to be encouraging.
How do you get themto tell you the truth,
as if they wouldactually use it?
CHUCK TEMPLE (10:47):
Yeah, well, if they don't use it for free,
well, that's a good answer.
And then if theyuse it for free,
but then you needto charge some money
or you need to putsome ad on something,
or whatever it is,and that doesn't work
or there's not a wayfor that to happen,
then it would be hard to saythat there's value there.
So there's certainthings that you
could do that maybe peoplewant, but if they're not
(11:09):
willing to payanything for it or go
on a website at a regularbasis, or whatever
it is that makes-- thatpotentially can earn revenue,
then that's alsokind of a red flag.
JILL FINLAYSON (11:19):
So listen to people.
Ask a lot of questions earlyon, and move on quickly.
Even if you lovethe idea, you've
got to be willingto move on quickly.
CHUCK TEMPLE (11:26):
Yeah.
And you've got to beOK talking about it.
I think that's the one thingthat so many entrepreneurs get
really afraid of, and Ican kind of see why, right?
It's easy.
Well, nowadays it's easierand easier to build ideas.
But if they're afraid to talkabout their idea for fear
that someone's going totake it, the real enemy
here is that youdon't talk about it.
(11:47):
You don't learn aboutthe breadth of your idea.
You don't get the feedback.
Because it's really allabout business ideas,
being an entrepreneur,coming s with new things.
It's really about, how well dopeople understand your idea?
How well do they take to it?
All that stuff.
You don't get anyof that feedback
unless you actuallytalk to people.
An idea-- everybodyhas ideas, right?
The people that actually getout there and talk about it
(12:09):
and get feedbackon it, then those
are the people that are going toat least get to failure quicker,
if not success quicker.
JILL FINLAYSON: Yeah, I love that, (12:16):
undefined
because you don't want to spenda huge amount of time only
to find out later thatyou can't do anything.
You want to get thatfeedback early and frequently
so that you're developing thething that people actually want.
CHUCK TEMPLE (12:27):
Yes.
And I think thatwhen people say,
it's not really abouttaking a risk in that you
are taking a risk by nottalking about it, right?
It's not-- the riskisn't talking about it
and getting feedback.
The bigger risk is not talkingabout it and getting no
feedback, and then wasting yourtime and your money or other
people's.
That's the bigger risk.
JILL FINLAYSON (12:48):
So let's talk about one
of your next big risks.
You actually starteda juice company,
which seems very differentfrom DVDing people's memories.
How did you endup tackling this?
What was similar andwhat was different?
CHUCK TEMPLE (13:01):
Just to clarify, I was hired as a co-founder,
but the company hadalready started before me.
So juicing and stufflike that was--
I love that industry.
And it was really myonly job since college.
I had just movedto San Francisco,
had just failed at thevirtual assistant thing,
and I wanted to meetother co-founders
and just get into thevibe of San Francisco.
(13:23):
I'd never lived there before.
And so my wifekind of encouraged
me to get a jobwhere you get paid--
my only time I've ever had asalary paid by someone else.
And so I was hired as the COOfor a juice company called Happy
Moose Juice, which is awonderful company based
in San Francisco.
And we did in-housejuice making,
and it was delivered to alot of the big tech companies
(13:45):
in San Francisco,which was awesome.
But then there waskind of a mass--
call it HPP, High-PressurePasteurization,
I believe, kind sideof the company that
was trying to get into grocerystores and bigger stuff
like that.
JILL FINLAYSON (13:56):
So what was the same,
and what did you have to learn?
Because this was a moreperishable product.
Did that changehow you approached?
CHUCK TEMPLE (14:04):
Oh, yeah.
So what I love aboutjust life in general
is that there's somany things to learn.
And there's business, right?
There's just so manydifferent types of businesses.
So every business I'veeither worked in or been in
has been reallycompletely 100% different.
So media transfer.
Obviously, s is perishablein the nature of decades,
(14:24):
whereas juice is perishablein the-- sometimes a few days,
a certain ingredientwill go bad.
And so the first thing that Idid was analyze their process.
And then after analyzingit, basically kind of
created an ERP systemin Google Sheets
to basically figure outtheir whole operation.
(14:47):
So from the stock that camein, how many days it lasts,
what juices we're going tomake, how much of this kale
we needed in thisjuice, blah, blah, blah.
It was really fun to getsuper deep into the weeds.
And that's a good way tolearn the business also.
But consumer packagedgoods and juice in general
is just really differentbecause it's about scale
(15:08):
and it's about big partnerships,and it's really interesting.
JILL FINLAYSON (15:12):
You've done all these startups.
Let's see.
We've got a successfulstartup that you sold.
We've got a startupthat failed, and we've
got hired to co-lead, co-found astartup that was already going.
What made you decide to stop andgo back to school at this point?
CHUCK TEMPLE (15:26):
After I sold the DVD Your Memories company, when
I started I was a psychologystudent really wanting
to get into neuroscience.
I was going to take a yearoff and go to Thailand
and just teach English,and then go and try
to get my PhD in neurobiology.
And what happened wasthat business started.
I grew it to the pointwhere I thought maybe
(15:49):
someone else could growit more, and that's
the reason why it sold.
At that time, I had four storesin two states and 27 employees,
and it was runningpretty well, actually.
Like, I could-- ifI'm not growing it,
it was really onlyabout 10 hours a week
to just maintain all of thatbecause the systems were
really tight.
But I always assumeI'm just not sure.
(16:10):
I'm just not sureuntil I'm 100% sure.
And so for me, I wanted to--
since I had no formal educationin business, I felt like, OK,
I had this awesome experiencewith DVD Your Memories.
It grew.
But I personallywasn't, like, personally
passionate about the mediatransfer industry myself.
(16:30):
Just, I don't havethis type of media.
I was working with mostlyseniors at the time that
had that type of media.
And so I wanted to go to schoolto see what I didn't know
so that way, I could-- thenext business that I had
or whatever I did next, I couldbe that much more effective
at it.
And so that is why Iwanted to go get an MBA,
(16:53):
was because I had a business.
I had no business background.
I wanted to see where myholes were in my own game
because that's how Iwas successful at DVD
Your Memories was byrecognizing my own weaknesses
and then trying to fill them.
I was like, OK,on a larger level,
why don't I go getan MBA to figure out
where my holes are in businessso that I could fill them,
(17:14):
so that I could be a betterbusiness owner or entrepreneur?
JILL FINLAYSON (17:18):
All right, so share.
What were the holesthat you found?
And what did you pick upthat you wish you'd known?
CHUCK TEMPLE (17:24):
So my biggest holes were,
I would say, inunderstanding finance.
That's probably the biggest one.
And then also partnerships.
I guess it would be likeall my favorite classes.
I had this class.
Hemant Bhargava isthe professor there,
and he taught a platform--it's called Tech Competition
and Strategy, but I callit, like, Platforms 101.
(17:46):
And understanding thevalue of a platform,
that was maybe mybiggest lesson.
Also, there are some greatentrepreneurship classes
that I had, without naming allthe professors that were there.
But just how I hadmentioned the $0 test
to the $50 test,that whole concept
I learned at thebusiness school.
I would say thosewould be the biggest.
(18:08):
My strategy for business school,I'll just say this right now.
I don't really rememberthings all that well.
And so what I did is I justbasically took notes and didn't
care about remembering anything.
And so then when I started anew business or I had an idea
or I'm consulting with somebodywith an idea, whatever it is,
I would just go to thatclass, and I would just
(18:28):
go through mylist-- my note list.
And so I've done that togreat effect in every business
that I've done orconsulted with since.
That is my MO forhelping them is I just--
I go through that and I makesure that I'm covering things,
and then all the goodideas flow back in.
JILL FINLAYSON (18:44):
Yeah.
One of the things I like arefinding the golden nuggets.
So you have thiswhole long class,
but there's two orthree things that you
walk away with from thatclass that sort of changed
how you thought about things.
For example, oneinstructor that I heard
was saying how oftentimes,people working on their side
hustle or doing astartup underprice
(19:05):
the value of their goods becausethey look at the cost of goods,
they look at theirtime, but they
don't look at the value ofthe product to the consumer.
And so being able to ask them,what would be a cheap price?
What would be anexpensive price?
What would beprohibitively expensive?
And really collectinginformation about,
what are people'swillingness to pay?
And that really stuck with me.
(19:25):
Did you have any other favoritethings that stuck with you?
CHUCK TEMPLE (19:28):
Oh my gosh.
I would say because I'vebeen involved in platforms
ever since, once I understoodthat the top, I don't know,
eight out of 10 biggestcompanies in the world
are all platforms now, and twodec-- or three-- well, now three
decades ago, they probablyweren't, they were probably
oil and gas companies andwhatnot, understanding
that was how I got superinterested in platforms.
(19:48):
Then understandingwhich side to subsidize,
how to solve the chicken and theegg problem, all of those things
are what helped the ElectricScooter Guide company take off
in the beginning.
And we followed basicallythe best practices
from that professor.
And then I still keep intouch with him to this day,
and he'll give me little tipsand ideas, and things like that.
(20:10):
So staying in touch, and thenalso just having those notes.
But understanding one-sided--or two-sided platforms,
and which side tosubsidize, and why
you want to have anexclusive partner,
and just how to takea leadership role.
And gosh, there's so much to it.
And so many peopleare making platforms
now that it's very interesting.
JILL FINLAYSON (20:28):
Yeah, I was very lucky.
I was actually one ofthe early employees
at eBay, which is very much atwo-sided platform for buying
and selling.
How would you define a platform?
And what might peoplethink about platforms
in terms of their ownideas or expertise?
How might they use a platform?
CHUCK TEMPLE (20:44):
Well, I think the easiest
way to think of a platform--
I mean, they've beenaround forever, right?
So a newspaper would be an ideaof a platform that everyone--
well, maybe noteveryone can understand
because I don't know if theyounger folks have seen them.
But basically, it'slike you have readers,
and you have advertisers,and you have the journalists.
(21:05):
So I guess you could say that.
Again, I'm not coming upwith this on the spot.
But in the middleis the newspaper,
and the newspaperhas journalists.
They write the articlesthat then the readers see,
so that's two sides.
And then if thereaders are reading it,
then you have a third side,which would be advertisers.
And so then you couldstart thinking of,
do you have same-side orcross-side network effects?
(21:26):
And when you do, thenthings can explode.
And that's where a lot ofthese huge apps like eBay
have become so successful.
JILL FINLAYSON (21:34):
So tell us about this startup
that you did while you wereat UC Davis or heading out.
What was this publishingElectric Scooter Guide idea?
CHUCK TEMPLE (21:42):
So the scooter thing
had all the criteria that Ihad mentioned in the beginning.
So electric scooterdemand wasn't quite there.
And this is for personalelectric scooters,
not the shared ones thatyou see on the street.
But there's a whole, of course,personal market for scooters.
So demand was starting,but we had gotten in early.
I had a huge passion forthis because I had just
(22:02):
moved to San Francisco.
I was going to get ane-bike, but my wife
was like, think I'mgoing to get a scooter.
That actually madea lot more sense
to get a scooter becauseyou could then just
take it into restaurants.
I could still ride to downtown,or wherever I wanted to go.
I personally used it, and thenI was in love with scooters.
I wouldn't stop talkingabout it to everybody,
and that's how I knew thatI wanted to do something
(22:24):
in the industry.
I had met Justin, who was myco-founder in that company,
because he was doingbusiness classes as part
of a joint program at UC Davis.
He was a biomedicalengineering PhD candidate,
or PhD student his last year.
So we graduatedat the same time.
We won this Big Bang!
Business Competition for aninvention that he came up with.
(22:46):
Went through a few differentideas, a smoothie shop.
And then I talkedabout scooters.
And we realized thatthis technology,
it was just coming to fruitionbecause basically the hub
motor, along with lithiumion battery prices
and the size of it, made itsuch that personal market
electric scooters was like-- itwas just this time in history
(23:07):
where it was justgoing to happen.
So what we did is wefound the first problem.
So we wanted to do something.
We're like, OK, well, what canwe do with electric scooters?
But also, I had randomlystarted the subreddit called
r/ElectricScooters on Reddit.
And I was managingthat community.
And I purely just pinned a postsaying, what do you guys need?
Like, what is neededin the industry?
(23:30):
They call itcommunity management,
which is just asking questionsand people give you answers.
And they said, we wantto just understand
what these scooters are.
There's so much misinformation.
There's these brands thatare coming out of China.
What's the real range?
What's the price?
Is this reliable?
What's the battery size?
Like, half the time yougo on their websites
and you either can't read it orthere's an extra zero in there
(23:51):
because it's justso unregulated,
and it's just sucha new industry.
And so what we did is we justput it all together into what
is really just a spreadsheet.
Took a few weeks, but wecataloged every scooter
in the world, or thatcould buy in the US.
We put a spreadsheettogether with actually
the correct information.
And then of course,there's this industry
(24:11):
called affiliatemarketing, which
becomes the scootercompanies that
had affiliate linkswhere we could make 4%,
or whatever it is.
So we just put thelinks on there.
We put the data in asortable, filterable way.
That's Justin.
He's, like, the internet guru.
And that was the first product.
And that's how Electric ScooterGuide started, I would say.
JILL FINLAYSON (24:29):
That's great.
And the whole ideathat you were trying
to solve a problemthat people couldn't
get accurate information.
You were doing thework to actually find
the real information.
Well, I kind of wantto go up a level
and talk about how you actuallythink about starting a startup.
But before I dothat, can I ask, what
are the pros and consof working on a startup?
CHUCK TEMPLE (24:49):
I think there's two big pros.
Number 1, you have autonomyover your time and what you do.
You now get to be the--create your own destiny.
You get to really test yourselfand see, how far can I go?
Like, what are my limits?
Can I make something that's thisbig or this big or this big?
(25:09):
And you can just put thesenumbers in your head.
And as far as youbelieve in yourself,
you probably can get there.
So that's one pro is beingable to work on what you want,
when you want, as long asyou want, or not at all.
And number 2, I think therecan be a really nice payoff
in the end.
Without getting tospecific numbers,
I got lucky frommy first company
(25:31):
because I was the 100% owner,and it was doing pretty well.
And so when it sold, Iwas 30, and I had no debt.
And so when that sold, Igot all the revenue for it.
And that kind of setme up for basically,
well, decades to whereI still need to work,
but at least I can workon something that I want
(25:51):
to work on rather thanthe pressure of life
and having to make ends meetand living paycheck to paycheck.
That is the pro isthat in the end,
potentially you can nothave financial issues.
And for me, it wasn't, like,a massive sale or anything
to where my kidsare set up for life.
It's not that much, butit is enough for myself.
(26:12):
It was basically juststress avoidance.
I think it's those two things.
It's its autonomyand eventual payoff.
JILL FINLAYSON: And the big cons? (26:18):
undefined
CHUCK TEMPLE (26:19):
Oh my gosh.
Well, people have asked when DVDYour Memories was five years in
or something, theysaid, hey, is it really
worth it to have a company?
Because I see how hard you work.
And I would have said probablyno for the first four or five
years until it gotto the point where
I was making a lotof money every year,
and my workload wasgoing down a little bit
(26:40):
because I started understandinga little bit more.
But I would say the bigcon is that if you're
the kind of person that wantsto take things on yourself,
and probably thekind of person that's
going to work really hard too--
and when you work really hardand you spend a lot of time,
it can take over.
It can eat you up.
Like, take over yourbrain a little bit.
And so you become obsessed.
(27:02):
And when you have gooddays, you feel great.
And when you have bad days,you don't feel so great,
and you stress about everything.
At least that was my way, right?
I had one employee outof 27 that wasn't happy,
it would really eat me up.
And so maybe that's amark of a good manager,
but it's not a good markfor sleeping well at night.
I would say the stress.
The stress can be really high.
(27:23):
Even when things aregoing bad, because times
were lean at the beginningof the DVD Your Memories
company where I wasbasically almost
broke and everyone wassaying I needed to quit,
that was a hard, hard time,and the stress is really high.
But then when we startedgrowing really fast,
there was a switchthat was flipped.
And that was from--
I had discovered Google AdWords,and I discovered split testing,
(27:46):
and then I discoveredunique selling proposition.
And then within two weeks, wewent from basically almost being
broke to making 4x,5x the next month.
And then that doubledagain that year,
and it doubled againlater that year.
But when you'regrowing really fast,
it's also really stressful,just not quite as stressful
as when you're almost broke.
So I think that'sthe biggest con,
(28:07):
is that it can bereally stressful.
And when you'renot making money,
you think you're a failure.
And you have to havereally good mental health
to be able to, I think,get through that.
JILL FINLAYSON (28:17):
If people are willing to go on this ride,
let's go through the how-tos.
So what would be step 1 ofstarting your own startup?
CHUCK TEMPLE (28:24):
Of course, some people
are thinking of maybea service business.
Some people might be thinkingof a software company.
Some people might bethinking of a website.
So there's so manydifferent things, right?
But the first step,see if you have the,
I would say, four criteria,number 1 being demand.
Because if youdon't have that one,
(28:45):
the other ones don't matter, OK?
Passion, passion forit, the skill set needed
to be successful, orthe ability to get
to what I would say80% perfect-- or it's
like, if there was the bestmarketing person that you know,
how quickly can youget between know
nothing and 80% of that person?
(29:05):
So that's the third one.
That's, like, the skillsto do this business.
And the last one is, do youexperience the problem yourself?
That's the fourth one.
If demand isn't there, thennone of the other three
really matter at all.
JILL FINLAYSON (29:17):
So you've found demand.
What's step 2?
CHUCK TEMPLE (29:21):
The next step is building the smallest
and cheapest andquickest thing you
can to see if you arefulfilling that demand.
You could also saysolving that problem.
So in the case ofElectric Scooter Guide,
it was making basically aspreadsheet that was web-based
that people could go to.
(29:42):
And then basically, we putit out there, and people--
they commented on it, right?
We didn't hide it.
We said, hey, this is the idea.
Here's a little sample.
And you get this feedback,because people want to help.
They want to-- people will helpyou solve their own problem
if you just let them.
And then you have--
what do they call it?
There's probablya term for this,
(30:03):
but it's basically havingthe customers help flesh
out your product.
And that's what I'vedone in all the companies
that I've been successful in.
And that's a key factor, isgetting those early customers
or those people you're helpingearly on, being really high
touch with them.
Talk to them.
Talk on the phone,whatever you can do.
With my current startup,I have a WhatsApp group
(30:23):
that's full of the users ofthis platform that I made.
And they basicallytell me everything
that they like, everythingthey don't like.
They come up with so manyideas that I can't even
implement them all at once.
And it's amazing because you'retalking to the people that
are actually your customers,and they're literally just
telling you what to build.
So there's nothingbetter than that.
JILL FINLAYSON: And that's really, (30:43):
undefined
I think, key is not onlyhaving those customers--
I think havingraving fans, right?
People who are actuallyactively engaging with you
and giving you feedbackis another good sign.
CHUCK TEMPLE (30:55):
Yes.
Absolutely, yeah.
If people are enthusiasticabout your product,
that's a really good green flag.
JILL FINLAYSON (31:00):
And with that feedback loop,
you said, build thesmallest thing that
can solve the problem.
Do they help you prioritize?
CHUCK TEMPLE (31:07):
Yeah.
So every business isgoing to be different.
What you don't want to do,instead of spending two weeks,
you don't want to spend twomonths to get something that's
gone way too far, whichmight overcomplicate things,
and then you get feedback basedupon maybe something that's not
actually solving the problem.
It's just this tangentialfeature, or whatnot.
You build thesimplest thing that's
(31:28):
just going to solve thatone immediate problem.
I think there's a reallygood video by Y Combinator
that I was watching.
And I remember the--
I think he's the old CEO.
He said somethingabout, find the person
with their hair on fire, andyou can basically just sell them
a brick.
And that's what you'relooking for in the beginning,
is you're looking forthis huge, massive problem
(31:48):
that you can basically buildalmost anything to solve.
Then you start connectingwith your users.
You are personable.
You get feedback from them.
And you're thankfulwhen they tell you--
this is a big thing, right?
If they tell yousomething and they
can tell you don'tlike hearing it,
they're not going tokeep telling you stuff.
And that's the most valuablething that you can get,
(32:09):
is having them tell you stuff.
Anything.
Every time they tellyou anything, especially
something that's wrong--
even now, they even--
people, they say, hey,I noticed that this
doesn't work when I do this,and I'm sorry to tell you.
And I'm like, no,no, no, no, no.
Like, thank you.
This is the most valuable thingthat anybody could give me.
JILL FINLAYSON: So we got step 1, (32:27):
undefined
which is need finding, findingthat person with their hair
on fire, finding demand.
We got the second step, whichis basically prototyping, right?
Building something that will beminimally solving the problem.
So then I guess my nextquestion would be step 3.
How do you actuallybuild a real product?
And maybe you can use theexample of this pickleball
that you're working on.
How do you build somethingif you're not necessarily
(32:50):
an engineer?
CHUCK TEMPLE (32:50):
One thing that even-- it's weird.
Even engineers don'trealize is that there's
this world of no code,low code, or you can--
maybe it's going to be calledvisual programming now.
And it's akin towhen, for those people
that remember coding outHTML, and then you got, like--
I think early onDreamweaver and FrontPage,
which is called theWYSIWYG, or What You See
(33:11):
Is What You Get editors.
And you could thenjust drag your image,
drag your text onto thescreen, and go from there.
The same thing is happeningwith platform building
at this point, or just kindof certain types of software.
It's what I use.
I don't have anybackground in coding,
and built a platform as I waslearning this technology that
is now used by hundreds ofpeople a day, tens of thousands
(33:33):
of people a month.
It rivals the most complexsoftware in the industry.
It's cool becauseI built it myself,
and it's, like, thecoolest thing ever.
The other cool thing aboutthis type of software
is that you are not waitingfor a development team
overseas for you to explainsomething 100% perfect
(33:55):
and then still not get it100% right because it's
lost in translation.
You or someone on yourteam can implement changes
in sometimes seconds,sometimes minutes.
And yeah, for big stuff, itcould still take a day or two.
And so what's awesome is thatthe feedback group that I have,
they can tell me,hey, what about when
we cancel a pickleballsession, can it just
automatically emaileverybody that was signed up?
(34:16):
And I'm like, oh,that's a great idea.
And so now there's justa checkbox that says,
and email everybodythat signed up.
And then if you checkit, it just does it.
And that took me 10minutes to build.
And so this is somethingpeople should look into.
I'm familiar withone called Bubble.
It's just bubble.io.
It's probably the mostwell known for web apps.
(34:37):
It works on web andmobile, but it can function
like an app, a single-page app.
JILL FINLAYSON (34:41):
How do you go to market?
CHUCK TEMPLE (34:42):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this is the class[LAUGHS] that I
taught that did takeme months and months
and months of research toreally put it into a class
because there isso much to that.
And happy to share mynotion with your listeners.
Everything's going to bedifferent for go-to-market.
There's differentstrategies for everything.
(35:03):
For me in this case, thisis a pickleball website.
And if you're in the Bay Area,especially in the East Bay,
you can look at it.
It's dailypb.com.
And the way that thislaunched was I built it.
It took me a coupleweeks to build it.
But again, still a newbie, but Iwas a super newbie at the time.
That's why it took me two weeks.
But I launched it on theone local Facebook group,
(35:23):
people that are in my area,because it basically gives you
the open play schedule forthe area, which is-- there's
no central place for that.
I had the problem myself.
I was passionate aboutpickleball, right?
But I didn't know if the demandwas there, that first one.
And so two weekswas, OK, the max
I was going to spend onthis, and I launched it.
And hey, if one or two peoplecame to the site, OK, cool.
(35:44):
I probably won't pursue it.
But 1,000 peoplecame to the site.
And I think that group at thetime was only around 1,000
people.
And just in a coupledays, 1,000 people went.
And so that told methat there was a problem
that I was meeting.
And then when I went tothe pickleball courts
and I mentioned thatI built the platform,
(36:04):
people are so excited about it.
They're so happy to meet me.
They're like, canI buy you a beer?
Can I buy you a coffee?
This is that signal ofthe raving fan signal
that you really want to get,because for many reasons,
but for purely selfish reasons,you can activate those people
if it's time.
So you want to expand,you can put a message out,
(36:24):
saying, hey, we wantto expand to South Bay,
or we're looking for investment.
And all of a sudden,you have thousands
of people that are championingthis product for you
because they help you with it.
They recommend it toall their friends.
So that's how I launched.
JILL FINLAYSON (36:38):
That brings me to my final question
about building your startup,which is, how do you scale?
So say you start to get interestfrom these other communities
and neighborhoods.
When do you decide todo your first hire?
And how do you scale operations?
Like, are you suddenlygetting so many emails
you can't respond to them?
What does this nextstep look like?
CHUCK TEMPLE (36:57):
So every company's different.
And for my currentcompany, I would like
to be there, but I understand--
for a service business, I'lljust say for DVD Your Memories,
I hired because I was working,I think, 80 or 100 hours myself.
And business was growing, andit was the holiday season,
so I was able to hire becauseI already had money for that.
So for Electric ScooterGuide, I was doing videos
(37:19):
on my cell phone.
Of course, we got intoreview videos and everything
else along with the website.
And I was doing videos myself.
We were making, again,enough money to hire somebody
to help with the videostuff because that's
what I wasn't as good at andthat sort of thing, right?
But for software, all thecompanies I've been in
are so different that thesoftware one, I understand why
(37:41):
people do need to raise money.
And I'll give youthe reason for me,
why I'm-- process of raisingmoney is because consumer
software, it's reallyabout gaining users.
And of course, youwant them to pay money.
But it takes a lotof time to figure out
all the differentrevenue sources,
and that can-- fora single person
like myself to domarketing and try to grow,
(38:02):
but then also fix every bugand do every customer service.
And if you have kids-- that'sthe big thing in my life
that's changed that hasthe biggest impact on me
as an entrepreneur, is I usedto be able to work till 2:00
in the morning for weeks onend to get something done.
And now I've got to stop at4 o'clock to pick up kids.
And then I want tobe present for them
and not putting themin front of the TV
(38:23):
and then going back to work.
And so now having to hirepeople a little bit earlier
means that if I were togenerate revenue in one area,
it's not going to beenough for an income.
But if I were to scale myselfright now without generating
revenue, of course, thatjust increases expenses
and doesn't generate revenue.
And I think this is why, eventhough technology scales really
(38:45):
well, there is so muchto it, that, I believe,
is why companiesneed to raise money.
JILL FINLAYSON (38:52):
So this is a lot of juggling.
We talked a little bitabout work-life balance.
How do you work on astartup or a side hustle
while you have a full-time job?
CHUCK TEMPLE (39:02):
So one is find partners.
And you can do--
everybody does a bitof the work, right?
If you don't have kidsor something else that
needs to get done, youcould do it after work.
If you have enough passion,you've got from maybe 5:00
or 6:00 PM till wheneveryou want to go to bed,
and all the weekends, andyou can work on it then.
(39:23):
That's what I kind ofdid for my first one.
And maybe it's helpful ifyou're younger, in your 20s.
But even now, I probably couldstay up to 10:00 or 11:00,
but maybe not 2:00 in themorning like maybe when I was 25
years old.
But I would say, just workon it in your off time,
but work on it smart.
Check for demand first.
Then I think another big oneis talk to somebody that has
(39:45):
had a few businesses before.
Especially if it'syour first time trying
to be an entrepreneur, talkingto somebody like myself
or somebody like you thathas experience talking
to entrepreneurs,or someone that's
had a few companies that'sstarted them up before,
that will be invaluableto you at the beginning
because when you'retrying to plan out,
how do I even getthis going, the ideas
(40:06):
they're going to give you aregoing to save you months or--
you can't measure the valuethat a mentor can give you.
So finding a mentor to helpyou if it's your first time--
and even if it's not-- tobounce ideas off of and say,
hey, this is my strategy.
What do you think?
And you still make thefinal decision, right?
One of my mentorswas Noah Alper, who's
(40:28):
the Founder of Noah's Bagels.
And he told me some thingsthat I absolutely went with.
He told me some thingsthat I agreed with,
but I didn't follow, and turnsout he was, of course, right.
But these mentors, they'vebeen through it before.
And even though there's somany kinds of businesses,
business in itself,being an entrepreneur,
is a journey that actually doeshave a lot of similarities,
(40:50):
no matter what company it is.
And so finding the mentorthat's been through any kind
that you trust, I wouldhighly, highly recommend that.
JILL FINLAYSON (40:58):
To close out our conversation,
I'm going to ask youfor three tips for two
different audiences.
I'd like to know, what are yourthree tips about innovation that
could apply to somebodywho has a corporate job
or an academic job andthey want to innovate
within a larger company space?
CHUCK TEMPLE (41:15):
Number 1, if you're in a company
and you're tryingto innovate, getting
buy-in is going to be one, butdon't think it's the first one.
I am of the predispositionthat it's better
to ask for forgivenessthan to ask for permission.
And so unless you're dealingwith some crazy sensitive
information likethe UFOs at Area 51
and you want to not leak thatto the public or something,
(41:37):
if you do the research andsay, hey, there's a problem,
here's my plan orproposal, right?
So you show that.
Here's the people I would need.
Here's how much timeI would need for them.
And you show that you'vedone research first.
Then create someprototype that gets to--
in software, they call it--
I don't know what they call it.
Do they call it the aha moment?
(41:58):
Or they call it thefirst success maybe.
It's like, everysoftware program
has this internal metric.
How quickly does the person hosttheir first pickleball session?
Whatever it is.
If you can makethe most-- again,
this comes back to thisprototyping and getting
that first problem solved, butnothing more, and super simple.
(42:18):
So if you're innovatingin a company,
they're probablynot going to want
you to spend abunch of resources
if they're not sure thatthere's going to be a payoff.
But if you can belike, hey, by the way,
I used this no-code tool, orI used make.com, or Zapier
plus Bubble, and I didthis in two nights that
does this crazy coolthing, check it out,
then you can show that,that you've already done it,
(42:40):
that it already works,and that there's actually
a demand or a needthat you're solving.
Then presentingthat to your boss--
or hopefully, you lookpolitically at your company
and actually talk to the peoplethat have the political power.
That may not actuallybe your boss.
Like, the peoplethat sit closest
to the elevator or the watercooler, or whatever it is.
You rally the troops, I guess,and then you talk to your boss.
(43:02):
So now you have your simpleprototype that works.
You have your problem statement.
Then you say, Cathy andJim and these other people
that everybody respects,thinks this is an amazing idea.
Then you go forstep 3, which is get
buy-in to keep working on it.
JILL FINLAYSON (43:18):
It's sort of the free, $5,
$50, $500 that youtalked about as well.
Like, starting with no costas minimal, and piloting.
Because I think oftentimes,companies are risk averse.
So the idea of, it's just asmall pilot, it's just a test,
we'll learn from it.
And if that's compelling,let the data speak for it.
Excellent.
All right.
So now we've got thepeople who are all
(43:40):
inspired by yourstories, and they want
to go do their side hustle.
What are your finalwords of advice for them?
CHUCK TEMPLE (43:47):
Number 1, if you are afraid to talk about it,
don't be afraidto talk about it.
That's advice number 1.
I would say also, there'sa spectrum, I think,
of personalities.
From the one hand,people are all kind
of action, not worriers.
They just go and do things.
And then there's otherpeople that are worried,
(44:07):
and planning, andall that stuff.
If you are on the super planningside, give yourself a deadline.
Because in myexperience, my friends
that have great ideas thatare some of the smartest, most
brilliant people, they're alsoa lot of times really planners.
And they overthinkeverything, and they
want to plan to the nthdegree before they even start.
(44:29):
100% of thosepeople never start.
I think it's a shame because Ithink they have a lot to give.
And I think that's whatcreates opportunity,
creates value for our economy.
So this is a good thing.
And so I would say if you areon the spectrum from worry
and planning to just never thinkabout anything and just action,
if you know yourself andyou're around, like, 0% to 30%,
(44:51):
try to give yourself agoal of getting quick
as you can to a numberthat you're OK with.
You have to then switch yourbrain into execution mode
and stop worrying about the planbecause you've done it already.
I just know so manypeople that are like that,
and you've got to get over that.
You've got to say,it's good enough now.
Let's run with it.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:10):
So I hear, find demand early.
Start, because ifyou don't start,
you're not goingto get anywhere.
Learn.
Listen to what yourcustomers are saying.
And move on quickly ifthey don't agree with you.
CHUCK TEMPLE (45:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you're not findinganything, try a couple
more times if you think you'vegot something, another angle
to get in there.
But if it's notthere, it's not there.
And it's better to move onso your brain can stop kind
of thinking about this thing.
And that createsroom in your brain,
or it creates this emptyspace where new ideas can then
come into you.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:42):
I love that, the power of new ideas
and creating space for newideas rather than just getting
stuck in one little corner.
CHUCK TEMPLE (45:48):
Yeah, don't get stuck.
Don't get stuck.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:51):
Thank you so much for joining us, Chuck.
I've really enjoyedour conversation.
CHUCK TEMPLE (45:55):
Thank you for having me.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:56):
And with that, I hope
you enjoyed this latest ina long series of podcasts
that we'll be sendingyour way every month.
Please share withfriends and colleagues
who may be interested in takingthis Future of Work journey
with us.
And make sure to check outextension.berkeley.edu to find
a variety of coursesto help you thrive
in this new working landscape.
And to see what's comingup at EDGE in Tech,
(46:16):
go ahead and visitedge.berkeley.edu.
Thanks so much for listening,and we'll be back next month
to discuss the impact ofperformance improvement plans
on mental health andusing the opportunity
to reassess yourown future of work.
The Future of Work podcastis hosted by Jill Finlayson,
produced by SarahBenzuly, edited by Matt
Dipietro and Natalie Newman.
(46:37):
Thanks for joining us.
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