March 5, 2025 • 45 mins
What does it take to build a thriving business as a solopreneur? In this episode of Small Business Pivots, we sit down with Joe Rando, Founder & CEO of LifeStarr, to explore the key lessons he's learned from decades of entrepreneurship.
Joe’s journey began in commercial real estate, where he leveraged creativity and relationships to develop shopping centers—without massive upfront investments. Growing up in a family of business owners, he honed his ability to adapt and find opportunities, even in tough economic climates.
But his entrepreneurial path didn’t stop there. Joe transitioned into the tech industry, launching retail site selection software that gained traction with a major mall developer and even contributed to the national expansion of CVS. While the venture ultimately faced challenges, the impact of his innovation endured, proving that setbacks can lead to lasting success.
In this episode, we break down:
- Smart hiring for small business owners – How to build a strong team by hiring people smarter than you
- Niche positioning for solopreneurs – Why specialization attracts better clients and increases profitability
- The solopreneur success cycle – Strategies for setting clear goals, staying agile, and fostering continuous learning
Joe also shares insights from the Aspiring Solopreneur podcast and LifeStarr’s resources, helping business owners build a business that runs efficiently—without burning out.
Listen now to discover how to pivot, scale, and sustain success as a solopreneur!
Joe Rando: Founder of CEO of LifeStarr
Website: https://www.lifestarr.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joerando/
Podcast: https://www.lifestarr.com/the-aspiring-solopreneur-podcast
Blog: https://www.lifestarr.com/blog
Email: joe@workstarr.com
#Solopreneur #Entrepreneurship #SmallBusiness #BusinessGrowth #StartupSuccess #BusinessStrategy #SmartHiring #NicheMarketing #ScalingABusiness #LeadershipDevelopment #PodcastForEntrepreneurs #SmallBusinessPodcast #BusinessTips #SuccessMindset #EntrepreneurLife #JoeRando #LifeStarr #SmallBusinessPivots #GrowYourBusiness #SmallBusinessCoach #EntrepreneurMindset #BusinessSuccess #BusinessPodcast #MichaelDMorrison #BOSS #BusinessOwnership #OklahomaCity
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Welcome to another Small Business Pivots.
Today we have a very specialguest from around the world and,
as I say week to week, only thebusiness owner can pronounce
their name and their businesslike they can.
So tell us your name, whereyou're from, what you do
(00:28):
millennial.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You know, I don't even know what to call it, but
it is my real name and mycompany is called Lifestar, and
we help solopreneurs buildbusinesses that serve their
lives.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Wow, there's not many of those are there out there,
Solopreneurs.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Solopreneurs.
Yeah Well, what we callsolopreneurs are anybody with a
one-person business.
You know somebody that iseither no or one W-2.
And there's somewhere,depending on who you listen to,
if you count the side businesses, 60 to 70 million in the US.
So just a couple.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, yeah, that's amazing and it's just growing
ever since the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Every time there's a back-to-the-off office order,
I've saw new people coming in.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yep, yeah, that's it.
Yeah, that is really.
That is the truth.
Well, how do you think we'regoing to help our listeners
today?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
before we introduce the show Well, I've been an
entrepreneur and a solopreneursince 1990 and have done some
really cool things and somereally dumb things, had a
business actually fail, lost alot of money, but I've had some
successes and you know, I just Ifeel like I've learned a couple
(01:36):
of things and I really likesharing those things with people
.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Fantastic.
That's what this show is allabout is small business pivots.
So, listeners, get your earsready.
We got a lot of insights totalk about.
Today we're going to introducethe show and we'll be right back
.
Ceo of Boss, where we makebusiness ownership simplified
(02:04):
for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots.
(02:27):
We have a very special guestnamed Joe, and that is his real
name.
So tell us.
Let's start with your journeyof life, because you said you've
gone through a lot of things inthe business world and a lot of
people because of trials andtribulations.
They just can't overcome things.
They get imposter syndrome.
They don't have any self-worth.
(02:48):
Let's talk about yourupbringing, if you don't mind,
just a small bit, so that we cankind of align with where you
are today.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Okay.
So my dad was in the restaurantbusiness from the time I was
born.
The family had a restaurant.
He was a very motivated guy,went off in his I think he was
30, 31 years old started his ownrestaurant, did $550,000 worth
of business in the first year,which equates to many millions
(03:18):
of dollars in current daydollars, and this was 63.
Very, very smart guy.
Unfortunately didn't have goodlawyers.
The people that he was leasingthe space from saw how
successful it was and booted himout, learned his lesson, went
off to become a hotel guy,bought hotels with a partner and
(03:39):
did quite well.
Did quite well for himself.
So I grew up in that kind ofenvironment where I had a dad
who wasn't around all the timebecause he was working but was
very much an entrepreneur and sothat was not foreign to me.
I had no interest in the hotelbusiness.
It was much too boring andwound up eventually getting
(03:59):
involved in developing shoppingcenters, and that I liked
because it was moreproject-based.
I didn't like the every day isthe same kind of thing that was.
The best scenario in our hotelbusiness was every day is the
same as the day before, no drama, and shopping center
development I was reallyintrigued with because and this
was going back to 1990 when theHome Depot was expanding and
(04:21):
some of these other big boxretailers so there was
opportunity and was expandingand some of these other big box
retailers, so there wasopportunity and the result there
was that you would work reallyhard on this thing and
eventually get it done, and thenit was just kind of like
collect the money and pay themortgage, which I like that
model, because then you could gooff and do something else
Interesting, I guess.
I mean technically I don't haveADHD, but I kind of have that
(04:44):
mindset of like let's dosomething new now.
So I mean that's, that's, youknow, my, my kind of getting
started into business in anutshell Well, I do have some
entrepreneurs that would love toget into commercial real estate
.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
How did you, or what suggestions would you have, for
them to find funding to do that?
Because that takes a largerbucket of capital than just
starting a business.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah.
So what happened with me was I.
1990 for people that are oldenough to remember was a very
bad time for for real estate ingeneral.
It was a crash in 88, 89.
And there was just a lot ofmoney had flowed in, a lot of
dumb lenders loaning money todumb projects and those projects
failed.
And so there's all this realestate being owned by the banks
(05:30):
and nothing was happening.
There was no financing.
So I went to a guy that owned abig piece of land that my
software I had developed somesoftware we'll talk about that
after to figure out where to putshopping centers and it said
this was a good location.
And I got to know this guy andwe became friends really.
But he basically wanted a lotof money for his land and so I
(05:52):
said, hey, give me the chance tomake your land worth that much
money and I'll give you thatmuch money.
So he basically let me work onthis thing on the cheap and I
was able to go and get permitsand find tenants and get this
thing all put together withouthaving to spend a fortune on
buying the land or optioning theland or something like that.
The world is not like that.
Real estate's expensiveConstruction costs are
(06:13):
ridiculous, and one of thereasons I'm out of the
commercial real estate businessright now is because I don't see
the opportunity.
That was there before and it'llcome back around.
I might not be of a mind to getinvolved again, but that was
the story.
There was making good thingscome out of bad times, and
(06:36):
that's, I think, a running themein my life in real estate is
that the bad times are when youcan make the good deals.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, that also goes along with being adaptable or
problem solving limitations,being creative as entrepreneurs.
Those are all critical thinkingthat we all need to have, or
kind of look at thingsdifferently.
You know, we typically hear thestatus quo of need to go get a
(07:10):
bank loan or get a group ofpeople that have money, and you
went out just figured out how todo it because that's what you
wanted.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, and it was the right.
It was the right time for that.
I mean, the biggest thing, Ithink, if I had any competitive
advantage, it was the fact that,um, I have a kind of a math, a
mathy background and everybodywas looking at real estate.
I mean, literally, the New Yorkno, it was the wall street
journal had a headline that saidis real estate dead as an
(07:42):
investment?
That said, is real estate deadas an investment?
I mean that's how bad thingswere.
And so people were so despondentand they take a ruler right and
they go, oh, it was here and itwas here.
And they put the ruler and theygo, oh, or, when things are
going up, they put the here andhere and oh, look, the sky's the
limit.
And I'm like I keep a Frenchcurve around Because it's doing,
(08:04):
doing this and it's going to dothat, and so you always have to
be confident that whatever ishappening will not be happening
forever.
So it's really important tolook and say, okay, you know
this, this is a really badmarket right now, and this is.
It goes for the stock markettoo.
You know this is really bad.
But if it's a, if it's a companythat's been successful over
years and the industry is off.
(08:26):
Well, that's probably going tocome back, unless you know if
they're making, you know, buggywhips or whatever back in the
day there are, there arestructural changes, but you know
if, if, you know if, ifhealthcare is is is down, well,
guess what?
Healthcare is not going away.
So so that's how I think aboutthis kind of thing.
Is that what goes up must comedown, and vice versa.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, there's got to be a demand.
Well, let's talk about thesoftware then, because it sounds
like we're kind of moving intoa serial entrepreneur and you
mentioned software that we talkabout, so let's talk about that,
and then we'll kind of get backto some pivots that you learned
along the way.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Great that.
And then we'll kind of get backto some pivots that you learned
along the way.
Great.
So yeah, I was getting an MBAbecause I wanted to start a
business and my father convincedme that I was not going to fail
for technology reasons, I wasgoing to fail for not knowing
how to run a business.
So I did that, and to get theMBA I had to do a bunch of
independent studies, for variousreasons, and so I wrote some
software to figure out where toput retail.
(09:25):
So it would take us, you couldput a location in and put in the
location of all the othercompetitors and put in you know,
information about the, from thecensus, about population or
income or whatever, and it wouldtell you how that store would
do, uh, or predict at least totry to tell you.
And so I, when I got out ofschool and started the real
estate thing, I wrote thesoftware, I did a better job,
(09:47):
wrote it up, made it reallyrobust and was using it to
evaluate pieces of land.
And what happened was thatprofessor I worked under was
giving talks, because professorsgo out and give talks, and, and
somebody from a big malldeveloper at the day, a company
called DeBardolo.
They, I think they own a 49ersand I think they sold to Simon
(10:07):
eventually.
But they heard about it, calledme and wanted to license it.
And I'm like you know, hey, theworld just beat a path to my
door and it was 1994.
So I'm like, great.
So I, you know, get all excited.
I start, I started a company, I, you know, create a corporation
and sign the license deal withthese guys and I hire a
(10:29):
programmer to help me with itand then I hire a sales and
marketing guy.
It's just right in there, goteverything going, we get all the
pieces put together, get ourfirst sale after this guy.
After that the Barlow Companywas for six figures a year and
(10:52):
you know, just recurring revenue.
So every year they were goingto give us six figures.
We were probably going to keep.
I'm going to say probably 60%of that was going to be, you
know, gross profit from ourcosts, maybe a little more.
And so we're just like we're onour way.
This is great.
Here we go.
And then something happened.
It was called the internet andall of a sudden every retailer
(11:16):
and retail developer in theworld stopped worrying about
buying technology to figure outwhere to put stores put,
worrying about whether therewere going to be stores and
worrying about how they weregoing to get their online
presence going and what wasgoing to happen.
And we did not make anothersale, wow.
And I eventually had to pivotto being a service bureau
(11:38):
because they still neededanswers.
So the real estate departmentswould basically pay us to do a
study for them and I desperatelydidn't want to be in the
service business.
I liked what we would now callthe SaaS business software as a
service, but was then nobody hadthat name, but so we would.
Just, I had employees and Isaid, okay, we got to do
(11:59):
something.
So we pivoted to the servicebureau and it couldn't make
money.
Couldn't make money and it justthey wouldn't pay enough to
cover the cost of doing it right.
I didn't want to do it wrong,so I shut it down.
Um, you know, laid everybodyoff and shut the business down,
which was really painful, andthat was 19,.
I made it to 1999 before I hadto do that.
(12:20):
So um had a, you know,five-year run of excitement into
.
But you know you can't fight.
You can't fight these megatrends.
You know, if you know, if I,you know I completely missed out
on the whole internet, thefirst wave of the internet,
which is probably good Cause alot of people I know ended up
going bust, but I did it in myown special way.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Was that referred to the dot-com or was that
afterwards the dot-com, thedot-com?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
boom and crash.
And yeah, one of my bestfriends had an $80 million deal
on the table for his businessand the thing crashed before
they closed and it went away.
Goodness.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Well, we still have what now, now, 26 years from
from that year to now.
So let's keep rolling with yourstory.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
We got, we got a lot of years here to go, all the
people that were working.
Well, one guy went over to CVS,the pharmacy chain, to help
(13:32):
them kind of develop a marketresearch department and he ended
up bringing in all the otherpeople.
So most of the you know, withthe exception of, like the sales
guy, ended up at CVS creatingtheir market research department
and, you know, with my blessing, they built out some of the
tech that we had already builtand started expanding CVS across
the country.
So it was kind of, you know,financially it stunk, but it was
(13:55):
kind of a little proud momentto see this stuff actually going
out and doing something.
So one of the guys that went toCVS, a guy named Bill Dakey,
called me up and said hey, Ithink the world has changed.
Do you want to give it a go?
And another go.
And I said, yeah, let's do it.
So he came over.
I had kept that one customer,that one customer I told you
(14:16):
about from before.
I had kept them this entiretime.
So we basically transitionedthem.
So we started this new businesswith one customer and with one
guy taking a paycheck and me nottaking a paycheck.
We were actually profitablewhen we started this and so we
locked him away in the back roomand he started coding and
(14:37):
created a really great productand we started trying to sell it
and we were both reallyterrible salespeople.
We were good at our tech but wewere bad salespeople.
I've since studied sales andlearned a lot about it, but we
picked up a few more customersjust because people that really
understood what we were doing.
(14:58):
An industry that was reallykind of focused around desktop
applications and you knowspreadsheets of data stored on
people's hard disks and thirdparty consultants giving
opinions, and we were buildingout kind of an enterprise
software solution where therewas none and where the market
(15:19):
didn't understand it.
And so the idea was, instead ofhaving you know this database
on Bob's hard disk in an Excelspreadsheet, you have it in an
enterprise database on a serverthat people have access to as
they need to, and it's moresecure and et cetera.
So we had a new vision that'sthe important thing about how
(15:40):
this stuff should run, and ittook a long time to get the
world to kind of see the vision.
So we started this really in2004, had probably two customers
until 2009,.
But they were really goodcustomers, so it was fine.
But then we started hiring somepeople, you know and hired a
(16:01):
salesperson and by the time wesold the business in 2020, we
had, I think, 80 customers.
So, but the trick was and thehard part is, if you're doing
something new or different, it'snot very easy to get people to
understand that, what you'redoing, why they should do it,
(16:24):
especially if you're like wewere and kind of going in and
going well, it's got anenterprise database and it's
this and it's that and it doesthis, and people just go.
I'm too busy.
But if you go in and you sayyou know how, when you try to go
into the real estate committeeand three people come in with
three different answers abouthow well the store is going to
(16:44):
do with that location, thatstinks right.
Well, if you have our system,everybody will have the same
answer because they'll be usingthe same data and now you can
start to get people.
Oh my God, I can go in there.
Or you know how?
You spent $8,000 evaluating 10sites each.
So you wasted $80,000 in thelast quarter looking at sites
(17:06):
you didn't want to do.
What if we could turn that into$5,000 instead of $80,000?
Oh, so that's learning to speakin the context of the pain
points of the customer insteadof speaking in terms of what we
do, or what our thing does, orwhat we do is a really hard
lesson for most entrepreneurs,because and solopreneurs because
(17:29):
it's just, we just were soclose to what we do and yet, you
know, people don't care what wedo, they care what you know we
can do for them.
What?
How can we make their livesbetter, make their pain points
go away?
Cause I mean, that's the otherthing.
Something I learned recentlythat I really like is you go in
and and it's way easier to sellpainkillers than vitamins.
You know, that's just brilliant.
(17:53):
I don't know who who made thatup, but it is so true you know
and I'm thinking in terms ofkilling people's pain, getting
rid of people's pain we reallyget a lot more attention.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, how it can change their life.
Kind of like the painkillers.
You know I can solve your youwill feel different.
These vitamins, you're notgoing to feel different, you
might live longer, but you couldalso be hit by a bus in between
there, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Exactly, and it's just, even if I, you know, take
a vitamin to feel a littlebetter, I think I, oh man, maybe
I feel a little better, greatyeah.
But if I've got like you know,if I'm in pain and you, you know
, literally like and this istrue I woke up with a sinus
infection this morning.
My head was pounding.
I took some, some Advil youknow I love Advil because I feel
(18:39):
so much better now than I didthis morning, and so you know my
.
I got some vitamins over hereand they're great, but I never
feel the way about my vitaminsas I do about my Advil boy.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Well, that's a that's a powerful message for almost
every business owner, cause weget so stuck in the it can do
this, it can do that.
Nobody cares.
You know what it can do.
Vitamins they can make you livelonger, have healthier blood
pressure.
They don't care.
How's it going to make me feeldifferent?
(19:11):
You know Right Addictions.
You know drug dealers andeverything else.
That's how they get addicted,you know.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Perfect, yeah, now you feel different.
You're in pain, exactly, andyou put them in.
Basically, you're in pain,right, yeah.
But yeah, I mean, I just youknow I don't know if you've ever
read that $100 million offer isAlex Hormozy, I haven't.
Yeah, he talks a lot about thisof you know, focusing on pain
points and just you know, really, really going through all the
(19:41):
reasons that people, the painthat they feel and the reasons
that they don't feel like theycan do whatever it is that you
want to get them to do, and ifyou can solve those problems and
those pain points and speak tothem in those terms, you'll get
a lot better response.
And you know, I think it's verytrue.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, what was that book?
Again?
For our listeners it's called$100 Million Offers.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Okay, alex Hormozy, but yeah, it's a really
interesting book and I'm notsure how many businesses can't
get something out of it.
I mean, he focuses on highticket items, which I'm not
doing right now.
I'm doing a relatively lowticket item, but I still feel
(20:23):
like I got something out of it.
You know, his whole thing is,if you do it a certain way, you
can charge a lot more for whatyou do than if you just end up
being one of the crowd, and Itotally agree with that.
But what I'm trying to do issomething where I don't want to
be high priced.
I want to be low priced so thatlots of people can afford it,
but it's still added value towhat I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Absolutely.
And that brings up a good point, because a lot of our listeners
, like myself, are not verystudious and so we go reading a
book and we're like I can'tremember all this.
It's chapter or chapter.
Just take one or two thingsfrom the book you know and make
it applicable.
You don't have to do.
Just because the book waswritten doesn't mean everything
in it's going to work for you,Right, Right.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, and that's true , and this is really just a
single process that you could doover months if you wanted to,
and it's very easy reading.
It's not a dense book.
It's got a lot of littledrawings and large font.
It would probably be a bookletif you wrote it the way a lot of
books are written, yeahespecially with AI.
(21:25):
But a lot of great books areshort because they're just
giving you some good piece ofadvice and a lot of times people
have to write fluff around itjust to get the publisher to
publish it.
But another one is Building aStory Brand by Donald Miller.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Don Miller, yeah, yeah, and that's another one
where you just I read that bookand I'm like you know this is
really actionable and can makesuch a difference in terms of
your ability to kind of attract.
You know, it's amazing when youget around an author you're
like you haven't heard of him orher.
You know because I, you know,once you get around one, you
kind of follow them Right,follow them.
(21:59):
Don Miller if listeners haven'theard of him, he has a lot of
great books.
I still talk to business ownersthat have not heard of him or
the story brand at all.
I think he has what?
Probably four books now thatare probably number one.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I've got a very large pile of books that I need to
read and it's tough.
I'm actually writing a bookright now.
I'm in the process of writingSolopreneur business for dummies
with my my fractional CMO,carly Reese.
But yeah, we're going to putout.
You know it was, there was nobook for solopreneurs and Wiley
(22:35):
decided that they could do adummies book on this topic,
which I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, yeah, there's a yeah, that's a very good book.
So for the plug, any timecommitment end of 25?
.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Oh, it's coming out in September of 25.
Yeah, September.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
We'll put that in the show notes for our listeners
and hopefully they'll stayengaged and follow you Before we
move to our next businessbecause these are
technology-based and I know wehave some tech entrepreneurs.
You're listening to SmallBusiness Pivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
(23:12):
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
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If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
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(23:33):
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest Before we move to
a next business because theseare technology-based and I know
we have some tech entrepreneursis these are technology-based
and I know we have some techentrepreneurs.
What were some of the thingsyou learned?
Things that you wouldn't doagain, or things that were
detrimental, or things you wouldhave done Because technology in
(23:54):
that industry is a littledifferent than a
brick-and-mortar retailcontractor, things like that.
So for our listeners that arein that space, any insights you
could share on that?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well, I think so.
Yeah, I mean, I've I've notbeen a, I've been a contractor,
but more more technologycontractor I've.
I've done a few solopreneurbusinesses, but, um, but you
know, just in general terms,let's see if, if we're talking
entrepreneurs, if we're talkingpeople that are hiring, let's
see if we're talkingentrepreneurs, if we're talking
(24:26):
people that are hiring.
The one thing that I've said,you know, to anybody that asks
or anybody that'll listen, ishire people smarter than you.
If you can have a meeting withyour staff on topics related to
what they're doing and be thedumb one, you're being
successful.
That's the way to be.
So you know, there are peoplethat have egos that make them
(24:47):
afraid to hire people smarterthan them.
I've, fortunately, never hadthat problem because I'm not
very good at a lot of things,but I'm in your camp.
Yeah, I'm like you know, I needto hire a controller.
I want somebody that's waybetter at accounting than me.
I want to hire somebody that'sgoing to do marketing.
I want somebody that's waybetter at accounting than me.
I want to hire somebody that'sgoing to do marketing.
I want somebody that's waybetter at marketing than me.
Um, and it's, you know, and it'sworked really well.
(25:10):
So that's the first thing is isthat you know, hire the
smartest person you can find,and um and then, and then trust
them.
You know, I mean, guide them,point them in the right
direction, but you got to trustthem.
(25:30):
If you don't, if you're, ifyou're second guessing them or
micromanaging them, they won'tstay around.
But if you don't, I have peoplein I haven't talked about yet,
but I have a property managementcompany that have been with me
for literally 30 years.
Wow, that's incredible thesedays 30 years, yeah and um, and
I tend to keep people aroundbecause because I, like I said,
I hire people that are smart andthen I trust them to do smart
things and they don't want tolose that.
You know.
Yeah, they don't want to losethat.
(25:51):
That's what, you know, smartpeople want is the ability to do
a good work.
So that's one piece of advice.
The other one is, you know,make yourself special.
Find some way to make yourselfyour business, whatever it is.
Stand out from the crowd, andthat could be niching down on an
industry, niching down on ageography, niching down on a
(26:14):
pain point, something, but findsome ways to kind of stand out
and do something where people, asmaller group of people, will
look and go.
That's who I want, because then, number one, you get the
attention, you get the deals.
But two, you can usually chargea little more because you know
you're solving specific problemsfor specific people.
So if I come out and say, youknow I make websites for
(26:37):
businesses, okay, well, a lot ofpeople do that, so I'm now
competing with you know, athousand other people.
But if I say, you know, I makewebsites for, um, you know, uh,
michelin star restaurants.
Um, you know there's a lotfewer of them, but if I've, you
know, built my business aroundthat they, you know it might be
(26:59):
a lot easier for to get a lot ofmoney from Michelin star
restaurant that wants a topnotch website for their rest and
I'm just using dumb exampleshere, but you get the idea.
But it's, you know, if I turnaround and I'm looking for a
life coach, and they've got alife coach for people, and then
another one says you know, lifecoach for men who are serial
(27:20):
entrepreneurs over 60 that havegray hair, you know wearing a
blue shirt with lifestyleExactly.
Exactly.
I'm like oh my God, that's,that's for me, but that's, you
know, that's.
And that's the thing thatpeople have a tough time.
They don't want to give up.
Oh, there's so manyopportunities and if I narrow it
down I'm going to lose allthese other opportunities.
(27:41):
But if you don't get any ofthem because nobody notices you,
that's, you know, that's notgreat either.
So niching down, you can alwaysexpand it, right, you can
always make it bigger later.
But niching down and reallyappealing to a smaller group of
people is powerful and, I think,not appreciated by a lot of
small business owners.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Well, I'll tell you, that's not just true for
technology either.
That's true for every business,especially the people side,
because as a business coach, Isee many business owners that
come to us and they're like Ican never leave the office and
I'm stuck in the office.
I can never get away.
Well, you might look at yourpeople, because if no one's
(28:23):
smarter than you, that's whyyou're stuck in the office,
because you're the only one thatknows how to do it.
And then, on the flip side ofthat, I see business owners.
I share with them.
Be humble, lose your ego,because you know so many
business owners.
They won't hire somebodysmarter than them because
they're afraid of many thingslike well, they'll take over my
(28:44):
business.
They'll, you know.
They'll be telling me what todo, and I don't want that.
That's not why I own, you know.
So get over yourself.
In other words, business owners.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I love it when people tell me what if smart people
tell me what you know don't do,don't do that, do this?
I'm like, oh, okay, great, youknow, I mean that's why you hire
them.
But you know it's hard for somepeople and you know there is
that risk.
You know, I know a guy.
He ran a really goodlandscaping company and he just,
you know he did really goodwork, he had really good
(29:14):
equipment, you know, just reallygreat.
And he had this guy working forhim and that guy was great.
Well, eventually that guy saidyou know what I can do this too.
And that guy was great.
Well, eventually that guy saidyou know what I can do this too.
And he went off and started hisown company in a competition.
That's a risk.
But you know what?
This guy didn't go out ofbusiness.
You know he struggled becausehe was relying on that guy and
he had trouble replacing him,but he didn't go out of business
(29:36):
because of it.
And you know he probablywouldn't have gotten to where he
got to without that guy helpingthem in the early days.
So you know it's a.
You know business has risks andeverything changes and ends and
you know that's the worst thingin the world is not somebody
helps you grow your business andthen, you know, spreads wings
and flies away.
The worst case is you never getoff the ground, right?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, yeah, and something you haven't said
directly, but just through yourjourney, what I'm realizing is
we have a lot of business ownersthat come to us and they just
want a checklist.
They're like tell me what to do, when to do it, and then, for
some magical reason, they thinkthey never have to do anything
again, like they just want thisbusiness, okay, it can run
(30:18):
without me.
No, no, no, no, no.
Look at your journey it's likeno, I'm always pivoting.
No, no, no, no.
Look at your, your journey it'slike no, I'm always pivoting,
I'm always moving.
There's always a challenge.
The internet came and disruptedwhat I had planned and it's
just the needle's always moving.
So, business owners, that's apowerful lesson for those that
just think you're going to havethis business fixed and never
have to do anything again.
(30:39):
That's, that's not how it works, and we're hearing that from
your story.
Let's keep talking about yourtech journey so we can get to
what you're doing today.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah.
So I mean, let me continue onyour last question, which is
advice.
One thing that people don't doand I am guilty of this is, as
you're starting a business, youknow you got to start with why.
Why do you want to start abusiness?
Okay, business.
You know you got to start withwhy.
Why do you want to start abusiness?
Okay.
(31:10):
And if the answer is, you know Idon't like my job, well, maybe
that's a good reason to start abusiness.
Maybe you should find anotherjob.
You know, some people aren'tbuilt to be in business for
themselves.
So the point is you should havea why and goals that make sense
.
And that's one of the thingsthat leads me into Lifestyle,
which is what I'm doing now, andthat's one of the things that
leads me into Lifestar, which iswhat I'm doing now.
But this whole idea of havingsome goals your goal probably
wasn't to be in the office allthe time, for most people at
(31:34):
least.
And so there is where, when youstart a business and say I want
to have a certain amount offree time, well, how are you
going to build a business aroundthe ability to do that?
And that might force your handinto hiring smarter people.
So it's always good to startthere.
And so that brings me to, Iguess, the latest chapter,
(31:57):
because, as I mentioned, I soldTrade Area Systems in 2020 to
calibrate, and then I sold offmost of my real estate holdings
the shopping center stuff in thenext few years.
But what I did then was I had anidea for an app and, if you go
(32:17):
back to that whole thing with myfirst company, I wanted to buy
technology, couldn't findanything that was worth buying
to figure out where to putshopping centers, and that's why
I really ended up building myown.
And so I wanted to buy an appand I couldn't find it anywhere.
So I said you know what?
I'm going to build that app.
So, after I sold Trade AreaSystems, I said I'm going to
(32:38):
start building this app, and theidea for the app was basically
a task management tool that letme work with anybody.
So it was kind of like you know, asana meets Facebook, right, I
could connect it with anybodythat wanted to go on there.
There was going to be a freeversion of it.
You know, maybe ad supported andstarted building this thing,
(32:58):
and my Carly Reese, who I'mwriting the book with, she does
some marketing.
She said, you know, we shouldtarget solopreneurs because they
don't have teams.
So they need a tool like thisbecause they don't even have
teams.
And I said, brilliant, let's doit.
Where do we find solopreneurs?
And we looked around.
We couldn't find any place tofind them.
There was no place forone-person businesses.
(33:19):
You know, there are places forpeople that were building SaaS
companies and places for people,like you know, that were just,
you know, small businesses, butnothing for the one person
business.
And I said, oh, that's a bummer.
And then I looked and found outthere were 60 to 70 million of
them with the side hustles and Isaid I cannot believe there's
no place for these people tocome together, did a survey of
(33:40):
over 300 one person businessesand found out that most of them
share the same problems,regardless of their industry.
And I said, you know what?
Let's build that place instead.
And the app is kind of on holdand we're building out and
releasing momentarily somethingcalled Lifestar Central, which
is a place on the internet andit's just got all kinds of stuff
(34:02):
for solopreneurs.
So we've got tons of searchablecontent.
We've got both a paid free andpaid tiers, but, you know,
overall we've got, you know, anAI trained to answer business
questions from a solopreneurperspective.
We've got a library of videosof speakers on topics directed
(34:24):
completely at solopreneurscommunity ask questions, office
hours on different topicsrelated to solopreneurship,
marketing and accounting andusing a CRM and all these
different topics that peopleneed help on.
They can just pop in and ask aquestion.
So we're just building thisentire place for one person
(34:45):
businesses and, as I mentionedearlier, trying to keep the
price really reasonable so thatpeople can afford to do it.
Because solopreneurs, again, youchoose solopreneurship.
You got reasons you're doingthat.
You're not going toentrepreneurship, and the
reasons shouldn't be I'm goingto get rich or I'm going to work
four hours a week and make$10,000 a month Because, yeah,
(35:07):
it's been done.
But you know, lots of thingshave been done by somebody but
not by everybody.
So we're helping people inregular businesses their coaches
, their consultants, theircontractors, their you know,
basically some.
Some are entrepreneurial butdefinitely don't want employees.
We have one guy, his name is SanSan Hong and he's like I used
(35:29):
to define how successful it wasby how many employees I had, and
he goes now it's the opposite,like how many employees I don't
have.
He's like he's one personbusiness.
He's using contractors foreverything and um, and that's
just the kind of life he wantsto live.
He just wants to keep it.
You know more simple to live.
He just wants to keep it, youknow more simple.
And so it's just one of thosethings where where you know, if
(35:53):
you think through your why, thenwe wanted to build a place to
help people first take that stepof thinking why are you doing
this?
You know what are your goalsand then helping them build the
business around those goals, soyou don't wake up finding
yourself in the office, you know, every day, until until eight,
30 at night, and uh, or you know, whatever it is that your your
goals are, but helping peopleavoid the mistakes, see the
pitfalls and just build abusiness that works for their
(36:14):
life.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, it's a very robust site.
You said it's kind of in in theworks.
But for those that areconsidering starting a business,
there's even topics on herelike you're not sure what kind
of business to start, and thenthere's show me how to start.
You know, there's a lot ofstuff and it looks like it's for
different seasons ofsolopreneurship.
(36:35):
Is that what I'm seeing?
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, yeah, I've created something called the
solopreneur success cycle and soit's basically a flywheel model
.
It starts with the goals, right, so I call it step zero,
because everybody skips it.
So start with defining yourgoals and your why, and then
there's a process of basicallyenvisioning your business, right
(36:57):
.
What might it look like?
Let me think.
You know, just imagine it.
You know, start with that andthen basically go in and you
know figuring out what youactually want to do and then
making those decisions, thenbuilding out the business.
You know actually setting it upand then you run the business.
But as you run the business,you're learning from it, and
this is something we chattedabout.
(37:19):
You know offline beforehand,but you know the whole process
of running a business.
It should always be a learningexperience because things are
going wrong and every timesomething goes wrong you wind up
firefighting, and firefightingis the biggest time waster.
So with me I mentioned to you Ihad a property management
(37:39):
business still do, but that wasa great example.
We had a small team of peopleand every time something went
wrong we brainstormed so whatcaused this?
How do we fix it?
So we never made the samemistake twice.
And same thing with theenterprise software company.
I think we were a little morestressed with that one, but we
would eventually stop making themistake.
(38:01):
But the idea is you learn fromit.
So then you're operating andlearning and taking notes, not
just fixing, because sometimesfixing is a big deal, but at
least noting the problems asyou're operating.
Then you go into a phase ofrefining your business, maybe
even reimagining it, dependingon how it's going.
But using all that stuff you'velearned about what went wrong
(38:24):
to refine your business orreimagine it.
So you think through what couldI change, make a decision, what
things you're actually going totry to change, because some
things might be too heavy a liftright now and then make the
changes.
And then you're back tooperating.
But you're going through thiscycle and you get started and
then you're cycling around andcontinually learning and fixing
on some schedule that makessense for your business.
(38:45):
Maybe it's once a year, maybeit's every six months, maybe
it's every quarter, but havingthat process of fixing problems
lets you.
It really can help people stayout of that.
I'm in the office till 8.30every night.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Because usually that's firefighting.
Yeah, for sure.
And the things you justdescribed, that's every
entrepreneur, most businessowners that come to us.
They've never started with why.
They don't even know theirNorth Star.
I call those guiding principlesLike where do you even want to
go?
Why are you doing this?
Because if you don't know, howare you going to get anybody
else on board?
(39:18):
And there's a lot of topics onhere that I think any
entrepreneur that's in thatposition could really benefit
from.
And it shows you have a podcast.
You want to throw that out here?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Sure, we have a podcast called the Aspiring
Solopreneur and it's really forpeople that are thinking about
getting started or want to kindof think through maybe different
ways or better ways to runtheir solopreneur business.
It's available anywhere thatthere's podcasts.
I co-host it with Carly Reese,the marketing person, so I come
at it from this businessperspective.
(39:48):
She talks about the marketingstuff because that's one of the
biggest challenges for at leastmost solo businesses is
marketing and sales, and so wecover these topics.
We bring on experts to discussthings.
We also have we do twice a week, once with interview with an
expert and the other one is justCarly and I taking on a topic
and kind of working through itand, um, yeah, it's uh, you know
(40:12):
, I, I, I feel really good aboutit, I, I, I listened to it and
I go that I wish I had been ableto hear that 20, 30 years ago,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I know the same thing .
Speaker 2 (40:24):
So, Lifestar, that's L-I-F-E-S-T-A, two R's dot com
Two R's, so I encouragelisteners, not the Medevac
Helicopter Company.
Yeah, that's with one.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
R.
Oh yeah, well, I encourageeverybody to go check that out,
check out the podcast, and Ibelieve you have just wet
people's whistle.
They probably want to followyou, learn more.
What's the best way to do that?
Social media, any channels,yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I'm mostly on LinkedIn, joe Rando, you will.
You know, if you do thelinkedincom slash ins, I think
slash Joe Rando will bring youto me.
But just if you search me,you'll see this big head of gray
hair and I show up pretty muchclose to the top at least.
(41:16):
So that way, if you come to thewebsite Lifestarcom, you can
sign up for something calledLifestar Intro, which is free.
It'll give you access to freeevents.
We do two free events a month.
We have a weekly newsletter.
We'll keep you informed ondifferent things that are going
(41:41):
on, and that's all free.
We'll be free forever.
But yeah, just go tolifestylecom and just I think it
says join the movement rightnow.
So you can just join themovement and, like I said, it's
free forever.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
So hopefully, see you there.
Yes, and it brings up aquestion before we sign off here
.
So what about the entrepreneursthat are solopreneurs now?
So, in other words, they'vestarted a business, they are
flying solo, they intend to growa business, but who knows when
that might be?
Maybe they'll?
Would this be beneficial forthem as well?
Speaker 2 (42:17):
I think it would.
I mean there's a little.
I mean, the only thing is, oneof the things that we're trying
to differentiate ourselvesaround is the idea of people
that are doing solopreneurshipbecause there's a higher goal
than scaling, right.
So if you're a solopreneurbecause you want to be an
entrepreneur but you don't havethe money to hire employees, but
basically scaling is everything, it's probably not the place
(42:41):
for you, because there's plentyof places for people like that.
There are just tons of peopleout there that are helping
people scale businesses.
So ours is more about peoplethat are choosing
solopreneurship because there'ssome other thing that they want
to have a business.
It might be that they only wantto do the work they want to do.
It might be that they want tobe able to go to their kids'
(43:04):
games or go skiing when theweather's right.
I mean, it could be a thousandthings.
But the main thing is, if you'retrying to scale, if you want to
scale a business, the idea offoregoing employees for the long
term doesn't make any sense.
They're your most powerfulscaling tool, and contractors
(43:24):
are great.
I love working with contractors, but it's not the same as an
employee.
You don't have the same.
Say, if you do have the samesay, you're violating, at least
in the United States.
You're violating tax laws andyou could wind up getting sued
and lose a lot of money, sodon't do that.
But yeah, so you've got thisdecision.
You've made to forego employees, and probably with good reason.
(43:44):
But knowing those reasons andthen finding ways to make sure
that those reasons, those goals,are being met, is what we're
all about.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
So you're sticking to your standard.
You know your vision, who thisis for, so nicely done.
Well, I always end our showwith one question.
You can take a second to thinkabout it.
If you're in a room full ofentrepreneurs, business owners,
all solopreneurs, differentsizes of business, been in
business different lengths oftime, what's something that's
(44:12):
applicable for all of them?
It could be a quote, it couldbe an insight, or it could be a
book.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Sure, I'm going to go to my go-to book for any human
being which is it's old now, butI don't think some books don't
really get old.
It's called the Seven Habits ofHighly Effective People by
Stephen Covey.
That book kind of set thedirection of my life and I've
never I've read that book manytimes.
(44:40):
I've never regretted what itdid in terms of the trajectory
of my life, because it reallysolidified things for me.
So you know, I just I don'tthink anybody can really get
hurt by reading that book.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
It's a great book and , as I always say, learn to earn
.
Well, joe, you've been ablessing to many and a wealth of
knowledge.
I appreciate you being with ustoday and I'm sure our listeners
do too.
Please go follow Joe.
Thanks again, I wish youcontinued success.
Thank you, michael.
You too, my pleasure.
Thank you for listening toSmall Business Pivots.
(45:15):
This podcast is created andproduced by my company, boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours.
Boss offers flexible businessloans with business coaching
support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(45:35):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
All right, Welcome to another Small Business Pivots.
Today we have a very specialguest from around the world and,
as I say week to week, only thebusiness owner can pronounce
their name and their businesslike they can.
So tell us your name, whereyou're from, what you do
(00:28):
millennial.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You know, I don't even know what to call it, but
it is my real name and mycompany is called Lifestar, and
we help solopreneurs buildbusinesses that serve their
lives.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Wow, there's not many of those are there out there,
Solopreneurs.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Solopreneurs.
Yeah Well, what we callsolopreneurs are anybody with a
one-person business.
You know somebody that iseither no or one W-2.
And there's somewhere,depending on who you listen to,
if you count the side businesses, 60 to 70 million in the US.
So just a couple.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, yeah, that's amazing and it's just growing
ever since the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Every time there's a back-to-the-off office order,
I've saw new people coming in.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yep, yeah, that's it.
Yeah, that is really.
That is the truth.
Well, how do you think we'regoing to help our listeners
today?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
before we introduce the show Well, I've been an
entrepreneur and a solopreneursince 1990 and have done some
really cool things and somereally dumb things, had a
business actually fail, lost alot of money, but I've had some
successes and you know, I just Ifeel like I've learned a couple
(01:36):
of things and I really likesharing those things with people
.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Fantastic.
That's what this show is allabout is small business pivots.
So, listeners, get your earsready.
We got a lot of insights totalk about.
Today we're going to introducethe show and we'll be right back
.
Ceo of Boss, where we makebusiness ownership simplified
(02:04):
for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots.
(02:27):
We have a very special guestnamed Joe, and that is his real
name.
So tell us.
Let's start with your journeyof life, because you said you've
gone through a lot of things inthe business world and a lot of
people because of trials andtribulations.
They just can't overcome things.
They get imposter syndrome.
They don't have any self-worth.
(02:48):
Let's talk about yourupbringing, if you don't mind,
just a small bit, so that we cankind of align with where you
are today.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Okay.
So my dad was in the restaurantbusiness from the time I was
born.
The family had a restaurant.
He was a very motivated guy,went off in his I think he was
30, 31 years old started his ownrestaurant, did $550,000 worth
of business in the first year,which equates to many millions
(03:18):
of dollars in current daydollars, and this was 63.
Very, very smart guy.
Unfortunately didn't have goodlawyers.
The people that he was leasingthe space from saw how
successful it was and booted himout, learned his lesson, went
off to become a hotel guy,bought hotels with a partner and
(03:39):
did quite well.
Did quite well for himself.
So I grew up in that kind ofenvironment where I had a dad
who wasn't around all the timebecause he was working but was
very much an entrepreneur and sothat was not foreign to me.
I had no interest in the hotelbusiness.
It was much too boring andwound up eventually getting
(03:59):
involved in developing shoppingcenters, and that I liked
because it was moreproject-based.
I didn't like the every day isthe same kind of thing that was.
The best scenario in our hotelbusiness was every day is the
same as the day before, no drama, and shopping center
development I was reallyintrigued with because and this
was going back to 1990 when theHome Depot was expanding and
(04:21):
some of these other big boxretailers so there was
opportunity and was expandingand some of these other big box
retailers, so there wasopportunity and the result there
was that you would work reallyhard on this thing and
eventually get it done, and thenit was just kind of like
collect the money and pay themortgage, which I like that
model, because then you could gooff and do something else
Interesting, I guess.
I mean technically I don't haveADHD, but I kind of have that
(04:44):
mindset of like let's dosomething new now.
So I mean that's, that's, youknow, my, my kind of getting
started into business in anutshell Well, I do have some
entrepreneurs that would love toget into commercial real estate
.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
How did you, or what suggestions would you have, for
them to find funding to do that?
Because that takes a largerbucket of capital than just
starting a business.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah.
So what happened with me was I.
1990 for people that are oldenough to remember was a very
bad time for for real estate ingeneral.
It was a crash in 88, 89.
And there was just a lot ofmoney had flowed in, a lot of
dumb lenders loaning money todumb projects and those projects
failed.
And so there's all this realestate being owned by the banks
(05:30):
and nothing was happening.
There was no financing.
So I went to a guy that owned abig piece of land that my
software I had developed somesoftware we'll talk about that
after to figure out where to putshopping centers and it said
this was a good location.
And I got to know this guy andwe became friends really.
But he basically wanted a lotof money for his land and so I
(05:52):
said, hey, give me the chance tomake your land worth that much
money and I'll give you thatmuch money.
So he basically let me work onthis thing on the cheap and I
was able to go and get permitsand find tenants and get this
thing all put together withouthaving to spend a fortune on
buying the land or optioning theland or something like that.
The world is not like that.
Real estate's expensiveConstruction costs are
(06:13):
ridiculous, and one of thereasons I'm out of the
commercial real estate businessright now is because I don't see
the opportunity.
That was there before and it'llcome back around.
I might not be of a mind to getinvolved again, but that was
the story.
There was making good thingscome out of bad times, and
(06:36):
that's, I think, a running themein my life in real estate is
that the bad times are when youcan make the good deals.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, that also goes along with being adaptable or
problem solving limitations,being creative as entrepreneurs.
Those are all critical thinkingthat we all need to have, or
kind of look at thingsdifferently.
You know, we typically hear thestatus quo of need to go get a
(07:10):
bank loan or get a group ofpeople that have money, and you
went out just figured out how todo it because that's what you
wanted.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, and it was the right.
It was the right time for that.
I mean, the biggest thing, Ithink, if I had any competitive
advantage, it was the fact that,um, I have a kind of a math, a
mathy background and everybodywas looking at real estate.
I mean, literally, the New Yorkno, it was the wall street
journal had a headline that saidis real estate dead as an
(07:42):
investment?
That said, is real estate deadas an investment?
I mean that's how bad thingswere.
And so people were so despondentand they take a ruler right and
they go, oh, it was here and itwas here.
And they put the ruler and theygo, oh, or, when things are
going up, they put the here andhere and oh, look, the sky's the
limit.
And I'm like I keep a Frenchcurve around Because it's doing,
(08:04):
doing this and it's going to dothat, and so you always have to
be confident that whatever ishappening will not be happening
forever.
So it's really important tolook and say, okay, you know
this, this is a really badmarket right now, and this is.
It goes for the stock markettoo.
You know this is really bad.
But if it's a, if it's a companythat's been successful over
years and the industry is off.
(08:26):
Well, that's probably going tocome back, unless you know if
they're making, you know, buggywhips or whatever back in the
day there are, there arestructural changes, but you know
if, if, you know if, ifhealthcare is is is down, well,
guess what?
Healthcare is not going away.
So so that's how I think aboutthis kind of thing.
Is that what goes up must comedown, and vice versa.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, there's got to be a demand.
Well, let's talk about thesoftware then, because it sounds
like we're kind of moving intoa serial entrepreneur and you
mentioned software that we talkabout, so let's talk about that,
and then we'll kind of get backto some pivots that you learned
along the way.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Great that.
And then we'll kind of get backto some pivots that you learned
along the way.
Great.
So yeah, I was getting an MBAbecause I wanted to start a
business and my father convincedme that I was not going to fail
for technology reasons, I wasgoing to fail for not knowing
how to run a business.
So I did that, and to get theMBA I had to do a bunch of
independent studies, for variousreasons, and so I wrote some
software to figure out where toput retail.
(09:25):
So it would take us, you couldput a location in and put in the
location of all the othercompetitors and put in you know,
information about the, from thecensus, about population or
income or whatever, and it wouldtell you how that store would
do, uh, or predict at least totry to tell you.
And so I, when I got out ofschool and started the real
estate thing, I wrote thesoftware, I did a better job,
(09:47):
wrote it up, made it reallyrobust and was using it to
evaluate pieces of land.
And what happened was thatprofessor I worked under was
giving talks, because professorsgo out and give talks, and, and
somebody from a big malldeveloper at the day, a company
called DeBardolo.
They, I think they own a 49ersand I think they sold to Simon
(10:07):
eventually.
But they heard about it, calledme and wanted to license it.
And I'm like you know, hey, theworld just beat a path to my
door and it was 1994.
So I'm like, great.
So I, you know, get all excited.
I start, I started a company, I, you know, create a corporation
and sign the license deal withthese guys and I hire a
(10:29):
programmer to help me with itand then I hire a sales and
marketing guy.
It's just right in there, goteverything going, we get all the
pieces put together, get ourfirst sale after this guy.
After that the Barlow Companywas for six figures a year and
(10:52):
you know, just recurring revenue.
So every year they were goingto give us six figures.
We were probably going to keep.
I'm going to say probably 60%of that was going to be, you
know, gross profit from ourcosts, maybe a little more.
And so we're just like we're onour way.
This is great.
Here we go.
And then something happened.
It was called the internet andall of a sudden every retailer
(11:16):
and retail developer in theworld stopped worrying about
buying technology to figure outwhere to put stores put,
worrying about whether therewere going to be stores and
worrying about how they weregoing to get their online
presence going and what wasgoing to happen.
And we did not make anothersale, wow.
And I eventually had to pivotto being a service bureau
(11:38):
because they still neededanswers.
So the real estate departmentswould basically pay us to do a
study for them and I desperatelydidn't want to be in the
service business.
I liked what we would now callthe SaaS business software as a
service, but was then nobody hadthat name, but so we would.
Just, I had employees and Isaid, okay, we got to do
(11:59):
something.
So we pivoted to the servicebureau and it couldn't make
money.
Couldn't make money and it justthey wouldn't pay enough to
cover the cost of doing it right.
I didn't want to do it wrong,so I shut it down.
Um, you know, laid everybodyoff and shut the business down,
which was really painful, andthat was 19,.
I made it to 1999 before I hadto do that.
(12:20):
So um had a, you know,five-year run of excitement into
.
But you know you can't fight.
You can't fight these megatrends.
You know, if you know, if I,you know I completely missed out
on the whole internet, thefirst wave of the internet,
which is probably good Cause alot of people I know ended up
going bust, but I did it in myown special way.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Was that referred to the dot-com or was that
afterwards the dot-com, thedot-com?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
boom and crash.
And yeah, one of my bestfriends had an $80 million deal
on the table for his businessand the thing crashed before
they closed and it went away.
Goodness.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Well, we still have what now, now, 26 years from
from that year to now.
So let's keep rolling with yourstory.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
We got, we got a lot of years here to go, all the
people that were working.
Well, one guy went over to CVS,the pharmacy chain, to help
(13:32):
them kind of develop a marketresearch department and he ended
up bringing in all the otherpeople.
So most of the you know, withthe exception of, like the sales
guy, ended up at CVS creatingtheir market research department
and, you know, with my blessing, they built out some of the
tech that we had already builtand started expanding CVS across
the country.
So it was kind of, you know,financially it stunk, but it was
(13:55):
kind of a little proud momentto see this stuff actually going
out and doing something.
So one of the guys that went toCVS, a guy named Bill Dakey,
called me up and said hey, Ithink the world has changed.
Do you want to give it a go?
And another go.
And I said, yeah, let's do it.
So he came over.
I had kept that one customer,that one customer I told you
(14:16):
about from before.
I had kept them this entiretime.
So we basically transitionedthem.
So we started this new businesswith one customer and with one
guy taking a paycheck and me nottaking a paycheck.
We were actually profitablewhen we started this and so we
locked him away in the back roomand he started coding and
(14:37):
created a really great productand we started trying to sell it
and we were both reallyterrible salespeople.
We were good at our tech but wewere bad salespeople.
I've since studied sales andlearned a lot about it, but we
picked up a few more customersjust because people that really
understood what we were doing.
(14:58):
An industry that was reallykind of focused around desktop
applications and you knowspreadsheets of data stored on
people's hard disks and thirdparty consultants giving
opinions, and we were buildingout kind of an enterprise
software solution where therewas none and where the market
(15:19):
didn't understand it.
And so the idea was, instead ofhaving you know this database
on Bob's hard disk in an Excelspreadsheet, you have it in an
enterprise database on a serverthat people have access to as
they need to, and it's moresecure and et cetera.
So we had a new vision that'sthe important thing about how
(15:40):
this stuff should run, and ittook a long time to get the
world to kind of see the vision.
So we started this really in2004, had probably two customers
until 2009,.
But they were really goodcustomers, so it was fine.
But then we started hiring somepeople, you know and hired a
(16:01):
salesperson and by the time wesold the business in 2020, we
had, I think, 80 customers.
So, but the trick was and thehard part is, if you're doing
something new or different, it'snot very easy to get people to
understand that, what you'redoing, why they should do it,
(16:24):
especially if you're like wewere and kind of going in and
going well, it's got anenterprise database and it's
this and it's that and it doesthis, and people just go.
I'm too busy.
But if you go in and you sayyou know how, when you try to go
into the real estate committeeand three people come in with
three different answers abouthow well the store is going to
(16:44):
do with that location, thatstinks right.
Well, if you have our system,everybody will have the same
answer because they'll be usingthe same data and now you can
start to get people.
Oh my God, I can go in there.
Or you know how?
You spent $8,000 evaluating 10sites each.
So you wasted $80,000 in thelast quarter looking at sites
(17:06):
you didn't want to do.
What if we could turn that into$5,000 instead of $80,000?
Oh, so that's learning to speakin the context of the pain
points of the customer insteadof speaking in terms of what we
do, or what our thing does, orwhat we do is a really hard
lesson for most entrepreneurs,because and solopreneurs because
(17:29):
it's just, we just were soclose to what we do and yet, you
know, people don't care what wedo, they care what you know we
can do for them.
What?
How can we make their livesbetter, make their pain points
go away?
Cause I mean, that's the otherthing.
Something I learned recentlythat I really like is you go in
and and it's way easier to sellpainkillers than vitamins.
You know, that's just brilliant.
(17:53):
I don't know who who made thatup, but it is so true you know
and I'm thinking in terms ofkilling people's pain, getting
rid of people's pain we reallyget a lot more attention.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, how it can change their life.
Kind of like the painkillers.
You know I can solve your youwill feel different.
These vitamins, you're notgoing to feel different, you
might live longer, but you couldalso be hit by a bus in between
there, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Exactly, and it's just, even if I, you know, take
a vitamin to feel a littlebetter, I think I, oh man, maybe
I feel a little better, greatyeah.
But if I've got like you know,if I'm in pain and you, you know
, literally like and this istrue I woke up with a sinus
infection this morning.
My head was pounding.
I took some, some Advil youknow I love Advil because I feel
(18:39):
so much better now than I didthis morning, and so you know my
.
I got some vitamins over hereand they're great, but I never
feel the way about my vitaminsas I do about my Advil boy.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Well, that's a that's a powerful message for almost
every business owner, cause weget so stuck in the it can do
this, it can do that.
Nobody cares.
You know what it can do.
Vitamins they can make you livelonger, have healthier blood
pressure.
They don't care.
How's it going to make me feeldifferent?
(19:11):
You know Right Addictions.
You know drug dealers andeverything else.
That's how they get addicted,you know.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Perfect, yeah, now you feel different.
You're in pain, exactly, andyou put them in.
Basically, you're in pain,right, yeah.
But yeah, I mean, I just youknow I don't know if you've ever
read that $100 million offer isAlex Hormozy, I haven't.
Yeah, he talks a lot about thisof you know, focusing on pain
points and just you know, really, really going through all the
(19:41):
reasons that people, the painthat they feel and the reasons
that they don't feel like theycan do whatever it is that you
want to get them to do, and ifyou can solve those problems and
those pain points and speak tothem in those terms, you'll get
a lot better response.
And you know, I think it's verytrue.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, what was that book?
Again?
For our listeners it's called$100 Million Offers.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Okay, alex Hormozy, but yeah, it's a really
interesting book and I'm notsure how many businesses can't
get something out of it.
I mean, he focuses on highticket items, which I'm not
doing right now.
I'm doing a relatively lowticket item, but I still feel
(20:23):
like I got something out of it.
You know, his whole thing is,if you do it a certain way, you
can charge a lot more for whatyou do than if you just end up
being one of the crowd, and Itotally agree with that.
But what I'm trying to do issomething where I don't want to
be high priced.
I want to be low priced so thatlots of people can afford it,
but it's still added value towhat I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Absolutely.
And that brings up a good point, because a lot of our listeners
, like myself, are not verystudious and so we go reading a
book and we're like I can'tremember all this.
It's chapter or chapter.
Just take one or two thingsfrom the book you know and make
it applicable.
You don't have to do.
Just because the book waswritten doesn't mean everything
in it's going to work for you,Right, Right.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, and that's true , and this is really just a
single process that you could doover months if you wanted to,
and it's very easy reading.
It's not a dense book.
It's got a lot of littledrawings and large font.
It would probably be a bookletif you wrote it the way a lot of
books are written, yeahespecially with AI.
(21:25):
But a lot of great books areshort because they're just
giving you some good piece ofadvice and a lot of times people
have to write fluff around itjust to get the publisher to
publish it.
But another one is Building aStory Brand by Donald Miller.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Don Miller, yeah, yeah, and that's another one
where you just I read that bookand I'm like you know this is
really actionable and can makesuch a difference in terms of
your ability to kind of attract.
You know, it's amazing when youget around an author you're
like you haven't heard of him orher.
You know because I, you know,once you get around one, you
kind of follow them Right,follow them.
(21:59):
Don Miller if listeners haven'theard of him, he has a lot of
great books.
I still talk to business ownersthat have not heard of him or
the story brand at all.
I think he has what?
Probably four books now thatare probably number one.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I've got a very large pile of books that I need to
read and it's tough.
I'm actually writing a bookright now.
I'm in the process of writingSolopreneur business for dummies
with my my fractional CMO,carly Reese.
But yeah, we're going to putout.
You know it was, there was nobook for solopreneurs and Wiley
(22:35):
decided that they could do adummies book on this topic,
which I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, yeah, there's a yeah, that's a very good book.
So for the plug, any timecommitment end of 25?
.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Oh, it's coming out in September of 25.
Yeah, September.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
We'll put that in the show notes for our listeners
and hopefully they'll stayengaged and follow you Before we
move to our next businessbecause these are
technology-based and I know wehave some tech entrepreneurs.
You're listening to SmallBusiness Pivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
(23:12):
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
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(23:33):
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest Before we move to
a next business because theseare technology-based and I know
we have some tech entrepreneursis these are technology-based
and I know we have some techentrepreneurs.
What were some of the thingsyou learned?
Things that you wouldn't doagain, or things that were
detrimental, or things you wouldhave done Because technology in
(23:54):
that industry is a littledifferent than a
brick-and-mortar retailcontractor, things like that.
So for our listeners that arein that space, any insights you
could share on that?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well, I think so.
Yeah, I mean, I've I've notbeen a, I've been a contractor,
but more more technologycontractor I've.
I've done a few solopreneurbusinesses, but, um, but you
know, just in general terms,let's see if, if we're talking
entrepreneurs, if we're talkingpeople that are hiring, let's
see if we're talkingentrepreneurs, if we're talking
(24:26):
people that are hiring.
The one thing that I've said,you know, to anybody that asks
or anybody that'll listen, ishire people smarter than you.
If you can have a meeting withyour staff on topics related to
what they're doing and be thedumb one, you're being
successful.
That's the way to be.
So you know, there are peoplethat have egos that make them
(24:47):
afraid to hire people smarterthan them.
I've, fortunately, never hadthat problem because I'm not
very good at a lot of things,but I'm in your camp.
Yeah, I'm like you know, I needto hire a controller.
I want somebody that's waybetter at accounting than me.
I want to hire somebody that'sgoing to do marketing.
I want somebody that's waybetter at accounting than me.
I want to hire somebody that'sgoing to do marketing.
I want somebody that's waybetter at marketing than me.
Um, and it's, you know, and it'sworked really well.
(25:10):
So that's the first thing is isthat you know, hire the
smartest person you can find,and um and then, and then trust
them.
You know, I mean, guide them,point them in the right
direction, but you got to trustthem.
(25:30):
If you don't, if you're, ifyou're second guessing them or
micromanaging them, they won'tstay around.
But if you don't, I have peoplein I haven't talked about yet,
but I have a property managementcompany that have been with me
for literally 30 years.
Wow, that's incredible thesedays 30 years, yeah and um, and
I tend to keep people aroundbecause because I, like I said,
I hire people that are smart andthen I trust them to do smart
things and they don't want tolose that.
You know.
Yeah, they don't want to losethat.
(25:51):
That's what, you know, smartpeople want is the ability to do
a good work.
So that's one piece of advice.
The other one is, you know,make yourself special.
Find some way to make yourselfyour business, whatever it is.
Stand out from the crowd, andthat could be niching down on an
industry, niching down on ageography, niching down on a
(26:14):
pain point, something, but findsome ways to kind of stand out
and do something where people, asmaller group of people, will
look and go.
That's who I want, because then, number one, you get the
attention, you get the deals.
But two, you can usually chargea little more because you know
you're solving specific problemsfor specific people.
So if I come out and say, youknow I make websites for
(26:37):
businesses, okay, well, a lot ofpeople do that, so I'm now
competing with you know, athousand other people.
But if I say, you know, I makewebsites for, um, you know, uh,
michelin star restaurants.
Um, you know there's a lotfewer of them, but if I've, you
know, built my business aroundthat they, you know it might be
(26:59):
a lot easier for to get a lot ofmoney from Michelin star
restaurant that wants a topnotch website for their rest and
I'm just using dumb exampleshere, but you get the idea.
But it's, you know, if I turnaround and I'm looking for a
life coach, and they've got alife coach for people, and then
another one says you know, lifecoach for men who are serial
(27:20):
entrepreneurs over 60 that havegray hair, you know wearing a
blue shirt with lifestyleExactly.
Exactly.
I'm like oh my God, that's,that's for me, but that's, you
know, that's.
And that's the thing thatpeople have a tough time.
They don't want to give up.
Oh, there's so manyopportunities and if I narrow it
down I'm going to lose allthese other opportunities.
(27:41):
But if you don't get any ofthem because nobody notices you,
that's, you know, that's notgreat either.
So niching down, you can alwaysexpand it, right, you can
always make it bigger later.
But niching down and reallyappealing to a smaller group of
people is powerful and, I think,not appreciated by a lot of
small business owners.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Well, I'll tell you, that's not just true for
technology either.
That's true for every business,especially the people side,
because as a business coach, Isee many business owners that
come to us and they're like Ican never leave the office and
I'm stuck in the office.
I can never get away.
Well, you might look at yourpeople, because if no one's
(28:23):
smarter than you, that's whyyou're stuck in the office,
because you're the only one thatknows how to do it.
And then, on the flip side ofthat, I see business owners.
I share with them.
Be humble, lose your ego,because you know so many
business owners.
They won't hire somebodysmarter than them because
they're afraid of many thingslike well, they'll take over my
(28:44):
business.
They'll, you know.
They'll be telling me what todo, and I don't want that.
That's not why I own, you know.
So get over yourself.
In other words, business owners.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I love it when people tell me what if smart people
tell me what you know don't do,don't do that, do this?
I'm like, oh, okay, great, youknow, I mean that's why you hire
them.
But you know it's hard for somepeople and you know there is
that risk.
You know, I know a guy.
He ran a really goodlandscaping company and he just,
you know he did really goodwork, he had really good
(29:14):
equipment, you know, just reallygreat.
And he had this guy working forhim and that guy was great.
Well, eventually that guy saidyou know what I can do this too.
And that guy was great.
Well, eventually that guy saidyou know what I can do this too.
And he went off and started hisown company in a competition.
That's a risk.
But you know what?
This guy didn't go out ofbusiness.
You know he struggled becausehe was relying on that guy and
he had trouble replacing him,but he didn't go out of business
(29:36):
because of it.
And you know he probablywouldn't have gotten to where he
got to without that guy helpingthem in the early days.
So you know it's a.
You know business has risks andeverything changes and ends and
you know that's the worst thingin the world is not somebody
helps you grow your business andthen, you know, spreads wings
and flies away.
The worst case is you never getoff the ground, right?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, yeah, and something you haven't said
directly, but just through yourjourney, what I'm realizing is
we have a lot of business ownersthat come to us and they just
want a checklist.
They're like tell me what to do, when to do it, and then, for
some magical reason, they thinkthey never have to do anything
again, like they just want thisbusiness, okay, it can run
(30:18):
without me.
No, no, no, no, no.
Look at your journey it's likeno, I'm always pivoting.
No, no, no, no.
Look at your, your journey it'slike no, I'm always pivoting,
I'm always moving.
There's always a challenge.
The internet came and disruptedwhat I had planned and it's
just the needle's always moving.
So, business owners, that's apowerful lesson for those that
just think you're going to havethis business fixed and never
have to do anything again.
(30:39):
That's, that's not how it works, and we're hearing that from
your story.
Let's keep talking about yourtech journey so we can get to
what you're doing today.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah.
So I mean, let me continue onyour last question, which is
advice.
One thing that people don't doand I am guilty of this is, as
you're starting a business, youknow you got to start with why.
Why do you want to start abusiness?
Okay, business.
You know you got to start withwhy.
Why do you want to start abusiness?
Okay.
(31:10):
And if the answer is, you know Idon't like my job, well, maybe
that's a good reason to start abusiness.
Maybe you should find anotherjob.
You know, some people aren'tbuilt to be in business for
themselves.
So the point is you should havea why and goals that make sense
.
And that's one of the thingsthat leads me into Lifestyle,
which is what I'm doing now, andthat's one of the things that
leads me into Lifestar, which iswhat I'm doing now.
But this whole idea of havingsome goals your goal probably
wasn't to be in the office allthe time, for most people at
(31:34):
least.
And so there is where, when youstart a business and say I want
to have a certain amount offree time, well, how are you
going to build a business aroundthe ability to do that?
And that might force your handinto hiring smarter people.
So it's always good to startthere.
And so that brings me to, Iguess, the latest chapter,
(31:57):
because, as I mentioned, I soldTrade Area Systems in 2020 to
calibrate, and then I sold offmost of my real estate holdings
the shopping center stuff in thenext few years.
But what I did then was I had anidea for an app and, if you go
(32:17):
back to that whole thing with myfirst company, I wanted to buy
technology, couldn't findanything that was worth buying
to figure out where to putshopping centers, and that's why
I really ended up building myown.
And so I wanted to buy an appand I couldn't find it anywhere.
So I said you know what?
I'm going to build that app.
So, after I sold Trade AreaSystems, I said I'm going to
(32:38):
start building this app, and theidea for the app was basically
a task management tool that letme work with anybody.
So it was kind of like you know, asana meets Facebook, right, I
could connect it with anybodythat wanted to go on there.
There was going to be a freeversion of it.
You know, maybe ad supported andstarted building this thing,
(32:58):
and my Carly Reese, who I'mwriting the book with, she does
some marketing.
She said, you know, we shouldtarget solopreneurs because they
don't have teams.
So they need a tool like thisbecause they don't even have
teams.
And I said, brilliant, let's doit.
Where do we find solopreneurs?
And we looked around.
We couldn't find any place tofind them.
There was no place forone-person businesses.
(33:19):
You know, there are places forpeople that were building SaaS
companies and places for people,like you know, that were just,
you know, small businesses, butnothing for the one person
business.
And I said, oh, that's a bummer.
And then I looked and found outthere were 60 to 70 million of
them with the side hustles and Isaid I cannot believe there's
no place for these people tocome together, did a survey of
(33:40):
over 300 one person businessesand found out that most of them
share the same problems,regardless of their industry.
And I said, you know what?
Let's build that place instead.
And the app is kind of on holdand we're building out and
releasing momentarily somethingcalled Lifestar Central, which
is a place on the internet andit's just got all kinds of stuff
(34:02):
for solopreneurs.
So we've got tons of searchablecontent.
We've got both a paid free andpaid tiers, but, you know,
overall we've got, you know, anAI trained to answer business
questions from a solopreneurperspective.
We've got a library of videosof speakers on topics directed
(34:24):
completely at solopreneurscommunity ask questions, office
hours on different topicsrelated to solopreneurship,
marketing and accounting andusing a CRM and all these
different topics that peopleneed help on.
They can just pop in and ask aquestion.
So we're just building thisentire place for one person
(34:45):
businesses and, as I mentionedearlier, trying to keep the
price really reasonable so thatpeople can afford to do it.
Because solopreneurs, again, youchoose solopreneurship.
You got reasons you're doingthat.
You're not going toentrepreneurship, and the
reasons shouldn't be I'm goingto get rich or I'm going to work
four hours a week and make$10,000 a month Because, yeah,
(35:07):
it's been done.
But you know, lots of thingshave been done by somebody but
not by everybody.
So we're helping people inregular businesses their coaches
, their consultants, theircontractors, their you know,
basically some.
Some are entrepreneurial butdefinitely don't want employees.
We have one guy, his name is SanSan Hong and he's like I used
(35:29):
to define how successful it wasby how many employees I had, and
he goes now it's the opposite,like how many employees I don't
have.
He's like he's one personbusiness.
He's using contractors foreverything and um, and that's
just the kind of life he wantsto live.
He just wants to keep it.
You know more simple to live.
He just wants to keep it, youknow more simple.
And so it's just one of thosethings where where you know, if
(35:53):
you think through your why, thenwe wanted to build a place to
help people first take that stepof thinking why are you doing
this?
You know what are your goalsand then helping them build the
business around those goals, soyou don't wake up finding
yourself in the office, you know, every day, until until eight,
30 at night, and uh, or you know, whatever it is that your your
goals are, but helping peopleavoid the mistakes, see the
pitfalls and just build abusiness that works for their
(36:14):
life.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, it's a very robust site.
You said it's kind of in in theworks.
But for those that areconsidering starting a business,
there's even topics on herelike you're not sure what kind
of business to start, and thenthere's show me how to start.
You know, there's a lot ofstuff and it looks like it's for
different seasons ofsolopreneurship.
(36:35):
Is that what I'm seeing?
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, yeah, I've created something called the
solopreneur success cycle and soit's basically a flywheel model
.
It starts with the goals, right, so I call it step zero,
because everybody skips it.
So start with defining yourgoals and your why, and then
there's a process of basicallyenvisioning your business, right
(36:57):
.
What might it look like?
Let me think.
You know, just imagine it.
You know, start with that andthen basically go in and you
know figuring out what youactually want to do and then
making those decisions, thenbuilding out the business.
You know actually setting it upand then you run the business.
But as you run the business,you're learning from it, and
this is something we chattedabout.
(37:19):
You know offline beforehand,but you know the whole process
of running a business.
It should always be a learningexperience because things are
going wrong and every timesomething goes wrong you wind up
firefighting, and firefightingis the biggest time waster.
So with me I mentioned to you Ihad a property management
(37:39):
business still do, but that wasa great example.
We had a small team of peopleand every time something went
wrong we brainstormed so whatcaused this?
How do we fix it?
So we never made the samemistake twice.
And same thing with theenterprise software company.
I think we were a little morestressed with that one, but we
would eventually stop making themistake.
(38:01):
But the idea is you learn fromit.
So then you're operating andlearning and taking notes, not
just fixing, because sometimesfixing is a big deal, but at
least noting the problems asyou're operating.
Then you go into a phase ofrefining your business, maybe
even reimagining it, dependingon how it's going.
But using all that stuff you'velearned about what went wrong
(38:24):
to refine your business orreimagine it.
So you think through what couldI change, make a decision, what
things you're actually going totry to change, because some
things might be too heavy a liftright now and then make the
changes.
And then you're back tooperating.
But you're going through thiscycle and you get started and
then you're cycling around andcontinually learning and fixing
on some schedule that makessense for your business.
(38:45):
Maybe it's once a year, maybeit's every six months, maybe
it's every quarter, but havingthat process of fixing problems
lets you.
It really can help people stayout of that.
I'm in the office till 8.30every night.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Because usually that's firefighting.
Yeah, for sure.
And the things you justdescribed, that's every
entrepreneur, most businessowners that come to us.
They've never started with why.
They don't even know theirNorth Star.
I call those guiding principlesLike where do you even want to
go?
Why are you doing this?
Because if you don't know, howare you going to get anybody
else on board?
(39:18):
And there's a lot of topics onhere that I think any
entrepreneur that's in thatposition could really benefit
from.
And it shows you have a podcast.
You want to throw that out here?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Sure, we have a podcast called the Aspiring
Solopreneur and it's really forpeople that are thinking about
getting started or want to kindof think through maybe different
ways or better ways to runtheir solopreneur business.
It's available anywhere thatthere's podcasts.
I co-host it with Carly Reese,the marketing person, so I come
at it from this businessperspective.
(39:48):
She talks about the marketingstuff because that's one of the
biggest challenges for at leastmost solo businesses is
marketing and sales, and so wecover these topics.
We bring on experts to discussthings.
We also have we do twice a week, once with interview with an
expert and the other one is justCarly and I taking on a topic
and kind of working through itand, um, yeah, it's uh, you know
(40:12):
, I, I, I feel really good aboutit, I, I, I listened to it and
I go that I wish I had been ableto hear that 20, 30 years ago,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I know the same thing .
Speaker 2 (40:24):
So, Lifestar, that's L-I-F-E-S-T-A, two R's dot com
Two R's, so I encouragelisteners, not the Medevac
Helicopter Company.
Yeah, that's with one.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
R.
Oh yeah, well, I encourageeverybody to go check that out,
check out the podcast, and Ibelieve you have just wet
people's whistle.
They probably want to followyou, learn more.
What's the best way to do that?
Social media, any channels,yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I'm mostly on LinkedIn, joe Rando, you will.
You know, if you do thelinkedincom slash ins, I think
slash Joe Rando will bring youto me.
But just if you search me,you'll see this big head of gray
hair and I show up pretty muchclose to the top at least.
(41:16):
So that way, if you come to thewebsite Lifestarcom, you can
sign up for something calledLifestar Intro, which is free.
It'll give you access to freeevents.
We do two free events a month.
We have a weekly newsletter.
We'll keep you informed ondifferent things that are going
(41:41):
on, and that's all free.
We'll be free forever.
But yeah, just go tolifestylecom and just I think it
says join the movement rightnow.
So you can just join themovement and, like I said, it's
free forever.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
So hopefully, see you there.
Yes, and it brings up aquestion before we sign off here
.
So what about the entrepreneursthat are solopreneurs now?
So, in other words, they'vestarted a business, they are
flying solo, they intend to growa business, but who knows when
that might be?
Maybe they'll?
Would this be beneficial forthem as well?
Speaker 2 (42:17):
I think it would.
I mean there's a little.
I mean, the only thing is, oneof the things that we're trying
to differentiate ourselvesaround is the idea of people
that are doing solopreneurshipbecause there's a higher goal
than scaling, right.
So if you're a solopreneurbecause you want to be an
entrepreneur but you don't havethe money to hire employees, but
basically scaling is everything, it's probably not the place
(42:41):
for you, because there's plentyof places for people like that.
There are just tons of peopleout there that are helping
people scale businesses.
So ours is more about peoplethat are choosing
solopreneurship because there'ssome other thing that they want
to have a business.
It might be that they only wantto do the work they want to do.
It might be that they want tobe able to go to their kids'
(43:04):
games or go skiing when theweather's right.
I mean, it could be a thousandthings.
But the main thing is, if you'retrying to scale, if you want to
scale a business, the idea offoregoing employees for the long
term doesn't make any sense.
They're your most powerfulscaling tool, and contractors
(43:24):
are great.
I love working with contractors, but it's not the same as an
employee.
You don't have the same.
Say, if you do have the samesay, you're violating, at least
in the United States.
You're violating tax laws andyou could wind up getting sued
and lose a lot of money, sodon't do that.
But yeah, so you've got thisdecision.
You've made to forego employees, and probably with good reason.
(43:44):
But knowing those reasons andthen finding ways to make sure
that those reasons, those goals,are being met, is what we're
all about.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
So you're sticking to your standard.
You know your vision, who thisis for, so nicely done.
Well, I always end our showwith one question.
You can take a second to thinkabout it.
If you're in a room full ofentrepreneurs, business owners,
all solopreneurs, differentsizes of business, been in
business different lengths oftime, what's something that's
(44:12):
applicable for all of them?
It could be a quote, it couldbe an insight, or it could be a
book.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Sure, I'm going to go to my go-to book for any human
being which is it's old now, butI don't think some books don't
really get old.
It's called the Seven Habits ofHighly Effective People by
Stephen Covey.
That book kind of set thedirection of my life and I've
never I've read that book manytimes.
(44:40):
I've never regretted what itdid in terms of the trajectory
of my life, because it reallysolidified things for me.
So you know, I just I don'tthink anybody can really get
hurt by reading that book.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
It's a great book and , as I always say, learn to earn
.
Well, joe, you've been ablessing to many and a wealth of
knowledge.
I appreciate you being with ustoday and I'm sure our listeners
do too.
Please go follow Joe.
Thanks again, I wish youcontinued success.
Thank you, michael.
You too, my pleasure.
Thank you for listening toSmall Business Pivots.
(45:15):
This podcast is created andproduced by my company, boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours.
Boss offers flexible businessloans with business coaching
support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(45:35):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
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