April 29, 2025 • 40 mins
In this interview, Nick Jain, a young Harvard MBA and Serial Entrepreneur on Building Winning Brands, shows us the way. Nick Jain was one of the top of his class at Harvard Business School. He also earned degrees in theoretical mathematics and physics from Dartmouth College.
Nick Jain, Harvard MBA, CEO of IdeaScale, former Wall Street professional, serial entrepreneur, and trending thought leader, talks about how he co-ran an execs (but did not found) a trucking company that broke over $100M in revenue, and then co-ran a shoe start-up that made several million in revenue.
IdeaScale is an innovation management and software solution that links organizations to people with ideas. Nick has helped leading companies and organizations like NASA, New York University, Toyota, GoPro, United Way, Freddie Mac, Cisco, Comcast, Target, and the U.S. Air Force. Nick and the empire he has built with IdeaScale, has connected entrepreneurs and federal institutions to innovative strategy, revolutionary software progression, and so much more.
IdeaScale is recognized as the industry standard, and the most robust innovation management platform available in the market. Their ideas and innovation management softwares, services, and crowdsourcing platforms will help you to take innovative efforts to the next level.
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https://www.ideascale.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The way you build those networks is you create
those networks.
You don't get invited intothose networks.
You have to build them rightand you build them with you as
the center of that network.
And the practical advice isokay.
Look, let's imagine I want tobuild a network of real estate
experts and investors.
You go reach out to a thousandpeople and say like, look, this
is what I'm trying to do, andguess what?
(00:21):
950 of them are going to say no, but 5% are going to say yes.
And of those 5%, like 50% ofthem are going to be useless.
But 50% that's 25 people isgoing to be pretty good.
But to achieve those 25 peopleyou have to reach out to a
thousand qualified people.
It's very much like sales.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's a volume game to build networks.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcometo the Brendan Acker Influence,
where we dive deep into theminds of industry leaders,
innovators and game changers whoare shaping the world of
business and beyond.
Today we have a very specialguest, nick Jane, who is a
Harvard graduate, a serialentrepreneur and a visionary
who's been at the forefront ofseveral transformative ventures.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Tell us about Harvard .
What did it take?
I mean, that's a majoraccomplishment, a huge
accomplishment, as a matter offact.
How did you do it?
It's a major accomplishment, ahuge accomplishment.
As a matter of fact.
How did you do it?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I grew up in a very typical kind of immigrant family
.
You know shirts on their backtype of story.
My parents immigrated here fromthe 80s to Canada in the 1980s.
I grew up a middle class farmtown kid.
Look, I think the biggest thingthat has enabled success, both
(01:32):
at Harvard and professionally,is just being willing to put in
the hours and work.
I think a lot of peopleunderestimate how much effort
and years and years of effortgoes into successful people's
outcomes.
For me to get into a goodbusiness school like Harvard
meant that I had to work my buttoff in high school to get into
a good college, had to do wellat college to get a great job.
That then you know, once youget a great job you can say look
, then you can apply to a goodbusiness school.
So I think it was many, manyyears of success compounding,
probably from the age of 13onwards, and I think that's
(01:54):
something a lot of folks mightunderestimate or appreciate.
You know I'm just brilliant, ormy last name is Rockefeller.
None of that, in fact.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So what advice would you have for somebody who's
trying to go to Harvard, tryingto compete at that echelon I
mean, that's just a wholedifferent level right.
So what was kind of yourexperience and some of your
hardest parts in that process?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I think the hardest part and there's probably two
pieces of advice right, set yourgoal in life, right.
Some people want to becomemillionaires, some people want
to become professional athletes,some people want to, you know,
to fix cars.
Figure out what matters to youin life.
For me, I always really, reallywanted to go to a good school.
I wanted to accomplishsomething, you know, in the
(02:40):
academic or business world.
And then, if you're, if that'smy, if that was my goal at age
13, I could have told you look,I want to work my butt off and
have a shot at making it to aplace like Harvard.
I could have told you that atage 13 and I cranked for like a
decade plus.
Number two be willing to knowwhat you're willing and not
willing to sacrifice to achievethose goals, right.
If you're not willing to put in80, a hundred hours a week for
(03:01):
10 years, then that's probablynot the right goal for you.
And, by the way, that's notjust for business school.
Like LeBron James, like I,can't play basketball worth crap
, but I also haven't put in, youknow, 10,000 hours into being a
professional, you know, athlete, right, I'm five foot six.
I don't think I'd ever be inthe NBA, but even if I you know
I was six foot five.
I'm not willing to put in thehours to be a pro basketball
(03:22):
player because that is not mypassion in life.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, I think that's important to really hone in on
the things you're good at, thethings you're passionate about,
because it really is the thingsyou're obsessed about, the
things you're passionate about.
That's where the magic happens,from my experience, and you
know, especially when you'rechasing something as big as
Harvard.
I never went to Harvard.
I went to a basic littleprivate school it was Olivet
(03:45):
College, and had a very lowamount of people there who went
there.
But you know, I coulddefinitely say even going there
was a challenge and I couldn'timagine what Harvard must have
been like.
Were you ever tapped like thesocial network?
Were you ever put in any ofthose secret societies?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So I was not.
But look, some of those areonly accessible to kids you know
who have the last nameRockefeller and things like that
.
I certainly had classmates.
Again, my father's a janitor,right, he cleans toilets for a
living.
So, coming from more humblebeginnings, you, you know, are
less likely to get tapped intothose secret societies.
Because, look, a lot ofclassmates says you know fathers
and mothers were presidents ofcountries or billionaires or you
(04:24):
know somebody you would knowabout.
So I think a lot of the secretclubs like that are for people
who come from a different walkin life and that's I'm okay with
that, right, like I wasn't bornwith that and so be it.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So what was the biggest challenges you faced?
Going from academic environmentand Harvard to the world of
entrepreneurship and adjustingto that.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So it was a bit of an easier transition, because I
spent the first about 10 yearsworking in Wall Street and the
good part about there's kind ofWall Street is, I think, a
really interesting place becauseon one level, you're getting to
work with very high powerpeople in a structured
environment with a lot ofresources.
On the other hand, it is veryindividually a Wall Street.
You are, you know, workingalone, alone a lot, a lot of the
time and you have to develop alot of diverse skills.
Right like it's not like youcan just call up a team of
(05:10):
people.
It's like you're when your bosstells you to do something, you
figure out how to do it.
And that's very similar tobeing an entrepreneur.
Right like when you're runningyour own business.
No one's going to teach you howto go do marketing or how to
take out the trash, you just gotto do do it.
And I think Wall Street wasreally good training for that,
because your boss says go solvea problem.
You may be 22 and have no ideawhat you're doing because you're
fresh out of college.
You may have no real worldskills, but the mentality is
(05:33):
look, I'm just going to gofigure it out because no one's
going to spend like a thousandhours teaching you how to be a
great marketer or build afinancial model.
I'm just going to go do it.
I think that has eased thetransition into kind of running
businesses.
In addition, I've beenfortunate to manage businesses
at very large scale, both verylarge and very small scales.
The largest company I've runwas $100 million in revenues.
(05:54):
The smallest was like a15-person men's shoe startup,
and so you just learn to bescrappy as well as either A if
there's a skill you need, youteach it to yourself like go
Google it, go watch some YouTubevideos or B you hire someone
who's better than you at it.
Right, I suck at graphics, forexample, so I know 100% of the
time if I need to do anythingmusical or graphics oriented,
(06:14):
I'm going to hire someone,because that's just not how my
brain is wired and I don't havethe skills to do it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
That's a fantastic answer.
So if you're building somethingof your own today, let's say
you're starting a company andyou're trying to do it in the
best possible way, you want tomake ROI as soon as possible,
like right off the bat, but youdon't have any funds.
You have very low capital.
What is the best, moststrategic way to make a
successful business right out ofthe gate, based on what you've
(06:39):
been taught at Harvard and someof your own experiences?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So if you want to generate kind of cash flows and
ROI right out of the gate, youhave to think about which
business have the shortest salescycles, because to make money
you basically have to havesomeone willing to pay you.
And if you think about that,who is it easier to sell to a
human being or a big corporation?
Right, human beings makespur-of-the-moment decisions.
You can go to the whatever andyou're like I'm going to make
that decision, I'm going to buyit right there.
(07:03):
You try and sell a can of Coketo I don't know Walmart.
Let's imagine you invented yousoft drink and you want to sell
it to Walmart.
That's going to be like a 12month procurement process and an
insane amount of bureaucracy.
So the answer is don't sell tobusinesses, right?
You want to sell to somethingthat has a short business cycle
or short decision cycle.
(07:23):
That's number one.
Number two figure out a productthat actually generates some
value, right?
No matter how good a salesmanyou are, if you're, so that only
lasts for a little bit catch on, you're selling a crappy
product.
So, like, go make sure thatyour product actually generates
value for someone somewhere, andthat I've left it entire very
(07:43):
ambiguous, because there'sthings that generate value for
you as an individual.
That don't matter to me at all,so I just but make sure there's
a market for people who arewilling to pay for it.
Um, and then third, like,figure out if you can do it
yourself.
Right, you may have this greatidea, you have a great idea, but
you have no useful life skills.
Go hire someone else to do it.
That's perfectly legitimate,right?
Like, don't don't be ego driven.
(08:05):
Figure out what is needed tomake your business successful
and better done.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Awesome.
So what is the best way toincentivize somebody?
Or to motivate somebody withlike 15, 20, 30 years experience
doing what they do, who loveswhat they do?
What's the best way to motivatethem to work for you and to
help you build your business?
Or, like you said right,nobody's going to come and build
your business for you, so wheredoes that?
What's the best solution forthat?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
That their people are motivated by what are called
the 4Gs gold meaning money, guts.
To just show you can do it,right, like, why do people run
ultra marathons?
It's just proof to themselvesthat they can do it.
Not even to brag to the worldGlory, that's bragging to the
other world.
You want everyone else to knowwhat you did.
Or the good, like the commongood.
Some people are just trulyaltruistic and want to help
(08:51):
others at either a local scale,a national scale, an
international scale, whatever.
No-transcript being a CEO of acompany anymore, but I still
(09:13):
want to keep, you know, berelevant, keep my mind active,
I'll do it.
For, you know, there's a CEO.
She probably, you know, isdoing a job that, like,
effectively, they get paid 10bucks an hour or something now
because they just want to beactive.
They don't care about beingpaid.
Whatever they were before,they've made their money in life
Now they just don't want to besitting at home, like you know,
(09:34):
waiting to die.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So imagine getting this money.
Yeah, really want to find thosepeople who.
You want to find those peoplewho love what they do.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Money's not the only thing.
That money's, in fact, a verysmall fraction of what motivates
people to get up in the morningright Once your basic needs are
met, a lot most of what you doin life, most of what I do in
life, is not motivated by money,like I go play poker, because I
don't, not because I want tomake money, but because I enjoy
playing poker.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
right, I actually have a mentor and he's a bigger
personality.
I'll just say you went toVanderbilt and I was asking him
I'm like, how did you make itwork?
And he's just like my lowestproduct was like $600,000.
And now he had run like his ownagency sort of thing and he was
kind of on the.
He was essentially at the headof the entire movement for
(10:19):
social media, marketing andthings like that.
So he had gotten a large partof the market share and things
like that.
So he had gotten a large partof the market share.
But what do you say about that?
What is like working today?
So like marketing is supersaturated today right, maybe
even SaaS could be saturated.
What?
What makes you stand out?
What's the best way to getthose clients in the door and to
retain them?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Certain types of advertising or marketing are
absolutely saturated, the onesthat are like, basically dead
and almost a waste of money.
And I'll give an example.
It's basically paid advertising.
So your Google ads, yourFacebook ads, your LinkedIn ads,
your TikTok ads, right?
Anything that anyone can doeasily, where you just pay some
money to try and make a problemgo away definitely should mean
definition means that it's arace to the bottom right.
(10:59):
It's a thousand dollars to halfa million bucks a year to large
organizations.
Most of my competitors advertiseon Google ads and LinkedIn ads.
They spend a lot of money.
I spent exactly zero on thoseads.
Why?
Because I don't want my ad tobe shown next to like nine other
ads, and basically the only onemaking money then is Google,
right, and I'm not here to lineGoogle's pockets.
So what we do instead and thesame is true for you know, if
(11:24):
you are a company selling, let'ssay, clothing, if you advertise
on Facebook or Instagram orTikTok, guess what?
So is everyone else right, evenUnder Armour, right, like you
don't want Under Armour to beadvertising right next to Nike,
to Adidas, to Reebok or whatever.
So a lot of the paid advertisingmarkets are saturated.
There's two examples I can giveyou you can generate a lot of.
(11:45):
The paid advertising marketsare saturated.
There's two examples I can giveyou.
You can generate a lot of valuequickly on the markets.
One is on organic search, andI'm not just talking SEO, I'm
actually designing for it.
So what I was saying was numberone paid advertising, such as
on Google ads or LinkedIn ads orFacebook ads, instagram ads.
That's a very saturated marketbecause you and your competitors
(12:06):
are all advertising in the sameplace for the same keywords and
same audience, and so that'sthe worst possible outcome for
you as a business.
Whatever you're selling whetheryou're selling chips or you
know highly expensive B2Bsoftware like us If you're just
on a shelf with eight otherpeople or eight other
competitors, you're going to getlost.
You're not going to sellanything.
You don't want to be in agrocery aisle right Conceptually
, I mean in an advertisingmarket.
(12:27):
So what we do, for example, wespent all my competitors spend a
lot of money on Google adsadvertising their innovation
software.
We spend $0 on it.
What we did was we said that'sstupid, we don't want to be one
of a crowd, we're going to justdominate the organic search
market.
So we went and created justreally really high quality
content.
Our area of expertise isinnovation software.
(12:48):
So we said we're just going tohave the world's best blog on
innovation, right?
So whether you're a smallcompany, whether you're NASA,
whether you're McKinsey, whetheryou're Pfizer, you should come
to our company to learn abouthow to make your organization
more innovative.
And we don't even.
We don't.
Our blogs don't even mentionour company name.
The only way you'll even knowit's hosted by us.
It's anyone in the world whowants to learn about innovation
(13:09):
just will come to us because weare by far the best and that
didn't actually that cost us Idon't know $10,000 or $20,000 to
accomplish.
That's less than my competitorsspent a month on digital
advertising and yet I getroughly 10 times the traffic and
leads that any of them do.
That's not so like you have tofind a market that people like
(13:32):
just miss is like everyone talksabout SEO, but that's just
their gaming keywords.
Just create good content.
I mean, don't suck at the SEOpart, just create good content.
If you are the best place forwhatever you do in life for
information, people will be likehey, nick was really good at
educating us about innovation.
Hey, maybe we'll give asoftware shot, even though
Nick's not even trying to sellus the software that can apply
to, you know, chips, that canapply to workout gear, that can
(13:53):
apply to fast food.
That's number one.
Number two is do somethingreally crazy and creative.
I used to work in the in theshoe industry and up and coming
sneaker industry.
A sneaker company did was Nikeholds these launch parties when
they're releasing new sneakerslike Yeezys or things like that,
and there's lines out that Idon't know if you've ever seen
them in front of Nike stores butthere's lines for like 12 hours
(14:14):
when they're about to releaseone of these new hot shoes.
And these guys literally theshoe company was like we're
never going to get Nike toconvince to hold our shoes
because we're some tiny, dinkylittle company.
So they hired a bunch ofcollege grads to walk around
with signs around their necks infront of the lines just hanging
out coffee.
You know you paid a collegestudent like eight bucks an hour
for six hours Cause like peopleare desperate to call for
(14:35):
coffee at three in the morningto stay awake while they're
sitting in a freezing cold linewaiting for some stupid shoe to
drop Right.
And that's really crazy In theage of digital advertising.
These guys literally just hireda bunch of college students
with signs around their necks.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, yeah, I love your answer too, cause it's true
, what's funny.
I'm like, okay, what works forElon Musk?
What does he do?
And then I'm like, oh, hedoesn't really advertise, he
just basically creates a greatproduct.
That's so exceptional that itjust you can't help but not look
at it.
We're going to put it in yourbrain and it's going to read
your mind and essentially beable to make you walk again and
see again, if you're blind, likethat's crazy.
That makes a lot of sense andit goes back to what you're
(15:12):
saying create a great productover trying to follow the leader
when it comes to theadvertising part and whatnot.
Create a great product.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Marketing is supposed to be, you know, good marketing
just lets people know you exist, right?
Bad marketing tries to convincepeople to buy a crappy product
and I think too many companieshave a very mediocre product
that they spend a lot more onmarketing on.
The classic example is perfumecompanies.
Perfume companies spend verylittle money researching and
(15:42):
making a perfume, but they spendan insane amount of money
hiring celebrities to convinceyou to buy that perfume or same
with whatever fancy watch yousee in airport ads.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It's very true, yeah, yeah, you look at a lot of the
advertisements.
What was it?
It was Lamborghini.
They said we don't runtelevision commercials because
our target audience isn'tsitting around watching
television.
I'm like, wow, that hit me hard.
That's really insane, though,because that's a very effective
advertising campaign in itselfbecause of how powerful and
(16:07):
profound that is.
So what do you?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
think, yeah, I've never seen a Lambo, for that,
I've never thought about that.
But even in the Financial Times, right, I don't think I've seen
a Lamborghini.
Financial Times is aimed at avery affluent audience.
I don't think I've ever seen aLambo ad there.
Because, like you don't wantthat stuff sold to you, you just
want to go to a deal.
And I'm not a car guy, by theway, at all.
Right, I drive a Kia Rio.
(16:30):
But I certainly don't wantluxury goods advertised to me.
If I want them, I will go getthem.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It's just wild.
You know it's wild.
What do you think is?
Where do you think is the bestplace to find a good network of
people?
Right, so it's just a brick andmortar business.
What's the best way to find thenetworks?
What do you think is the bestway?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Have you ever heard of that old Groucho Marx quote?
I wouldn't want to be a memberof any country club that wants
to have me as a member.
Yeah, I have.
I have heard that quote.
Okay.
So the idea is like, look, anyclub that's inviting you is
probably beneath you to be in,right?
It's like I get ads for joiningsome real estate investor clubs
all the time.
I'm like, you know, if they'reinviting me and I know nothing
about real estate, they clearlyare like are you know, just
(17:17):
terrible at what they do?
Right, you want to be invitedto the clubs that you don't get
invited into, right, you want togo to the Met Gala or whatever
your you know passion life is.
So, to answer your questionlike, you don't get invited into
those groups because if they'regood at what they do, they
don't invite you.
You have to earn your way in.
Um, so the way you create thosenetworks if, if you know,
you're not going to get inviteduntil you've already made it, at
(17:38):
which point you know, if you'vealready made it, you don't need
to be invited to those clubs.
Anyways, the way you buildthose networks is you create
those networks.
You don't get invited intothose networks.
You have to build them rightand you build them with you as
the center of that network.
And the practical advice is okay, look, let's imagine I want to
build a network of real estateexperts and investors.
You go, reach out to a thousandpeople and say like, look, this
(18:01):
is what I'm trying to do andguess what?
950 of them are going to say no, but 5% are going to say yes
and of those 5%, like 50% ofthem are going to be useless.
But 50% that's 25 people isgoing to be pretty good.
But to achieve those 25 peopleyou have to reach out to a
thousand qualified people.
It's very much like sales.
It's a volume game to buildnetworks.
It's like dating, right, youdon't get married to the first
(18:22):
man or woman you meet.
You probably go on a thousanddates over the course of your
life.
How did you build yourrelationship network with your
spouse?
Through basically a lot of kindof experimentation, meeting
people, going on dates.
You know not getting seconddates, whatever it is.
Building a professional networkis no different.
You reach out to a lot ofpeople.
(18:43):
You know, as I try and buildnetworks with other tech CEOs, I
reach out to a lot of them.
Most of them don't even respondto me, even though I'm a fellow
tech CEO.
They don't respond.
But guess what A smallproportion of them do and I've,
as a consequence, been able tobuild networks with like the
CEOs of billion dollar companiesthat I just cold reach out to
and said look, I'm trying tobuild a network here.
Give me some advice.
I'm young, I'm stupid.
Help me, like, get to where youare in 10 or 20 years.
(19:04):
And most people say no.
Couple say yes.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And I think what you said there, too, is a big part
of it is humility, right, likethe volume, of course, and you
know the hustle and doing thatpart of it, but also it's the
humility and willing to admitlike, hey, listen, I know
nothing, I tell me how to dothis, right, you know, I've had
a couple of mentors who havetaught me very similar things,
the things you're learning.
Spend 12 hours, lock yourselfin a room, youtube it and learn
(19:31):
how to do it.
So, like when I was firstlearning how to run Google ads,
I'm like how do you do this?
This makes no sense.
And my mentor is just like,lock yourself in a room for
eight hours and look it up onYouTube, shut the lights off and
just do that all day and shutyour phone off.
I'm like, okay, and I did itand it worked.
What a concept.
But why is it that we miss that?
What is it that distracts us?
(19:52):
Is it kind of like NapoleonHill's book Outwitting the Devil
?
Is it that we're all just abunch of drifters or we're just
not focused enough?
What do you think causes us todrift?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I think this is so.
I think a lot over the last 10or 20 years, as cultures have
shifted, I think we have begunto undervalue you like formal
education and formal doesn'tmean going to college, but just
like sitting down reading a bookto learn something.
You, we all assume that it iseasy to do something or that
(20:25):
there, you know, people are withnatural gifts, and certainly
there are people born withextraordinary natural gifts, but
we under you don't.
You don't become like a PhD inphysics just by being brilliant.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
You, somewhat you have to spend a crap ton of time
like studying textbooks andstudying last 300 years of
physics does the same thing.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I'm kind of terrified she's going to do so now.
But that's that's number one,like what you said about locking
yourself in a dark room.
That's not how people think oflearning.
Learning is supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be like candy
, right?
I think over the last 20 or 30years we've assumed that, hey,
learning is not good unless it'sfun.
And guess what?
Sitting down for 12 hoursreading a textbook or watching a
technical course on Google Adsis probably not fun for most
(21:03):
people.
Fun for most people.
And yet you know, we've beentaught in school like, if it's
not learning it's, if it's notfun, it's not worth doing.
No, no, no.
There's lots of things in lifethat are worth doing, that are
really tough and boring, and yetthey're worth doing.
And the people who excel are theones who are willing to sit
down and like, read that, likeI'm trying to take a computer
course on algorithms.
That is not fun, that is notinteresting.
Guess what.
(21:23):
I sat my butt down on Fridaynight or, sorry, on Saturday all
day and studied it for 12 hours, when I could have been out
there running or spending timewith my wife Trust me.
I don't want to be reading atechnical textbook from
Princeton on algorithms.
You get better things to do,but it's whatever you know you
need to do.
And that can be true on Googleads, that can be true on
LinkedIn advertising, that canbe true on design, like art.
Right, I'm not an artisticperson, but I like great artists
(21:49):
.
Don't just become great artists.
They, like most of them, wentto some form of art school and
spent like thousands of hoursperfecting their craft
absolutely, yeah, like daveramsey said, reading is leading
and I like that.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
You mentioned that.
How, how important reading is?
What are some good books thatwill got that can really guide a
new entrepreneur in the rightdirection?
And if, if you wanted to getthem right, like the fastest
route to understanding thisentire, like the mindset of it,
the technical aspects of it, thelike everything together,
what's what are like few goodbooks that you would highly
(22:17):
recommend?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Sure, so uh, two come to mind right away.
I'm trying to come up with thethird.
I'll say the two and then maybea third will come to mind.
First of all, there's a classicone called by Dale Carnegie how
to Win Friends and InfluencePeople.
There's a quote with me thatsticks with that book, like
who's the person you love mostin your life?
It's the person who jumps up,you know, comes to you every
time you come home and justloves you unquestionably,
(22:41):
doesn't care, and that's animportant skill.
Whatever you do, whether you'reselling, whether you're
engineering, whether you'releading a billion dollar company
or just starting out, you know,uh, selling lemonade on the
(23:02):
street, I've done all those jobsright you have to know how to
kind of win friends andinfluence people.
So, dale Carnegie, that's likea hundred year old book.
You know, it's been on thebestseller list for literally a
hundred years and it's short.
It's like I don't know ahundred pages long and, like you
know, small pages.
It's not complex.
The second one is a moretechnical book.
It's a book that I personallylove.
It's called Valuation, by AswadDamodaran.
(23:25):
He's a professor at NYU.
This is a book that's like athick, meaty, heavy textbook.
It teaches you how businessesmake money.
It's the best book to make onhow businesses work and he's the
he's considered the godfatherof modern finance or valuation
theory right so super.
It's a technical book.
You need high school level mathto do so.
You don't need advancedcalculus.
But it's not a book you canread while falling asleep, right
(23:46):
?
You need to, like, sit there ina room, have pen and paper and
be able to, like, you know, dothe math that he's asking you to
do.
Those are the two that come tomind immediately.
It's a third one that comes tomind.
Third would probably be likeless a book and more like go
take a technical course onCoursera or Udemy or something
on some form of marketing.
That's a very quickly learnableskill.
(24:06):
It's easy, it's digestible.
You come out with some reallyuseful skills that you can start
using the next day to make.
Go make money.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It's just so important to be a learning
machine.
I think that's definitely a keyto this entire game because,
like you said before, you knowbeing an entrepreneur, you have
to control your own paycheck.
You control everything, right.
How important is that?
And you know what is the thingthat allowed you to stick to it
without giving up, withoutquitting, without letting all
(24:34):
the white noise around you justget to you.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Look, I'm a human being.
I have good weeks and bad weeks.
There's some weeks where I justfeel like, demotivated, the
world is crappy, we're notselling anything today, I'm
sleepless, whatever.
And it could be because theweather sucks.
It could be because I had aterrible week last week at work,
right.
So there's going to be ups anddowns in every journey, right,
and that could be determined byyour own you know hormonal
balance.
That could be turned bysunlight, that could be turned
(24:55):
by.
Like you know, the markets hada rough week.
Whatever, it is Right.
So don't assume that stuff willalways go right for me, and
certainly hasn't right.
There's weeks, there's monthswhere I'm just entirely
demotivated and do crap, andthen there's other months where
I'm just like on it on my a game.
So I'll say two things.
Number one is when you havethose high periods, when you
know you're on your a game,focus on that.
(25:16):
Go just get as.
When you are performing at yourpeak performance, go get as
much out of you as you canduring those peak performance.
I'm just in the zone, not's.
Number one Make sure you are.
Whatever you're doing is part ofa process you believe in,
because if you don't believewhat you're investing right now
is going to pay off at somepoint, you're going to get
(25:36):
demotivated.
I know that, like if I justgrind and talk to a lot of
people for sales conversations,or if I write a ton of code or
whatever, I know I will get theoutput, so I never have to doubt
myself.
But, or whatever, I know I willget the output, so I never have
to doubt myself.
But I know that process works.
It's something I've been doingfor 10 years.
It's something that you knowpeople salespeople have been
doing for a thousand years.
I know the process works.
I never lose faith in theprocess, just like look,
(25:57):
sometimes the process has shittyyour weeks and some people it's
sometimes good weeks.
So you have to have faith inyour process, whatever it is or
whatever you're doing.
Number three remember,celebrate your successes.
Remember, just because thisweek sucked doesn't mean go back
and think about hey, a monthago it was awesome, right,
you've got to ride those highsand remember those highs.
I think what a lot of people dopoorly is when something good
happens, they're like, okay,great, let's pop a bottle of
(26:18):
champagne, and they forget aboutit, rather than realizing the
great feeling of that victorythat comes and using that to
fuel your next low period inlife.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah, and it is those dopamine rushes, right.
When we see a little bit ofsuccess and you're like, oh my
God, I just made 40 bucks offthis book I'm selling, or
whatever it might be, and thatwas when it changed for me, I
was like whoa, this is scary, isthis legal?
Because I came from this worldwhere I was like a farmer at it
was an asphalt and just a lot ofhard labor jobs and then went
(26:49):
to a police officer, right.
So a lot of my life was just sostructured in that nine to five
and I learned quickly howimportant it is to actually be a
leader in that sense of beingan entrepreneur, because it does
allow you a little bit moreflexibility and freedom.
So what would you say to thenine to five employee and why it
is important?
Even if they're happy at theirjob, which is great why should
(27:10):
they really learn about thisworld of entrepreneurship and
kind of being in control of yourown destiny?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
So I would say a few things.
It goes back to what you wantin life right.
If you want absolute stabilityin life, nine to fives are great
.
You get great benefits.
You know you're going to getyour salary at the end of the
year.
You can support your family.
Both my parents chose that,right, like they were immigrants
.
They wanted to have a nice,stable life so they could
provide a foundation for me andmy younger brother to have, you
know, to take more risks in life.
Other people want other thingsin life.
(27:37):
Right, they want to be famous.
They want to make money.
They want to work their ownflexible hours.
Right.
Entrepreneurship while itoffers greater risks, it also
offers a greater flexibility andbe greater rewards, and those
rewards are not just monetary.
I don't think Elon Musk isdoing it for the money anymore.
Right, he's the richest man onthe planet.
He's doing it because he wantsto be the guy who's remembered
(27:58):
500 years from now as the guywho took us to Mars or, you know
, cured, aging or whatever it isthat he's working on these days
.
Like whatever that great rewardis right.
He doesn't need to start hisnext business right.
He's run, however many you know, billion dollar businesses at
this point.
So that's why I think it'simportant, right.
If you truly just want a nice,stable job which nothing wrong
with that 90% of people likework nine to five jobs, my folks
(28:21):
included then that's good.
But if you want the chance atgreater flexibility or greater
rewards, you have to be willingto accept the greater risk that
comes from entrepreneurship.
For a lot of people, that'sreally exciting.
Even if you make less money orhave less reward, that
flexibility itself has a lot ofvalue for people.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And what really got me into it too, is I started
reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
That was kind of the first bookthat really got me on the
course of entrepreneurship andjust completely changed my
mindset.
everything like just turned on acompletely different switch and
I learned very early on that,wow, this is a very beneficial
career.
If you can make this work, youknow, you can actually build a
(29:01):
pretty good life and you alsodon't have that capped income,
which is also important.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat was your experience when
you were starting your firstbusiness and what were some of
your setbacks before you sawreal success.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
So I've only started one business.
The rest of them I've been likea hired CEO at both large and
small scales.
But the business I attempted tostart, or did start, was a
small hedge fund.
I'd worked on Wall Street.
I'd come up with a really coolway to invest in stocks that was
not just me picking stocksbased on my feelings, but a
really like data-driven,mathematical way, and I'd done
this very successfully at scalefor somebody else.
(29:38):
And I said look, I'm the guywho came up with this idea, I
know how to do it, I'm doing allthe work.
Why should I not go start myown company and try and make it
and scale it?
So I raised a small amount ofcapital, right, literally called
up you know thousands of richpeople and said hey, I want to
start a hedge fund.
Can you give me a little bit ofmoney to get started?
Most again 99% of people saidno.
A couple of guys said yes andgave me a shot.
(29:58):
So I think like and that failed, by the way, right, like it, it
was interesting because my,from a objective returns
perspective, I was doing well.
There's this platform calledSumZero which ranks hedge fund
investment ideas.
I was ranked number one on theplanet for like 12 months, which
is really beating out 20,000other professional investors.
But I wasn't able to raiseenough capital or scale the
(30:20):
business, and part of that was Iwas not a great salesperson.
Part of that was I was tooyoung and didn't have the
relationships.
Part of that was I didn't havethe brand names behind me.
Um, but that failed and thatsucked right because, like, I
was like, okay, my product isactually really good, but I'm
unable to turn the product intoa business.
And that's reality again.
It could have been wrong timing, bad luck or it could have been
failures on my part.
(30:41):
So the learning coming out ofthat is like, look, well,
there's two things.
Number one, I took that risk ina way that made sense for me,
where I knew, even if I failed,I'm not going to die starving on
the streets.
And number two is that I havecome out of that with a learning
that, look, if I'm ever goingto do this, I need to think more
about the business aspect of itrather than just having a great
(31:03):
Wow, yeah, super simple, right,but most people wouldn't think
about that.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
So, with a hedge fund , for example, what does it take
to get started?
What makes a hedge fundsuccessful?
I mean, what causes somebodywho's super wealthy to say, yeah
, I'll help you out, kid youknow and invest in your business
?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Sure, so I think a few things right.
Number one is you have well,look, actually I learned this
the hard way.
I think when people are talkingabout their money, it is often
an emotional decision ratherthan a rational decision.
I had made the incorrectassumption that people think
about money irrationally, thatit's a number on a page and
(31:46):
you're thinking about maximizingyour returns.
Turns out, people whetheryou're poor or rich, most people
are really bad at managingmoney and are thinking about how
to manage money.
Even financial professionalsoften violate well-known
principles of how you shouldmanage your money.
And so I think the big kind ofthing that for hedge fund world,
that the realization, like howto convince people to give money
(32:08):
, it's you make them a deeperemotional connection with them
rather than try and sell them abetter product.
And again, I was not matureenough or skilled enough to do
that effectively when I tried to.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
It's really cool to hear you talk about this too,
especially somebody coming fromHarvard and such a prestigious
background In terms of Harvard.
What were some of the bigthings that you learned that
most schools just won't teachyou?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So again, just to be clear, I went to the business
school, not to the undergraduate, so a little bit of a different
atmosphere than anundergraduate university.
There I think one of the thingsHarvard does really well I
think from a content perspective, the business school was
terrible.
We didn't actually learn verymuch there in terms of, like,
new knowledge, but one of thethings they did really well was
(32:54):
they forced you to practicespeaking and articulating your
views effectively to otherpeople.
So the way Harvard BusinessSchool works is you basically
the professors don't teach youreal content, students basically
debate against themselves oragainst their peers, and what
that means forces you is look,if you're surrounded in a room
of very, very smart, motivated,like um type a people and you
(33:17):
are forced to continuously speakboth on areas where you know a
lot and both on areas where youdon't know a lot, and you're
forced, like people who may notknow about finance are still
forced to talk about finance, itforces you to number one, get a
base level of understanding andeverything, so you're not
stupid at any.
You get a base level, competenceand every, because you just
don't want to sound stupid infront of your you know,
communicate clearly andsuccinctly.
(33:38):
And number three it tells youhow to have uh, be, uh
communicate effectively.
There's the content of yourcommunication, but then the the
uh emotion, or content of yourcommunication, but then the
emotion or impact of yourcommunication.
That's important too right, andI think HBS forced you to learn
that really, really well,because for two years that's all
(34:00):
you did.
You just debated and madespeeches, and so you got really
good at communicating viewseffectively and defending them
against people who may beskeptical of your views or have
been asked to take the oppositeperspective.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
And in terms of the future of America, where do you
think we're heading?
Where do you think the USdollar is?
Speaker 1 (34:21):
heading.
So I have no idea on the USdollar.
I don't dabble in forex markets.
No idea on that.
Right, I can offer you atheoretical answer.
That's not useful.
The, the, you know thiseuropean central bank is going
to cut interest rates, andbecause the federal reserve just
cut the answer, uh, theinterest rate two weeks ago.
What that means is that whenthe european and bank cuts their
(34:42):
interest rate into in a coupleof months, uh, then the euro.
The euro should fall instrength versus the dollar
according to economic theory.
But that's that's somethingmarkets know, so you're not
going to make money off that ForAmerica.
Look, america is.
I'm an immigrant.
I only got my citizenship abouta year ago.
Right, I've been here for 20years, but got my citizenship a
year ago, went through theentire process, so I'm proud to
be here.
I think America is a reallyunique place where the American
(35:04):
dream holds true, where a poorimmigrant kid whose parents
don't speak English can grow upand go to good schools or run
companies.
That's really unique aboutAmerica.
That's not true almost anywhereelse in the world.
Right, the American dream isalive and well.
You got to work hard to do it.
The second thing that's reallycool about America is we
(35:24):
appreciate ideas here, right?
Good ideas, regardless of wherethey come from.
You see, all these CEOs withfunny accents, right?
Good ideas, regardless of wherethey come from.
You see, like all these CEOswith funny accents, right?
People don't care If they weregood at what they do.
You succeed here.
Number three is we rewardpeople here, whether that be in
terms of money, hollywood, fame,whatever it is, we reward
people really well here forcontributing to society.
(35:48):
The big challenge for America is, I think over the last 60 or so
years, america has been thepredominant hegemonic power in
the world.
There was America and thenthere was no one else.
Everyone else was second tier.
I think today, americans are,you know, having to deal with a
more competitive global economy,right?
You're not Americans competingjust against Brits.
You're competing againstIndians, chinese, vietnamese,
(36:09):
australians, nigerians, and thatglobal economy means that both
America as a country as well asAmericans as individuals need to
be willing to be morecompetitive, because 20 or 30
years ago, you only had tocompete against the 300 or 250
million Americans in thiscountry.
Today, if you're an American,you are out there competing for
jobs, for talent, for capital,for money, for products against
(36:32):
7 billion other people who aresmart, who are hungry, who want
to win it.
The Chinese companies want tosell products, too, just as much
as American companies, theIndian companies, the Australian
company, and what that means iswe just got to be a lot
hungrier and more competitivethan I think we've been used to
for the last 30 or 40 years, butagain we have these unique
advantages where we are the onlycountry in the world.
(36:54):
I think that truly createsopportunity for those who are
willing to work for it.
The American dream is trulyalive and well, and I think
people underappreciate howpowerful a force that is.
That's why everyone wants tomove here, right, because we
create opportunities and isthere anything else that you'd
like to promote?
So, look, I run a B2B softwarecompany.
My software is 100% free foranybody less than 100 people.
(37:17):
So whether you're a solopreneurwith a Gmail address or a small
hardware store or a 99% midsizesoftware company, I would love
if you come and try it out atour product.
It is the best-in-classinnovation management software,
so you can think of it as anotepad for your ideas.
Or, if you're a largeorganization, helps you figure
out what your new marketingcampaign should be or what your
new product feature should be orwhat new color soft you should
(37:38):
make.
Whatever it is, it helps youmanage your portfolio of ideas
really effectively.
Again, whether you're oneperson and obviously if you're a
large company and you'rehearing this podcast, you should
come to me and buy my software.
But if you're a small companyor solo entrepreneur, use my
software for free.
I would absolutely love that.
Ideascalecom just click, getstarted free at the top.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
And is there anything else that you're working on in
the future, any big projects?
Speaker 1 (37:59):
So two or three things.
Number one is in my personallife, I've just started to get
into recreational sorry, intoreal estate investing.
So that's just something I'mtrying out more more for fun
than for you know, trying tobecome a guy Kawasaki real
estate guy.
Number two is idea scale.
(38:19):
I think our company is about todo some really really cool
things.
So for the last like 15 years,we basically had one product.
We've been very good at it.
Just this week we launched ourbiggest or actually just on last
Friday, like three days week,we launched our biggest uh, or
actually just on last Friday,like three days ago, we launched
our biggest feature release inlike five years.
So we just revitalize theentire application.
In addition, over the nextthree months we are launching
our, our, uh, entirely newproducts, not like add-ons to
(38:42):
our existing product, but likeentirely new products.
So that's something reallywe're excited about in a 15 year
history of the company wherewe've been like a one trick you
know one trick pony, a very goodtrick, but a one trick pony and
now we're going to have a lotof you know tricks up our
sleeves or a lot of tricks ourpony can do, which we are really
excited about.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
That's so amazing and congratulations again on all
your success and I appreciateyou coming on the show today and
telling us about your story andyour journey, because it truly
is a pretty awesome one to hear.
And when I do build out mystudio, I'll definitely fly out
and we'll have, we'll do thereal thing, we'll do the real
podcast interview.
For sure.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Sound good that would be awesome man.
I would love to come.
Where are you based, by the way?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
So I'm built uh based in Michigan at the moment.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
So we're just, we're coming into, into.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
We're coming into winter at the moment, um, but I,
uh, I do do a little business.
Not in winter, please, not inwinter.
Okay, I don't want to be.
I'm with you, I'm a snowbird, Ilike florida, I like, I like my
nice weather, for sure.
So I don't blame you.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
I stay here, mostly for I love the heat, I love,
love the sun, Absolutely Coolman yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
And thanks again.
I'll probably release thisepisode in about a month.
Typically, we have likeliterally seven or eight podcast
interviews we need to catch upon, so I'm going to try to get
everything done within the nextmonth.
I got to get the other guestsout, but, like I said, it'll be
really good and soon we'll bepromoting the YouTube channel at
larger scale.
So I anticipate we'll get atleast probably 30,000 views.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
When it's ready to send out, send us all the
materials and collateral and mymarketing team will cross-market
and make sure that we send itout through all our channels.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Yeah, for sure.
I'll send you a Google Doc withthe Google file and then all
the directory links too.
Awesome, Perfect man.
Yeah, thanks again for comingon.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Take all right, perfect man.
Yeah, thanks again for coming.
Thanks so much, take it easy.
Thanks for having me.
The way you build those networks is you create
those networks.
You don't get invited intothose networks.
You have to build them rightand you build them with you as
the center of that network.
And the practical advice isokay.
Look, let's imagine I want tobuild a network of real estate
experts and investors.
You go reach out to a thousandpeople and say like, look, this
is what I'm trying to do, andguess what?
(00:21):
950 of them are going to say no, but 5% are going to say yes.
And of those 5%, like 50% ofthem are going to be useless.
But 50% that's 25 people isgoing to be pretty good.
But to achieve those 25 peopleyou have to reach out to a
thousand qualified people.
It's very much like sales.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's a volume game to build networks.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcometo the Brendan Acker Influence,
where we dive deep into theminds of industry leaders,
innovators and game changers whoare shaping the world of
business and beyond.
Today we have a very specialguest, nick Jane, who is a
Harvard graduate, a serialentrepreneur and a visionary
who's been at the forefront ofseveral transformative ventures.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Tell us about Harvard .
What did it take?
I mean, that's a majoraccomplishment, a huge
accomplishment, as a matter offact.
How did you do it?
It's a major accomplishment, ahuge accomplishment.
As a matter of fact.
How did you do it?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I grew up in a very typical kind of immigrant family
.
You know shirts on their backtype of story.
My parents immigrated here fromthe 80s to Canada in the 1980s.
I grew up a middle class farmtown kid.
Look, I think the biggest thingthat has enabled success, both
(01:32):
at Harvard and professionally,is just being willing to put in
the hours and work.
I think a lot of peopleunderestimate how much effort
and years and years of effortgoes into successful people's
outcomes.
For me to get into a goodbusiness school like Harvard
meant that I had to work my buttoff in high school to get into
a good college, had to do wellat college to get a great job.
That then you know, once youget a great job you can say look
, then you can apply to a goodbusiness school.
So I think it was many, manyyears of success compounding,
probably from the age of 13onwards, and I think that's
(01:54):
something a lot of folks mightunderestimate or appreciate.
You know I'm just brilliant, ormy last name is Rockefeller.
None of that, in fact.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So what advice would you have for somebody who's
trying to go to Harvard, tryingto compete at that echelon I
mean, that's just a wholedifferent level right.
So what was kind of yourexperience and some of your
hardest parts in that process?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I think the hardest part and there's probably two
pieces of advice right, set yourgoal in life, right.
Some people want to becomemillionaires, some people want
to become professional athletes,some people want to, you know,
to fix cars.
Figure out what matters to youin life.
For me, I always really, reallywanted to go to a good school.
I wanted to accomplishsomething, you know, in the
(02:40):
academic or business world.
And then, if you're, if that'smy, if that was my goal at age
13, I could have told you look,I want to work my butt off and
have a shot at making it to aplace like Harvard.
I could have told you that atage 13 and I cranked for like a
decade plus.
Number two be willing to knowwhat you're willing and not
willing to sacrifice to achievethose goals, right.
If you're not willing to put in80, a hundred hours a week for
(03:01):
10 years, then that's probablynot the right goal for you.
And, by the way, that's notjust for business school.
Like LeBron James, like I,can't play basketball worth crap
, but I also haven't put in, youknow, 10,000 hours into being a
professional, you know, athlete, right, I'm five foot six.
I don't think I'd ever be inthe NBA, but even if I you know
I was six foot five.
I'm not willing to put in thehours to be a pro basketball
(03:22):
player because that is not mypassion in life.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, I think that's important to really hone in on
the things you're good at, thethings you're passionate about,
because it really is the thingsyou're obsessed about, the
things you're passionate about.
That's where the magic happens,from my experience, and you
know, especially when you'rechasing something as big as
Harvard.
I never went to Harvard.
I went to a basic littleprivate school it was Olivet
(03:45):
College, and had a very lowamount of people there who went
there.
But you know, I coulddefinitely say even going there
was a challenge and I couldn'timagine what Harvard must have
been like.
Were you ever tapped like thesocial network?
Were you ever put in any ofthose secret societies?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So I was not.
But look, some of those areonly accessible to kids you know
who have the last nameRockefeller and things like that
.
I certainly had classmates.
Again, my father's a janitor,right, he cleans toilets for a
living.
So, coming from more humblebeginnings, you, you know, are
less likely to get tapped intothose secret societies.
Because, look, a lot ofclassmates says you know fathers
and mothers were presidents ofcountries or billionaires or you
(04:24):
know somebody you would knowabout.
So I think a lot of the secretclubs like that are for people
who come from a different walkin life and that's I'm okay with
that, right, like I wasn't bornwith that and so be it.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So what was the biggest challenges you faced?
Going from academic environmentand Harvard to the world of
entrepreneurship and adjustingto that.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So it was a bit of an easier transition, because I
spent the first about 10 yearsworking in Wall Street and the
good part about there's kind ofWall Street is, I think, a
really interesting place becauseon one level, you're getting to
work with very high powerpeople in a structured
environment with a lot ofresources.
On the other hand, it is veryindividually a Wall Street.
You are, you know, workingalone, alone a lot, a lot of the
time and you have to develop alot of diverse skills.
Right like it's not like youcan just call up a team of
(05:10):
people.
It's like you're when your bosstells you to do something, you
figure out how to do it.
And that's very similar tobeing an entrepreneur.
Right like when you're runningyour own business.
No one's going to teach you howto go do marketing or how to
take out the trash, you just gotto do do it.
And I think Wall Street wasreally good training for that,
because your boss says go solvea problem.
You may be 22 and have no ideawhat you're doing because you're
fresh out of college.
You may have no real worldskills, but the mentality is
(05:33):
look, I'm just going to gofigure it out because no one's
going to spend like a thousandhours teaching you how to be a
great marketer or build afinancial model.
I'm just going to go do it.
I think that has eased thetransition into kind of running
businesses.
In addition, I've beenfortunate to manage businesses
at very large scale, both verylarge and very small scales.
The largest company I've runwas $100 million in revenues.
(05:54):
The smallest was like a15-person men's shoe startup,
and so you just learn to bescrappy as well as either A if
there's a skill you need, youteach it to yourself like go
Google it, go watch some YouTubevideos or B you hire someone
who's better than you at it.
Right, I suck at graphics, forexample, so I know 100% of the
time if I need to do anythingmusical or graphics oriented,
(06:14):
I'm going to hire someone,because that's just not how my
brain is wired and I don't havethe skills to do it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
That's a fantastic answer.
So if you're building somethingof your own today, let's say
you're starting a company andyou're trying to do it in the
best possible way, you want tomake ROI as soon as possible,
like right off the bat, but youdon't have any funds.
You have very low capital.
What is the best, moststrategic way to make a
successful business right out ofthe gate, based on what you've
(06:39):
been taught at Harvard and someof your own experiences?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So if you want to generate kind of cash flows and
ROI right out of the gate, youhave to think about which
business have the shortest salescycles, because to make money
you basically have to havesomeone willing to pay you.
And if you think about that,who is it easier to sell to a
human being or a big corporation?
Right, human beings makespur-of-the-moment decisions.
You can go to the whatever andyou're like I'm going to make
that decision, I'm going to buyit right there.
(07:03):
You try and sell a can of Coketo I don't know Walmart.
Let's imagine you invented yousoft drink and you want to sell
it to Walmart.
That's going to be like a 12month procurement process and an
insane amount of bureaucracy.
So the answer is don't sell tobusinesses, right?
You want to sell to somethingthat has a short business cycle
or short decision cycle.
(07:23):
That's number one.
Number two figure out a productthat actually generates some
value, right?
No matter how good a salesmanyou are, if you're, so that only
lasts for a little bit catch on, you're selling a crappy
product.
So, like, go make sure thatyour product actually generates
value for someone somewhere, andthat I've left it entire very
(07:43):
ambiguous, because there'sthings that generate value for
you as an individual.
That don't matter to me at all,so I just but make sure there's
a market for people who arewilling to pay for it.
Um, and then third, like,figure out if you can do it
yourself.
Right, you may have this greatidea, you have a great idea, but
you have no useful life skills.
Go hire someone else to do it.
That's perfectly legitimate,right?
Like, don't don't be ego driven.
(08:05):
Figure out what is needed tomake your business successful
and better done.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Awesome.
So what is the best way toincentivize somebody?
Or to motivate somebody withlike 15, 20, 30 years experience
doing what they do, who loveswhat they do?
What's the best way to motivatethem to work for you and to
help you build your business?
Or, like you said right,nobody's going to come and build
your business for you, so wheredoes that?
What's the best solution forthat?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
That their people are motivated by what are called
the 4Gs gold meaning money, guts.
To just show you can do it,right, like, why do people run
ultra marathons?
It's just proof to themselvesthat they can do it.
Not even to brag to the worldGlory, that's bragging to the
other world.
You want everyone else to knowwhat you did.
Or the good, like the commongood.
Some people are just trulyaltruistic and want to help
(08:51):
others at either a local scale,a national scale, an
international scale, whatever.
No-transcript being a CEO of acompany anymore, but I still
(09:13):
want to keep, you know, berelevant, keep my mind active,
I'll do it.
For, you know, there's a CEO.
She probably, you know, isdoing a job that, like,
effectively, they get paid 10bucks an hour or something now
because they just want to beactive.
They don't care about beingpaid.
Whatever they were before,they've made their money in life
Now they just don't want to besitting at home, like you know,
(09:34):
waiting to die.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So imagine getting this money.
Yeah, really want to find thosepeople who.
You want to find those peoplewho love what they do.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Money's not the only thing.
That money's, in fact, a verysmall fraction of what motivates
people to get up in the morningright Once your basic needs are
met, a lot most of what you doin life, most of what I do in
life, is not motivated by money,like I go play poker, because I
don't, not because I want tomake money, but because I enjoy
playing poker.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
right, I actually have a mentor and he's a bigger
personality.
I'll just say you went toVanderbilt and I was asking him
I'm like, how did you make itwork?
And he's just like my lowestproduct was like $600,000.
And now he had run like his ownagency sort of thing and he was
kind of on the.
He was essentially at the headof the entire movement for
(10:19):
social media, marketing andthings like that.
So he had gotten a large partof the market share and things
like that.
So he had gotten a large partof the market share.
But what do you say about that?
What is like working today?
So like marketing is supersaturated today right, maybe
even SaaS could be saturated.
What?
What makes you stand out?
What's the best way to getthose clients in the door and to
retain them?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Certain types of advertising or marketing are
absolutely saturated, the onesthat are like, basically dead
and almost a waste of money.
And I'll give an example.
It's basically paid advertising.
So your Google ads, yourFacebook ads, your LinkedIn ads,
your TikTok ads, right?
Anything that anyone can doeasily, where you just pay some
money to try and make a problemgo away definitely should mean
definition means that it's arace to the bottom right.
(10:59):
It's a thousand dollars to halfa million bucks a year to large
organizations.
Most of my competitors advertiseon Google ads and LinkedIn ads.
They spend a lot of money.
I spent exactly zero on thoseads.
Why?
Because I don't want my ad tobe shown next to like nine other
ads, and basically the only onemaking money then is Google,
right, and I'm not here to lineGoogle's pockets.
So what we do instead and thesame is true for you know, if
(11:24):
you are a company selling, let'ssay, clothing, if you advertise
on Facebook or Instagram orTikTok, guess what?
So is everyone else right, evenUnder Armour, right, like you
don't want Under Armour to beadvertising right next to Nike,
to Adidas, to Reebok or whatever.
So a lot of the paid advertisingmarkets are saturated.
There's two examples I can giveyou you can generate a lot of.
(11:45):
The paid advertising marketsare saturated.
There's two examples I can giveyou.
You can generate a lot of valuequickly on the markets.
One is on organic search, andI'm not just talking SEO, I'm
actually designing for it.
So what I was saying was numberone paid advertising, such as
on Google ads or LinkedIn ads orFacebook ads, instagram ads.
That's a very saturated marketbecause you and your competitors
(12:06):
are all advertising in the sameplace for the same keywords and
same audience, and so that'sthe worst possible outcome for
you as a business.
Whatever you're selling whetheryou're selling chips or you
know highly expensive B2Bsoftware like us If you're just
on a shelf with eight otherpeople or eight other
competitors, you're going to getlost.
You're not going to sellanything.
You don't want to be in agrocery aisle right Conceptually
, I mean in an advertisingmarket.
(12:27):
So what we do, for example, wespent all my competitors spend a
lot of money on Google adsadvertising their innovation
software.
We spend $0 on it.
What we did was we said that'sstupid, we don't want to be one
of a crowd, we're going to justdominate the organic search
market.
So we went and created justreally really high quality
content.
Our area of expertise isinnovation software.
(12:48):
So we said we're just going tohave the world's best blog on
innovation, right?
So whether you're a smallcompany, whether you're NASA,
whether you're McKinsey, whetheryou're Pfizer, you should come
to our company to learn abouthow to make your organization
more innovative.
And we don't even.
We don't.
Our blogs don't even mentionour company name.
The only way you'll even knowit's hosted by us.
It's anyone in the world whowants to learn about innovation
(13:09):
just will come to us because weare by far the best and that
didn't actually that cost us Idon't know $10,000 or $20,000 to
accomplish.
That's less than my competitorsspent a month on digital
advertising and yet I getroughly 10 times the traffic and
leads that any of them do.
That's not so like you have tofind a market that people like
(13:32):
just miss is like everyone talksabout SEO, but that's just
their gaming keywords.
Just create good content.
I mean, don't suck at the SEOpart, just create good content.
If you are the best place forwhatever you do in life for
information, people will be likehey, nick was really good at
educating us about innovation.
Hey, maybe we'll give asoftware shot, even though
Nick's not even trying to sellus the software that can apply
to, you know, chips, that canapply to workout gear, that can
(13:53):
apply to fast food.
That's number one.
Number two is do somethingreally crazy and creative.
I used to work in the in theshoe industry and up and coming
sneaker industry.
A sneaker company did was Nikeholds these launch parties when
they're releasing new sneakerslike Yeezys or things like that,
and there's lines out that Idon't know if you've ever seen
them in front of Nike stores butthere's lines for like 12 hours
(14:14):
when they're about to releaseone of these new hot shoes.
And these guys literally theshoe company was like we're
never going to get Nike toconvince to hold our shoes
because we're some tiny, dinkylittle company.
So they hired a bunch ofcollege grads to walk around
with signs around their necks infront of the lines just hanging
out coffee.
You know you paid a collegestudent like eight bucks an hour
for six hours Cause like peopleare desperate to call for
(14:35):
coffee at three in the morningto stay awake while they're
sitting in a freezing cold linewaiting for some stupid shoe to
drop Right.
And that's really crazy In theage of digital advertising.
These guys literally just hireda bunch of college students
with signs around their necks.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, yeah, I love your answer too, cause it's true
, what's funny.
I'm like, okay, what works forElon Musk?
What does he do?
And then I'm like, oh, hedoesn't really advertise, he
just basically creates a greatproduct.
That's so exceptional that itjust you can't help but not look
at it.
We're going to put it in yourbrain and it's going to read
your mind and essentially beable to make you walk again and
see again, if you're blind, likethat's crazy.
That makes a lot of sense andit goes back to what you're
(15:12):
saying create a great productover trying to follow the leader
when it comes to theadvertising part and whatnot.
Create a great product.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Marketing is supposed to be, you know, good marketing
just lets people know you exist, right?
Bad marketing tries to convincepeople to buy a crappy product
and I think too many companieshave a very mediocre product
that they spend a lot more onmarketing on.
The classic example is perfumecompanies.
Perfume companies spend verylittle money researching and
(15:42):
making a perfume, but they spendan insane amount of money
hiring celebrities to convinceyou to buy that perfume or same
with whatever fancy watch yousee in airport ads.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It's very true, yeah, yeah, you look at a lot of the
advertisements.
What was it?
It was Lamborghini.
They said we don't runtelevision commercials because
our target audience isn'tsitting around watching
television.
I'm like, wow, that hit me hard.
That's really insane, though,because that's a very effective
advertising campaign in itselfbecause of how powerful and
(16:07):
profound that is.
So what do you?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
think, yeah, I've never seen a Lambo, for that,
I've never thought about that.
But even in the Financial Times, right, I don't think I've seen
a Lamborghini.
Financial Times is aimed at avery affluent audience.
I don't think I've ever seen aLambo ad there.
Because, like you don't wantthat stuff sold to you, you just
want to go to a deal.
And I'm not a car guy, by theway, at all.
Right, I drive a Kia Rio.
(16:30):
But I certainly don't wantluxury goods advertised to me.
If I want them, I will go getthem.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It's just wild.
You know it's wild.
What do you think is?
Where do you think is the bestplace to find a good network of
people?
Right, so it's just a brick andmortar business.
What's the best way to find thenetworks?
What do you think is the bestway?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Have you ever heard of that old Groucho Marx quote?
I wouldn't want to be a memberof any country club that wants
to have me as a member.
Yeah, I have.
I have heard that quote.
Okay.
So the idea is like, look, anyclub that's inviting you is
probably beneath you to be in,right?
It's like I get ads for joiningsome real estate investor clubs
all the time.
I'm like, you know, if they'reinviting me and I know nothing
about real estate, they clearlyare like are you know, just
(17:17):
terrible at what they do?
Right, you want to be invitedto the clubs that you don't get
invited into, right, you want togo to the Met Gala or whatever
your you know passion life is.
So, to answer your questionlike, you don't get invited into
those groups because if they'regood at what they do, they
don't invite you.
You have to earn your way in.
Um, so the way you create thosenetworks if, if you know,
you're not going to get inviteduntil you've already made it, at
(17:38):
which point you know, if you'vealready made it, you don't need
to be invited to those clubs.
Anyways, the way you buildthose networks is you create
those networks.
You don't get invited intothose networks.
You have to build them rightand you build them with you as
the center of that network.
And the practical advice is okay, look, let's imagine I want to
build a network of real estateexperts and investors.
You go, reach out to a thousandpeople and say like, look, this
(18:01):
is what I'm trying to do andguess what?
950 of them are going to say no, but 5% are going to say yes
and of those 5%, like 50% ofthem are going to be useless.
But 50% that's 25 people isgoing to be pretty good.
But to achieve those 25 peopleyou have to reach out to a
thousand qualified people.
It's very much like sales.
It's a volume game to buildnetworks.
It's like dating, right, youdon't get married to the first
(18:22):
man or woman you meet.
You probably go on a thousanddates over the course of your
life.
How did you build yourrelationship network with your
spouse?
Through basically a lot of kindof experimentation, meeting
people, going on dates.
You know not getting seconddates, whatever it is.
Building a professional networkis no different.
You reach out to a lot ofpeople.
(18:43):
You know, as I try and buildnetworks with other tech CEOs, I
reach out to a lot of them.
Most of them don't even respondto me, even though I'm a fellow
tech CEO.
They don't respond.
But guess what A smallproportion of them do and I've,
as a consequence, been able tobuild networks with like the
CEOs of billion dollar companiesthat I just cold reach out to
and said look, I'm trying tobuild a network here.
Give me some advice.
I'm young, I'm stupid.
Help me, like, get to where youare in 10 or 20 years.
(19:04):
And most people say no.
Couple say yes.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And I think what you said there, too, is a big part
of it is humility, right, likethe volume, of course, and you
know the hustle and doing thatpart of it, but also it's the
humility and willing to admitlike, hey, listen, I know
nothing, I tell me how to dothis, right, you know, I've had
a couple of mentors who havetaught me very similar things,
the things you're learning.
Spend 12 hours, lock yourselfin a room, youtube it and learn
(19:31):
how to do it.
So, like when I was firstlearning how to run Google ads,
I'm like how do you do this?
This makes no sense.
And my mentor is just like,lock yourself in a room for
eight hours and look it up onYouTube, shut the lights off and
just do that all day and shutyour phone off.
I'm like, okay, and I did itand it worked.
What a concept.
But why is it that we miss that?
What is it that distracts us?
(19:52):
Is it kind of like NapoleonHill's book Outwitting the Devil
?
Is it that we're all just abunch of drifters or we're just
not focused enough?
What do you think causes us todrift?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I think this is so.
I think a lot over the last 10or 20 years, as cultures have
shifted, I think we have begunto undervalue you like formal
education and formal doesn'tmean going to college, but just
like sitting down reading a bookto learn something.
You, we all assume that it iseasy to do something or that
(20:25):
there, you know, people are withnatural gifts, and certainly
there are people born withextraordinary natural gifts, but
we under you don't.
You don't become like a PhD inphysics just by being brilliant.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
You, somewhat you have to spend a crap ton of time
like studying textbooks andstudying last 300 years of
physics does the same thing.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I'm kind of terrified she's going to do so now.
But that's that's number one,like what you said about locking
yourself in a dark room.
That's not how people think oflearning.
Learning is supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be like candy
, right?
I think over the last 20 or 30years we've assumed that, hey,
learning is not good unless it'sfun.
And guess what?
Sitting down for 12 hoursreading a textbook or watching a
technical course on Google Adsis probably not fun for most
(21:03):
people.
Fun for most people.
And yet you know, we've beentaught in school like, if it's
not learning it's, if it's notfun, it's not worth doing.
No, no, no.
There's lots of things in lifethat are worth doing, that are
really tough and boring, and yetthey're worth doing.
And the people who excel are theones who are willing to sit
down and like, read that, likeI'm trying to take a computer
course on algorithms.
That is not fun, that is notinteresting.
Guess what.
(21:23):
I sat my butt down on Fridaynight or, sorry, on Saturday all
day and studied it for 12 hours, when I could have been out
there running or spending timewith my wife Trust me.
I don't want to be reading atechnical textbook from
Princeton on algorithms.
You get better things to do,but it's whatever you know you
need to do.
And that can be true on Googleads, that can be true on
LinkedIn advertising, that canbe true on design, like art.
Right, I'm not an artisticperson, but I like great artists
(21:49):
.
Don't just become great artists.
They, like most of them, wentto some form of art school and
spent like thousands of hoursperfecting their craft
absolutely, yeah, like daveramsey said, reading is leading
and I like that.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
You mentioned that.
How, how important reading is?
What are some good books thatwill got that can really guide a
new entrepreneur in the rightdirection?
And if, if you wanted to getthem right, like the fastest
route to understanding thisentire, like the mindset of it,
the technical aspects of it, thelike everything together,
what's what are like few goodbooks that you would highly
(22:17):
recommend?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Sure, so uh, two come to mind right away.
I'm trying to come up with thethird.
I'll say the two and then maybea third will come to mind.
First of all, there's a classicone called by Dale Carnegie how
to Win Friends and InfluencePeople.
There's a quote with me thatsticks with that book, like
who's the person you love mostin your life?
It's the person who jumps up,you know, comes to you every
time you come home and justloves you unquestionably,
(22:41):
doesn't care, and that's animportant skill.
Whatever you do, whether you'reselling, whether you're
engineering, whether you'releading a billion dollar company
or just starting out, you know,uh, selling lemonade on the
(23:02):
street, I've done all those jobsright you have to know how to
kind of win friends andinfluence people.
So, dale Carnegie, that's likea hundred year old book.
You know, it's been on thebestseller list for literally a
hundred years and it's short.
It's like I don't know ahundred pages long and, like you
know, small pages.
It's not complex.
The second one is a moretechnical book.
It's a book that I personallylove.
It's called Valuation, by AswadDamodaran.
(23:25):
He's a professor at NYU.
This is a book that's like athick, meaty, heavy textbook.
It teaches you how businessesmake money.
It's the best book to make onhow businesses work and he's the
he's considered the godfatherof modern finance or valuation
theory right so super.
It's a technical book.
You need high school level mathto do so.
You don't need advancedcalculus.
But it's not a book you canread while falling asleep, right
(23:46):
?
You need to, like, sit there ina room, have pen and paper and
be able to, like, you know, dothe math that he's asking you to
do.
Those are the two that come tomind immediately.
It's a third one that comes tomind.
Third would probably be likeless a book and more like go
take a technical course onCoursera or Udemy or something
on some form of marketing.
That's a very quickly learnableskill.
(24:06):
It's easy, it's digestible.
You come out with some reallyuseful skills that you can start
using the next day to make.
Go make money.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It's just so important to be a learning
machine.
I think that's definitely a keyto this entire game because,
like you said before, you knowbeing an entrepreneur, you have
to control your own paycheck.
You control everything, right.
How important is that?
And you know what is the thingthat allowed you to stick to it
without giving up, withoutquitting, without letting all
(24:34):
the white noise around you justget to you.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Look, I'm a human being.
I have good weeks and bad weeks.
There's some weeks where I justfeel like, demotivated, the
world is crappy, we're notselling anything today, I'm
sleepless, whatever.
And it could be because theweather sucks.
It could be because I had aterrible week last week at work,
right.
So there's going to be ups anddowns in every journey, right,
and that could be determined byyour own you know hormonal
balance.
That could be turned bysunlight, that could be turned
(24:55):
by.
Like you know, the markets hada rough week.
Whatever, it is Right.
So don't assume that stuff willalways go right for me, and
certainly hasn't right.
There's weeks, there's monthswhere I'm just entirely
demotivated and do crap, andthen there's other months where
I'm just like on it on my a game.
So I'll say two things.
Number one is when you havethose high periods, when you
know you're on your a game,focus on that.
(25:16):
Go just get as.
When you are performing at yourpeak performance, go get as
much out of you as you canduring those peak performance.
I'm just in the zone, not's.
Number one Make sure you are.
Whatever you're doing is part ofa process you believe in,
because if you don't believewhat you're investing right now
is going to pay off at somepoint, you're going to get
(25:36):
demotivated.
I know that, like if I justgrind and talk to a lot of
people for sales conversations,or if I write a ton of code or
whatever, I know I will get theoutput, so I never have to doubt
myself.
But, or whatever, I know I willget the output, so I never have
to doubt myself.
But I know that process works.
It's something I've been doingfor 10 years.
It's something that you knowpeople salespeople have been
doing for a thousand years.
I know the process works.
I never lose faith in theprocess, just like look,
(25:57):
sometimes the process has shittyyour weeks and some people it's
sometimes good weeks.
So you have to have faith inyour process, whatever it is or
whatever you're doing.
Number three remember,celebrate your successes.
Remember, just because thisweek sucked doesn't mean go back
and think about hey, a monthago it was awesome, right,
you've got to ride those highsand remember those highs.
I think what a lot of people dopoorly is when something good
happens, they're like, okay,great, let's pop a bottle of
(26:18):
champagne, and they forget aboutit, rather than realizing the
great feeling of that victorythat comes and using that to
fuel your next low period inlife.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah, and it is those dopamine rushes, right.
When we see a little bit ofsuccess and you're like, oh my
God, I just made 40 bucks offthis book I'm selling, or
whatever it might be, and thatwas when it changed for me, I
was like whoa, this is scary, isthis legal?
Because I came from this worldwhere I was like a farmer at it
was an asphalt and just a lot ofhard labor jobs and then went
(26:49):
to a police officer, right.
So a lot of my life was just sostructured in that nine to five
and I learned quickly howimportant it is to actually be a
leader in that sense of beingan entrepreneur, because it does
allow you a little bit moreflexibility and freedom.
So what would you say to thenine to five employee and why it
is important?
Even if they're happy at theirjob, which is great why should
(27:10):
they really learn about thisworld of entrepreneurship and
kind of being in control of yourown destiny?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
So I would say a few things.
It goes back to what you wantin life right.
If you want absolute stabilityin life, nine to fives are great
.
You get great benefits.
You know you're going to getyour salary at the end of the
year.
You can support your family.
Both my parents chose that,right, like they were immigrants
.
They wanted to have a nice,stable life so they could
provide a foundation for me andmy younger brother to have, you
know, to take more risks in life.
Other people want other thingsin life.
(27:37):
Right, they want to be famous.
They want to make money.
They want to work their ownflexible hours.
Right.
Entrepreneurship while itoffers greater risks, it also
offers a greater flexibility andbe greater rewards, and those
rewards are not just monetary.
I don't think Elon Musk isdoing it for the money anymore.
Right, he's the richest man onthe planet.
He's doing it because he wantsto be the guy who's remembered
(27:58):
500 years from now as the guywho took us to Mars or, you know
, cured, aging or whatever it isthat he's working on these days
.
Like whatever that great rewardis right.
He doesn't need to start hisnext business right.
He's run, however many you know, billion dollar businesses at
this point.
So that's why I think it'simportant, right.
If you truly just want a nice,stable job which nothing wrong
with that 90% of people likework nine to five jobs, my folks
(28:21):
included then that's good.
But if you want the chance atgreater flexibility or greater
rewards, you have to be willingto accept the greater risk that
comes from entrepreneurship.
For a lot of people, that'sreally exciting.
Even if you make less money orhave less reward, that
flexibility itself has a lot ofvalue for people.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And what really got me into it too, is I started
reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
That was kind of the first bookthat really got me on the
course of entrepreneurship andjust completely changed my
mindset.
everything like just turned on acompletely different switch and
I learned very early on that,wow, this is a very beneficial
career.
If you can make this work, youknow, you can actually build a
(29:01):
pretty good life and you alsodon't have that capped income,
which is also important.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat was your experience when
you were starting your firstbusiness and what were some of
your setbacks before you sawreal success.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
So I've only started one business.
The rest of them I've been likea hired CEO at both large and
small scales.
But the business I attempted tostart, or did start, was a
small hedge fund.
I'd worked on Wall Street.
I'd come up with a really coolway to invest in stocks that was
not just me picking stocksbased on my feelings, but a
really like data-driven,mathematical way, and I'd done
this very successfully at scalefor somebody else.
(29:38):
And I said look, I'm the guywho came up with this idea, I
know how to do it, I'm doing allthe work.
Why should I not go start myown company and try and make it
and scale it?
So I raised a small amount ofcapital, right, literally called
up you know thousands of richpeople and said hey, I want to
start a hedge fund.
Can you give me a little bit ofmoney to get started?
Most again 99% of people saidno.
A couple of guys said yes andgave me a shot.
(29:58):
So I think like and that failed, by the way, right, like it, it
was interesting because my,from a objective returns
perspective, I was doing well.
There's this platform calledSumZero which ranks hedge fund
investment ideas.
I was ranked number one on theplanet for like 12 months, which
is really beating out 20,000other professional investors.
But I wasn't able to raiseenough capital or scale the
(30:20):
business, and part of that was Iwas not a great salesperson.
Part of that was I was tooyoung and didn't have the
relationships.
Part of that was I didn't havethe brand names behind me.
Um, but that failed and thatsucked right because, like, I
was like, okay, my product isactually really good, but I'm
unable to turn the product intoa business.
And that's reality again.
It could have been wrong timing, bad luck or it could have been
failures on my part.
(30:41):
So the learning coming out ofthat is like, look, well,
there's two things.
Number one, I took that risk ina way that made sense for me,
where I knew, even if I failed,I'm not going to die starving on
the streets.
And number two is that I havecome out of that with a learning
that, look, if I'm ever goingto do this, I need to think more
about the business aspect of itrather than just having a great
(31:03):
Wow, yeah, super simple, right,but most people wouldn't think
about that.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
So, with a hedge fund , for example, what does it take
to get started?
What makes a hedge fundsuccessful?
I mean, what causes somebodywho's super wealthy to say, yeah
, I'll help you out, kid youknow and invest in your business
?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Sure, so I think a few things right.
Number one is you have well,look, actually I learned this
the hard way.
I think when people are talkingabout their money, it is often
an emotional decision ratherthan a rational decision.
I had made the incorrectassumption that people think
about money irrationally, thatit's a number on a page and
(31:46):
you're thinking about maximizingyour returns.
Turns out, people whetheryou're poor or rich, most people
are really bad at managingmoney and are thinking about how
to manage money.
Even financial professionalsoften violate well-known
principles of how you shouldmanage your money.
And so I think the big kind ofthing that for hedge fund world,
that the realization, like howto convince people to give money
(32:08):
, it's you make them a deeperemotional connection with them
rather than try and sell them abetter product.
And again, I was not matureenough or skilled enough to do
that effectively when I tried to.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
It's really cool to hear you talk about this too,
especially somebody coming fromHarvard and such a prestigious
background In terms of Harvard.
What were some of the bigthings that you learned that
most schools just won't teachyou?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So again, just to be clear, I went to the business
school, not to the undergraduate, so a little bit of a different
atmosphere than anundergraduate university.
There I think one of the thingsHarvard does really well I
think from a content perspective, the business school was
terrible.
We didn't actually learn verymuch there in terms of, like,
new knowledge, but one of thethings they did really well was
(32:54):
they forced you to practicespeaking and articulating your
views effectively to otherpeople.
So the way Harvard BusinessSchool works is you basically
the professors don't teach youreal content, students basically
debate against themselves oragainst their peers, and what
that means forces you is look,if you're surrounded in a room
of very, very smart, motivated,like um type a people and you
(33:17):
are forced to continuously speakboth on areas where you know a
lot and both on areas where youdon't know a lot, and you're
forced, like people who may notknow about finance are still
forced to talk about finance, itforces you to number one, get a
base level of understanding andeverything, so you're not
stupid at any.
You get a base level, competenceand every, because you just
don't want to sound stupid infront of your you know,
communicate clearly andsuccinctly.
(33:38):
And number three it tells youhow to have uh, be, uh
communicate effectively.
There's the content of yourcommunication, but then the the
uh emotion, or content of yourcommunication, but then the
emotion or impact of yourcommunication.
That's important too right, andI think HBS forced you to learn
that really, really well,because for two years that's all
(34:00):
you did.
You just debated and madespeeches, and so you got really
good at communicating viewseffectively and defending them
against people who may beskeptical of your views or have
been asked to take the oppositeperspective.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
And in terms of the future of America, where do you
think we're heading?
Where do you think the USdollar is?
Speaker 1 (34:21):
heading.
So I have no idea on the USdollar.
I don't dabble in forex markets.
No idea on that.
Right, I can offer you atheoretical answer.
That's not useful.
The, the, you know thiseuropean central bank is going
to cut interest rates, andbecause the federal reserve just
cut the answer, uh, theinterest rate two weeks ago.
What that means is that whenthe european and bank cuts their
(34:42):
interest rate into in a coupleof months, uh, then the euro.
The euro should fall instrength versus the dollar
according to economic theory.
But that's that's somethingmarkets know, so you're not
going to make money off that ForAmerica.
Look, america is.
I'm an immigrant.
I only got my citizenship abouta year ago.
Right, I've been here for 20years, but got my citizenship a
year ago, went through theentire process, so I'm proud to
be here.
I think America is a reallyunique place where the American
(35:04):
dream holds true, where a poorimmigrant kid whose parents
don't speak English can grow upand go to good schools or run
companies.
That's really unique aboutAmerica.
That's not true almost anywhereelse in the world.
Right, the American dream isalive and well.
You got to work hard to do it.
The second thing that's reallycool about America is we
(35:24):
appreciate ideas here, right?
Good ideas, regardless of wherethey come from.
You see, all these CEOs withfunny accents, right?
Good ideas, regardless of wherethey come from.
You see, like all these CEOswith funny accents, right?
People don't care If they weregood at what they do.
You succeed here.
Number three is we rewardpeople here, whether that be in
terms of money, hollywood, fame,whatever it is, we reward
people really well here forcontributing to society.
(35:48):
The big challenge for America is, I think over the last 60 or so
years, america has been thepredominant hegemonic power in
the world.
There was America and thenthere was no one else.
Everyone else was second tier.
I think today, americans are,you know, having to deal with a
more competitive global economy,right?
You're not Americans competingjust against Brits.
You're competing againstIndians, chinese, vietnamese,
(36:09):
australians, nigerians, and thatglobal economy means that both
America as a country as well asAmericans as individuals need to
be willing to be morecompetitive, because 20 or 30
years ago, you only had tocompete against the 300 or 250
million Americans in thiscountry.
Today, if you're an American,you are out there competing for
jobs, for talent, for capital,for money, for products against
(36:32):
7 billion other people who aresmart, who are hungry, who want
to win it.
The Chinese companies want tosell products, too, just as much
as American companies, theIndian companies, the Australian
company, and what that means iswe just got to be a lot
hungrier and more competitivethan I think we've been used to
for the last 30 or 40 years, butagain we have these unique
advantages where we are the onlycountry in the world.
(36:54):
I think that truly createsopportunity for those who are
willing to work for it.
The American dream is trulyalive and well, and I think
people underappreciate howpowerful a force that is.
That's why everyone wants tomove here, right, because we
create opportunities and isthere anything else that you'd
like to promote?
So, look, I run a B2B softwarecompany.
My software is 100% free foranybody less than 100 people.
(37:17):
So whether you're a solopreneurwith a Gmail address or a small
hardware store or a 99% midsizesoftware company, I would love
if you come and try it out atour product.
It is the best-in-classinnovation management software,
so you can think of it as anotepad for your ideas.
Or, if you're a largeorganization, helps you figure
out what your new marketingcampaign should be or what your
new product feature should be orwhat new color soft you should
(37:38):
make.
Whatever it is, it helps youmanage your portfolio of ideas
really effectively.
Again, whether you're oneperson and obviously if you're a
large company and you'rehearing this podcast, you should
come to me and buy my software.
But if you're a small companyor solo entrepreneur, use my
software for free.
I would absolutely love that.
Ideascalecom just click, getstarted free at the top.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
And is there anything else that you're working on in
the future, any big projects?
Speaker 1 (37:59):
So two or three things.
Number one is in my personallife, I've just started to get
into recreational sorry, intoreal estate investing.
So that's just something I'mtrying out more more for fun
than for you know, trying tobecome a guy Kawasaki real
estate guy.
Number two is idea scale.
(38:19):
I think our company is about todo some really really cool
things.
So for the last like 15 years,we basically had one product.
We've been very good at it.
Just this week we launched ourbiggest or actually just on last
Friday, like three days week,we launched our biggest uh, or
actually just on last Friday,like three days ago, we launched
our biggest feature release inlike five years.
So we just revitalize theentire application.
In addition, over the nextthree months we are launching
our, our, uh, entirely newproducts, not like add-ons to
(38:42):
our existing product, but likeentirely new products.
So that's something reallywe're excited about in a 15 year
history of the company wherewe've been like a one trick you
know one trick pony, a very goodtrick, but a one trick pony and
now we're going to have a lotof you know tricks up our
sleeves or a lot of tricks ourpony can do, which we are really
excited about.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
That's so amazing and congratulations again on all
your success and I appreciateyou coming on the show today and
telling us about your story andyour journey, because it truly
is a pretty awesome one to hear.
And when I do build out mystudio, I'll definitely fly out
and we'll have, we'll do thereal thing, we'll do the real
podcast interview.
For sure.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Sound good that would be awesome man.
I would love to come.
Where are you based, by the way?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
So I'm built uh based in Michigan at the moment.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
So we're just, we're coming into, into.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
We're coming into winter at the moment, um, but I,
uh, I do do a little business.
Not in winter, please, not inwinter.
Okay, I don't want to be.
I'm with you, I'm a snowbird, Ilike florida, I like, I like my
nice weather, for sure.
So I don't blame you.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
I stay here, mostly for I love the heat, I love,
love the sun, Absolutely Coolman yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
And thanks again.
I'll probably release thisepisode in about a month.
Typically, we have likeliterally seven or eight podcast
interviews we need to catch upon, so I'm going to try to get
everything done within the nextmonth.
I got to get the other guestsout, but, like I said, it'll be
really good and soon we'll bepromoting the YouTube channel at
larger scale.
So I anticipate we'll get atleast probably 30,000 views.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
When it's ready to send out, send us all the
materials and collateral and mymarketing team will cross-market
and make sure that we send itout through all our channels.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Yeah, for sure.
I'll send you a Google Doc withthe Google file and then all
the directory links too.
Awesome, Perfect man.
Yeah, thanks again for comingon.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Take all right, perfect man.
Yeah, thanks again for coming.
Thanks so much, take it easy.
Thanks for having me.
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