Ideas Don’t Matter With Steve Orlando

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Entrepreneurial Mindset Project.

 

Today, I’m speaking with a special guest, Steve Orlando, who is not only an incredible entrepreneur, but was one of my very first students when I was experimenting with teaching entrepreneurship at a local high school back in 2006-2007.

 

Trust me when I tell you Steve has an incredible story to tell.

 

As a mediocre student from a working-class family, Steve wasn’t sure where he was going in life. Watching his father struggle to get ahead left a profound impression on him from an early age.

 

Yet a light-bulb moment shifted his awareness in ways that had a profound impact on his life.

What started as a simple idea for an office cleaning business soon morphed into an adjacent opportunity that enabled him to earn $40,000 in his spare time - all while a senior in high school!

 

From there, Steve has since created a number of successful businesses, none of which required more than a few hundred dollars to start.

 

In this episode, we cover a lot of ground, yet the one thing that really stood out for me was something that we never really discussed: the original idea doesn’t matter. What really matters is that we get out of the building and start knocking on doors, looking for problems to solve, and talking to people who might have the problem we are trying to solve.

 

Sooner or later, an opportunity will emerge—an opportunity that you could never have foreseen when you began.

 

So, without any further ado, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Steve Orlando.