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Panel: Solving Your Biggest Business Challenges

Lesson 22 from: Secrets From Silicon Valley: Backstage

CreativeLive Team

Panel: Solving Your Biggest Business Challenges

Lesson 22 from: Secrets From Silicon Valley: Backstage

CreativeLive Team

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Lesson Info

22. Panel: Solving Your Biggest Business Challenges

Lesson Info

Panel: Solving Your Biggest Business Challenges

Hello, Internet. Hello, Worldwide. And you folks here in the studio, give up. Come on. We are. Thank you. Okay. Okay. We are driving towards the end of an amazing two days, and we sort of saved an amazing segment for the end, Which is one of the things that I actually get to segments. Just wanna one more. I think I'm very excited about this. When we're taking your questions live from around the world to these three fine folks, I'm gonna let introduce themselves in just one second so that we can tell you some of that business advice living a business advice that you've been looking for. Um, we want to know your questions. Hashtags creativelive on my friend Russ over here. You're gonna be feeding some of those things to me. Absolutely. That's my job. Fantastic. Fantastic. So that means I can probably sit down now that it's okay. Good. Good. Again. I'm chased over some of the co founder of Creative Live. Uh, and I'm sitting next to the blue panel, actually had to wear blue to be on the pa...

nel. Uh, I'm gonna let these guys introduce themselves so they can say a few things, and then we'll get down to brass tacks. I meet Kasami on the CEO of creative Life. I'm the suit around here, right? Exactly. I keep the place running. That's a little background or not. No background use. That's it. Okay, Cool. Uh, should go equally short, but I was time for us to write books that sound like infomercials. Wow. Work week for everybody, For our chef. I also work with a lot of stars, including creativelive Evernote Uber task Graham it somebody over startups. This couple, a handful of very, very fun startups. Gary Schwartz, CEO of oh Deschenaux desk is the world's largest online workplace. We enable companies to hire, manage and pay talent from around the world. And I'm working on a book before our CEO Tim. Yeah. Yeah. Gerry's gonna ask questions to Tim for most of this panel is back. No, thank you guys very much. I'm looking forward to hearing questions that already starting to come in. I'm getting the wave from Russ. So this is sort of like, is it sort of like sort of shark tank ish or love line meets create fire away. Let's hear it. Absolutely. So we did ask four questions from the Internet ahead of time, and we have a couple questions cute up. So we're gonna start out with one from my Kong, she says. M Square presses an online fine stationery boutique that creates one of a kind treasure keepsakes and stationery to help people preserve memories on paper. Start our business in 2010. The biggest challenge we have is we do everything ourselves like graphic design, production, customer service, shipping, but keeping etcetera. We need to learn how to outsource some of our works to others. How do you get started when you're a one person organization? How do you make it so that you can bring in other people? How do you move beyond that one person organization as moderate of this panel? I am going to go straight to Gary I Tonto eso Desk actually is. What we do is really teed up for us. We're about enabling people to get leverage for themselves by saying, Look, you should figure out what you're really good at and what you like doing, and everything else you should delegate to others to dio, and we've created a platform that enables you to do that. You come to our platform to find the right people from around the world to manage them as if they were in the same office. And then we handle all the payment in statutory and whatever. Um, we just ran a session on this, but some very quick tips are, you know, start small. Don't try and boil the ocean. Pick one or two things that you don't want to dio and dip your toe in the water by having others do those. And once you get comfortable, then you can start to escalate in hand, more things out. But things like customer support writing, um, you know, anything that they're doing can be done via this online on demand workforce, there can't be affordable as well. Can you talk about that? Because I think that's one of the as a solo premier. I started out running my own photography and director business. Just me. I swept the floors. I answered every single email. I did all that for years and years and years, and one of my big concerns was cost. So can you find affordable help out there? Because I'm sure if this personal business only started in 2010. We don't know what their revenues are, but can you be cost conscious and do this? Oh, absolutely. If you think about it, you know traditional work. How else are you gonna get help with that work, right. Well, you would have to actually hire people if you're going to do that locally. They're more expensive. It's competitive. It's time consuming. You know, it's rigid. Meaning you now need an office and a desk in a computer and a phone and sick time and all the things that go along with it. So just those savings alone, Not to mention the fact that you're tapping into a global talent pool. There's people all over the world that are dying a work for for you. So I would say that it's very cost effective, and people are amazed once they try it. They 89% of our clients say their businesses are more competitive because of online work. Can attest to get theirs. You like my P coach? Yeah, Paris, your everything. You're angry, Mom, Uh, just underscore a couple things. The first is, uh exactly what was just said. That is start really small, and I would actually take it a step further. And I would say, uh, do a few things for fun that are very inexpensive, that do not relate to your profit loss with in the business at all. Because there's too much stress associated with that eso, for instance. And there are there's of course, Oh, desk I've used Tesco desks Appear appears in my first book. There's places like Fiverr to ours at the end. There, place like Tasco places like designs choose something that is very comfortable to you in terms of costs. Say anywhere from 20 to $5200 upper threshold that could be designing a logo for a birthday party were like a graphic for God knows what anything. And I call that no stakes practice and use that as experimentation with the process itself. That's it. And I would also say it's very important to look for reliability first and competency second. So set a really fast turnaround, a deadline and let's say 24 48 hours and see who delivers on time, right? So I think Neil Gaiman, there's a great commencement speech who make good art by Neil Gaiman, and he says any really you can either be easy to get along with, be really good, do work on time, and you don't even have to do all three. You just have to do to. And I I think in this particular case, testing for reliability first and competency seconds very important for a business that depends on deadlines and clients and so on. So that would be another recommendation. Don't make me Cassell Me as the ever wise CEO of creative life. What you ended This has already been said, but it's all been said, But I was on the boring guy, which is, I say, figure out first what you can afford. So what is your kind of profit margin and what can you afford and have that number in the back? Your head? I think it's great experiment first, and I think the other advice about, like, offload the stuff. That's not fun, but you need to know how much you could spend. So I think you have to be pretty smart about knowing. So for the next three months I have this kind of cushion and I can afford to actually do some tests and figure it out. So I think, you know, being smart about the numbers is good. Yeah, it's a really good information today. One of those things was to set aside a little fund that so you already know, like you know what your experimental fund is gonna be. And then there's no stress associated with sort of when that money leaves because you're experimenting and that money leaving is way as a guarantee. It's gonna be cheaper than Gary said, bringing somebody in higher. And I'm given a computer desk of about blah, blah, blah. So let's try this online marketplace stuff like Gary represents and and just spend the money and spend it like Tim said, experimenting a little bit. So you've set aside the right doh. You get to learn from that. That's kind of what Tim does when he goes to Vegas. He sets aside that pool, and then it was a home. Knowing the whole thing, I would say is people are often stymied by choosing something to outsource or delegate, because I think they get wrapped up also in this term outsource when they think of like bangle or Indian there like but I'm not making textiles, but I don't need a spreadsheet like what should I do? Anything that could be done via phone or via computer could be sent to someone digitally and eyes a proof of concept. For that. You can do things that have nothing to do, and I would encourage you to do things that have no effect. Two. Your business bottom lines. It's like I outsourced my dating at one point that was popular and found and found teams around the world that got performance bonuses. There was like a request for proposals, very business like, but it was for something that had nothing to do with my business, and it was fun. He actually worked out, really was depressing. They're working for half the people I was in San Jose nicknamed Man Jose for good reasons, and it was enlightening and depressing that I actually ended up with longtime girlfriend out of that. Whereas all my previous attempts like going out to bars and doing dinners and all that had failed, I was like, I'm either really bad that good one weekend and a bunch of bunch of teams in that had a girlfriend in a television show about? Yeah, right. You think that satisfactorily answered that question? I believe it did. That was awesome. Thank you very much. And by the way, have a conversation Don't talk to may. Just have a look. Conversation amongst yourself. When? When you answer the question, I'm just a guy. I'm just answering the question because I saw a strange man talking A Exactly. So I'm gonna read another question here, but remind the audience they have an opportunity. I'm not gonna calling. Calling the person in the backward. I think that's a great idea. I just had a I was empathizing with the Askar of that question. And I think there's also this component of sometimes you don't know what to do or you're worried about your gonna step on a legal boundary or something. So something came to my mind was LegalZoom has really cheap hourly legal advice from actual lawyers. Like they can't give legal advice, but they can hook you up with one. Maybe you guys have other, uh, tools that people might look at when they're not sure if they're gonna step on the boundary. Who legal advice. Not necessarily legal specifically, but sometimes the fear or like being unsure what the first step is, what you're allowed to do, what your limits are. A slightly different question or slightly even tool set, perhaps, than we've talked about. Yeah, well, can you? I guess the response that I have, if I do understand the question, is what can you do that's close to that? That you can clarify that is not in the bounds of legal and high stakes. So, like something that's more risky than designing a logo for a birthday party but not getting legal advice on intellectual property. For example. I push right up to that line a little bit, check your comfort level, and then I will also sort of, um, step back 11 little bit and say, I think it's much better toe Have a lawyer that you know and trust, and it's better to find the person that's the right value for you in that same way, like experiment with a little pile of money where you know, because it's legal advice and to bounce around and get like sort of ad hoc legal advice can be risky to your business. So I would prefer my recommendation would be to actually find someone that understands what your budget is that you can clarify. I would try and avoid paying a retainer to start that relationship, started out, talk a little bit, test that a photo, a few folks and then find someone that you really like. I don't know if you guys want to touch on that or not, but specific illegal stuff. I would. Six. I work with a lot of lawyers, but the first would be that there things that you need legal advice for. And then there are some things you need a legal template for Those are two very different things. Uh, so I think price shopping for lawyers is often like price shopping for a neurosurgeon. Just don't really want to that you will end up paying for it later on. That having been said, I somebody on the Internet can fact check me here, but I believe that so automatic, you know Toni Schneider. Huge company Now Matt Mullen Leg was one of lead developers. WordPress did his initial Inc with documents on LegalZoom. I said, It's like you don't have to be super super fancy in the beginning. The fact the matter is, yes, you can pay lawyer $750 to do a bunch of nebulous work, which is really just grabbing a document doing a search, replace and then sending it to you. But when it comes down to negotiations, for instance, there are cases where you want a powerful law firm or a well respected law firm, because people are less likely to abuse you in that negotiation if they feel their there are consequences with other clients. That law firm represents, for instance, and so that there is a lot of factors to take into consideration that way. Yes, there was a question that was right next to you. Yeah, let's go ahead and send that microphone back. I know a little about yourself. Yeah, My name is Maggie. And, um, first, I'll just say the last two days have been really amazing. Um, I've gotten so much out of it, I come with 20 years of experience. In a lot of like, big vein was like Schwab was Fargo Barclays Global investors, where in those big firms I have built teams and manage people and projects and things like that. My heart, I believe is in Silicon Valley. That's where I live. Those are the kinds of things I, um, I'm interested in. I read in my spare time, things like that. What advice would you give to someone like me who wants to make a transition later in life into into So as an example, I read a lot about technology and about companies who are looking, you know, moving from. They just want to build a product to that next phase, and I feel like I could bring my experience and come help them. But how do you identify those opportunities when they're like, just 50 people? And you don't have that social network? Yeah, I get it. Making this is for you. Yeah, it's a good question. So I think that it's It's, I think your questions Good one, because sometimes it is tough to break into the industry. It's really, really hard, actually. What that one post just get in, I said, is like, I really believe that you've got to just find whatever road you can make. And I think the best way in Silicon Valley, like anywhere, I think, is if you can just, you know, whatever way you can do to help out people or companies. And so it could be this in the most minor way because your skill set you're like, you know, you met somebody and they need some help. It's basically after work for free, often in the beginning, or volunteer, or you might work even. It could be even like a nonprofit that you're working for, and through that you meet people. So you just need to find a way to meet the right people. And so I think being as social as possible is very, very important. But I also think that you if you hear about something and you feel like I have just that little bit of skill, just find a way that in a very non threatening way, I think you know, a lot of times there are people trying even to get in and get panicking. So the best way to do is like, Oh, I had this little skill. Can I help you out with this? And through that, hopefully they'll go while they don't they're doing, and the only will stick to the next step, the next step, the next step. But you just have to get in in some way, and I guess that it could be through, You know, Children, schools. It could be through nonprofits that could be through volunteering. It could be just just start somewhere once he started there, Then you could move onto the next thing on. And I think once you're in in some way, then you can expand that role. So I think that's the hardest part is getting. And I think that's where it becomes just trying to be social, just trying to meet people and find some way that, Oh, it may not be the perfect thing. The first thing you do Michael, like, you know, I really hate This is a kind of crappy thing, but you're in closer, and from there you can expand it to the next place and getting that experience. I would say that and make it you Probably the same is true for us as well. We have open Rex right now, which we can't find enough talent. So companies want this. They want great people who have specific skills and they're looking for a players who can really deliver value making impact, so there's no shortage of demand right. So good supply is, in fact needed. And just one other piece of guidance on this. I think that if you were to sort of draw three concentric, not concentric, but three overlapping circles to make a Venn diagram. What do you like doing right. So what is that you like doing Number two? What do you really good at? You may like doing something, but not be that good at it. Like I like playing tennis. I'm not that good. Right? So what do you good at? What do you like doing? And then, is it a big market, or is there a demand for that thing? And if you consort of sit down and define those and come up with the list, then I think it might help you to hone in on the companies that are looking for that. Right. So try and find the overlap of what you're good at. What do you want to do? And is it big? Then can you hone in on the companies that are doing that thing or need that thing? At least two gives you a starting point. That's good planting. If you could figure out like 50 companies is a lot that might be you're interested in. And then you can go on their Web page on our website has all the jobs that are listed and start looking there and you realize, Oh, wait a minute. Creativelive has a job I'm looking for Oh, this guy that you need to contact the right person somehow. But I think that's the other thing is using lengthen whatever kind of social way can to find your way to get a good contact of the company's. I think blindly sending a resume is not That was the best ways you need to have some way to get in there. So I think you're right, though just you just need to figure out like, what are your competency, what you want to do and then really start doing some research. But it makes you a better fit for that opportunity because then you're all in on that. Instead of spreading at 50 places you like. No, no, no creativelive. That's for me because I love get excited about the mission. I'm a great writer. They need my content. I'm great, you know, whatever it is you can sell yourself into that opportunity better. I think I think I think that is really a crucial distinction is like spreading a wide thin net is you're going to be less passion that you're gonna carry less passion in the conversation and good recruiters. Good. Higher is they can smell it. Do you actually care about it? Are you in for a J. O. B. And it doesn't sound like you have had a lot of good good career moves. So if, like, it's really comes down to making those sort of Venn diagram little gut check and your what you actually want to dio and I think start there first because there are companies that are hiring for what you're good at that are in the space that you're passionate about. It's just a matter of through some sort of deduction. But I would say it's also just getting the door a little bit. You're in the door, then you can expand it so you will have your perfect job absolutely, and just get in, and once you're in that, you can move around. But I have to get on the bus, the bus, even if you're the bus driver or if you're if you're the guy who sweeping her gal who sleep in the bus, just get in. And I think there's other thing, which is that it you need an introduction from someone you know, Reid Hoffman said. That's a number one way. That's basically the only people that read who is, You know, he's gotta be familiar with Reid. Hoffman is he's the the co founder and executive chairman at Lincoln. Calm has got the mightiest touch here in Silicon Valley. Is an investor as well? Very. His network is very hard to penetrate, but if it comes from a trusted source, he will take that phone call. Take that email so that Z similarly applies here. I want to underscore one thing that you said and that is volunteering. So we're working for free is extremely important. If you do not have the current contacts you want to have, or just the pure group, do you want to have right, because you're the average, Let's say, of the five people you associate with most. I built my network when I first got Silicon Valley by volunteering for two organizations, the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs s a base very catchy and tie. So the Indus Entrepreneur, because I'm clearly Indian and both very influential organizations with fantastic speakers. And I started at the bottom of the food chain and just did twice as much as they expected me to do, which is a volunteer, gets you promoted to do more free work and eventually ended up volunteering to run one of their major events or main events. Which meant that I got to pick the speakers, coordinate with speakers, spent time with speakers and some of those people. This is in 2000. I'm still friends with, and one of them, Jack Canfield, co creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul, was the one who ended up making the introduction to my then, yeah, my my soon to be agent in 2000 for it's, I think it's really critical to not only develop a network like that, but if you have a tough time figuring out what you really want to do, what you're really good at, try to find people that you feel are worth emulating your like, you know, like that life, not just the job like that life that they have is something I would like to emulate something I can see really being passionate about and then deconstruct the path they took to get there. Think that I have another question, not from the guidance. This is Go back to the Internet if we can first. Absolutely sure. Can. We have shown Columbus, whose Twitter handle is at Com, Saurav says. I'm a partner in a consulting firm. We're doing well, but the problem is that as we build on an hourly basis, we can't scale our revenue without working more hours or adding more people. How can we create growth without rowing our head count kind of other revenue streams? Should we look at good question? I think that's that's There's largely a product idea in there, and I know someone who scaled ah product to be able to connect lots of different people. I am struggling with this one, you know, like a lot of times when the product is you, you have to figure out how to scale, and I think Tim has done an exceptional job of that, probably come at it from a different angle. But, um, you know, when I think about well, let's see how do you? How do you make more money for your business? You either have to charge more, right? You have to get more clients or you have to sell different products. Right? So you have one product. If they had another product line, you have to charge more for the product you're delivering. The only way you can charge Maura's either EDM or value, right? Um yeah, Or get more clients who will give you give you more money. I think in a consulting business is tough because the only way to scale those is, in fact, add more people. So, um yeah, I one of those three. Right? So either ed more products to the bag and more people or get leverage, right? Can you can still charge your clients the hourly rate, but get leverage recognized that your expertise is in fact, either in the may be in the project management of it. You know these air how big consulting businesses scale McKinsey. They end up hiring lots people and teach him to do what they can dio at very high quality, very repeated repeatable, create more partner layers. That's what law firms do. So I think scaling a service business, you know, Unfortunately, that's the nature of the beast right there. Have to bring in more people or something tells me Tim Ferriss is gonna be able to add another idea that cause you're the product, right? So you how do you scale yourself? Cloning? Yeah. No, I guess every work, By the way, it was going to say, Tim says, Go and work for free and volunteer. He's hiring amazing free benefits. I would say that this just in to the format of what we're doing right now. It's tough to give and all inclusive answer stalled. This point. I'll sing just three. Resource is in this particular order. Number one. There's an e book that just came out. It's free by a company named Fresh Books, which is incredible company out of Canada. It's called Breaking the Time Barrier is exactly about how to scale is service business on a scale it without adding headcount in order to do so nor multiplying your hours or most of your income in a 1 to 1 ratio. So breaking the time barrier you can download for free number one number two. The email three visited, which is also sort of an expanded discussion of how to scale service businesses. Or should you be in a service business to start with? Uh, that's number two, and the number three would be a book called Small Giants. And it's about companies that choose to be the best at what they do is opposed to the biggest. And I think that before we ask, How can I scale? The question might be, Do I want to scale? Should I seal or should I just be the absolute best charge 10 times with anyone else charges and deliver the best product? So there's a lot of options there, but those are the three resource. Is that recommend? You told me? I think actually, you guys both male, the Bagheri it's it's, ah, applicable to creative life. So you know we want to grow this business and the way we're doing it is that ratty more classes, more workshops, the more products double the output by our new joint here. Yeah, the output here on, uh, number two is we're trying to grow the audience. We're trying really hard to make sure we have a bigger and bigger audience. That's that's the customers in this case. Um, and, uh, but the third is we still have to hire more people we have. There are more people, and I think I think a lot about it. Like, how do we make sure that as we're growing that we don't just keep throwing people at it as well? Because otherwise everything, the costs go up. Yeah, the audience goes up and the revenue goes up, But everything is going up with We've been, unfortunately, been profitable the last few years, and that's because we have managed to kind of keep those good ratios. So I think this idea of scaling, um, is an important thing. And I think one thing that we're trying to do And I think a lot of software companies which doesn't really apply to what this person is asking about, is that we're building a product that's going Teoh cause engagement where people wash it will contribute things to the creativelive courses. In some ways, we're trying to build a product that actually allows people to come, and that's that'll scale, and that's a very software kind of solution. If you build a solution that you guys do with you, That's what Silicon Valley thing is that you try to find a technology solution that allows more customers to come in without you have had more people to support those customers. Actually, it's relevant to us because in the early days, oh, desk, we created this platform for finding and matching than managing and paying, and we were very high touch. Essentially, we were really like a service organization. We think of us almost like an Internet based staffing firm with some technology for managing paying those workers. But we were very high touch. We spoke to every client. We spoke to every contractor we kind of hand matched, and we had this little technology platform in the background, and we realized very quickly that that wasn't gonna be a scalable business. We were, in fact, a service business. If you have to touch every client and you have toe be hands on and be the one throat to choke. And instead we took a step back and said, Wait a second. If we were more like a platform, we at that point we shifted and decided to be more like eBay, right? We're not gonna be in the middle of the transaction. We're gonna enable clients to find and match themselves to manage it themselves and pay themselves. And because we're not gonna be in the middle, we're gonna actually have to charge less. Right? We were charging 30%. Why? Because we're very hands on. We're in the middle. We were earning 30% as soon as we stepped out. We now could only charge 10%. So imagine seeing your revenue go back more than a year, right? I mean, we took a steep decline, revenues going like this, and it dropped. But once we did that, a revenue went like this, right? We created a different product. And so it's one way that we decided to scale our business. We pivoted to make the product less about us and Mawr. Ah, platform or technology. So which isn't easy to do, By the way, I'm not recommending that it's not an easy way. It's not an easy thing to dio. I'm just gonna Teoh myself, I think Oh, no disk stands Well, it zero or no Originally, our first logo was a globe. So it's like a world desk. No desk. And you know what we believe is that work is not a place you don't necessarily need a desk. You just need to access to online. You just need a computer. And that could be at the coffee shop. The beach anywhere noticed? Yeah. It turns out that you don't want to have no in the title of your GF naming your company knows something is not good. So it's zero desk notice. I was gonna dovetail with what Tim Tim said, And that is, uh, you have to ask if you actually really do want to scale, I think there's this. It's very much an American idea for one in a lot of global businesses. You've been it on time living abroad, Uh, Mika And you know, that's like, What would you expect to get? You may know the story of the fishermen whose uh ah rich American goes down story goes down to Mexico and hires this guy. The fishing is not fishing there, having a great time. They catch a lot of fish and the whole time there fishes like Oh, man, you could scale this. You could you could, um you know, hire more people. You can catch more fish. You get a whole fleet of boats. I can fund you. We can turn this into a great deal. And the guy says, you know, why would I want to do that? Is that goes, If you had a lot of people working for you, then you could take time off. You could sit there and you could wait for some selling gringo like me to come up and and hire you, and it's like, Well, that's essentially what you just did so and he'll he didn't actually have to scale it all. He had the life. That was the end that he was looking for. Right now, we just didn't realize it. So I took some advice from this weird book I read called The Four Hour Work Week, in which I applied the 80 20 Witchcraft Care, which I play applied Prieto's Law, which is the 80 20 rule. And at the end of eso, Prior to being deeply involved in Creative live, my entire livelihood was as a photographer and director, which also doesn't scale. You're the talent of the people that were the person, so I want to talk to higher vision, etcetera like at the end of every year. I had to look at the clients who on that list, was awesome to work with. Who did I get a ton of value who provided 80% of the value with only 20% of the headaches. And I wouldn't when other clients call. They wouldn't say I hate you. Never call me again. I would just be on busy and focused and trimmed to the to the to the group that I wanted to serve. And in that world, I was able to continually elevate my prices. And you think that you could praise yourself out and you probably can. You can also find a way to create a niche for yourself, where there is almost no ceiling. And if you work with the right people and you get recommended within that network, you would be very surprised. And scaling might not actually be something that's required. So you probably add some wisdom to that. But I think we should move on. We all hammered that one like four times. Yeah, I'm getting a lot of this, I know, but you wait. Have any questions in the audience, any Indian city? Allen's questions. I know they're coming in from the Internet. It definitely are. But if we've got anyone in here, Okay, we'll go to the Internet. Thanks for us. Okay, so we have one from Nicola in Isla Vista. Who says my company makes handmade artisan craft items, gift basket, small housewares, etcetera. I started the company because I love making things, but it's getting to the point where I spent most of my time on things like negotiating with suppliers, managing employees, etcetera. Net result is that I don't get to spend much time actually making things anymore. Do I just need to accept the fact that I don't get to be hands on anymore? Should I scale back or what? See question number one from the panel, Right. Way already took that. Quite say. Yeah. Even three visited. And then, uh, small giants. So desk all these guys, these guys can help. I think eso if you're watching live and you missed the first answer. I don't know what to tell you, Price to go buy the product, but I since we already answered that one Really? I think we should I think we should push on. If you're talking about that, I know, we've got a lot of questions. Sh We sure do. How do you deal with the temptation of growing before you fully tested your idea in one market? That is a great idea. Don't try that one. Sure. Um, I think that there high growth or are going after a high growth model is incredibly risky. First of all, uh, but having said that, though, if you have confidence in it And if you think that there is a way to go after in terms of your funding or some weight of sustaining high growth tends to mean in my mind, it means, um, you know, getting ahead of the revenue. Often it's it's like you're going fast. We should be seeing a lot of costs, a lot of costs to go after. I think that the key is to have a strong stomach, um, and have a lot of confidence you're doing. But also be ready to look out for, you know, basically set a few metrics for yourself, saying if I make this that I go to this, do this, so be very rational going into the high growth because high growth can also you can also get myopic once you're in that kind of high growth trajectory in a business. And so I personally like in this company, other companies. I've always had my gun kind of personal metrics and see what we're going that it will allow me, then to make it kind of check and balance. Because once I'm there, it's sometimes it's hard to realize what your goals were at the time. That's why it's important for companies to have things like budgets forecast and metric is for, you know, well from we have all these things because we really have have to be honest ourselves. What we trying to achieve. I think that's important in a high growth situation. You know, I think focus is really important, having written over the cliff with one business because we got to distracted by too many shiny objects. It's really dangerous, and I used to work for Reed. Hastings, who is the CEO of a little company called Netflix and Read, said that 90% of CEOs under focus and 10% over focus and neither is good, and so I think it's really hard. He prides himself on being an over focus er right like, let's not that's probably not a word, but you know what I mean? Not being over focused so way we're talking about, you know, all the opportunities and all the pants that they could have taken. And he told me a story that when Blockbuster started competing with them online, they started looking at their competitive response. And so they started investing or they started piloting kiosk. So think of this like a little like these little cappuccino boots or whatever you drive through. And they said, you know, we can We'll have a kiosk. We can put 10,000 titles in there. We're going to design is gonna look like this is gonna be painted red, and we're gonna go pilot six of them around the country. And he said, every second that we spend on kiosk was the second we weren't focused on online DVD rental, and it was a distraction. And they woke up a year and 1/2 later and said that was a waste of time. They didn't need a competitive response because the future wasn't on premise. It was right, and they were willing to see that. And so I think that it's really important to stay focused on your core because if you get too distracted, you try and be all things to all people to grow. You can lose sight of your core market and implode. Now, with that, I'm a big fan of, you know, I'd rather burn out than fade away, right? Like if you're plodding along and you're not swinging for the fence. Well, guess what time is is a limiting re agent, and I'd much rather burn burn out than fade away. So with that said, you got to make some bets on the future, but you've got to be careful not to make too many. So it's really hard to get it perfectly right? Yeah, Coldwell said, Well, great. The Goldilocks see? Yeah, yeah, what I would say. I just had one thing that is study. The failures study the massive growth story failures because it's very easy to get romanced by success stories, and there's a huge survivorship bias. You read about all of these amazing success stories with companies that threw caution to the wind and piled money into something they weren't sure was gonna work. And sometimes that turns out to be the case. It's often it's also true that the U. S. A romance that romantic stories told about college dropouts, also very similar. But like study, Web them. You know, look at some of these companies had spectacular implosions because of an over aggressive growth strategy. And I think that that's useful to temper the impulse to believe that like fat, bigger, faster, eyes better at all times, which is a very America. It's a bit of a global thing, but it's particularly American globalized and then make it four decision but study the train wrecks. It's a fine balance of high growth and but not too high growth. I like your focus. That's that's look ceremony with. All right, so we have at Ben Lattes. Ben Lab on Twitter says, What are your views on high school entrepreneurs? We're starting to see people get started earlier and earlier. Would you mentor or invest in them? Is that something where age influences how you invest in a business? I'm still in high school, so I'll take that question. I have the maturity of a high school, actually, go kick it to you because maturity is more important than really reality. Good take it. So I actually saw someone yesterday. A friend. She was he and his wife and his son, who was accepted to Berkeley. And he decided not to go to Berkeley because he decided to a startup. So he's 18. It's a high school senior, decided I'm gonna do a start up. And his reasoning was, Look, you know, people go to college because that's kind of fun and exciting, because I think a start up is a lot more fun and exciting. So, you know, for him, like the interesting thing was into a start up. And I looked at and I heard a startup idea and I listened to it. I thought, Wow, that's you know, that's a pretty good idea. And he's a super smart kid. He's very poised. He's great. But I also look at ago. I feel that, you know, maybe it's my European coming up that life is so rich. I'm someone actually has had small companies my entire career, like a little. When I was 13 I had a small business. I always had something, but same time. I feel like the richness of life actually has made me who I am And so maybe not necessarily always going full bore. And I think college has that ability. So I was. I was hesitant. Having said all that. There's also we had a Dale Stephens teaching creative life, and he's like around yesterday, he hasn't called the UN college. And Dale, uh, was the first winner of Peter Thiel's Don't Go to College $100,000 Grant Award. And he basically when he did it three years ago. And I think he started to Golden College and he talked to Dale attended yesterday. He was just like, you know, he's he's vehement. Do not go to college, everyone high school to start businesses, everything else. I just don't think I need to be, You know? I hear him, but I'm like, also, you know what? Life is so rich and I think that can also, by having all kinds of other experiences that may inform your business idea. But again, I'm in the middle of all this because I think if you're just so passionate, you got to do it. You gotta do what you do. I think following your passion is an important thing. And if you're have that kind of resource is even to start a business in college is expensive, but we starting business also not cheap. So we just We just ran a big survey. Um, we went on surveyed clients, right? People are trying to get work done. We surveyed contractors. We found some really interesting statistics. Um, 72% of people clients on our platform who have a regular job. I want to quit that job in the next two years. 72% want to quit. 61% said they're likely to quit and they can use those statistics in a future. Talk because absolutely love this. 61% are likely to quit. Why? Well, because they're not happy with what they're doing. They want this freedom and flexibility. They want purpose, autonomy and mastery. We talked about it earlier with Guy Kawasaki. Dan Pink writes about this, and so they're not fulfilled. And so entrepreneurship is not How many businesses have you started? It's a mindset, and this mindset is shifting. Do you know there's more than 10,000 courses in U. S colleges now on entrepreneurship up significantly from five years ago? Because there's this mindset out there. There's these high school kids that want to start businesses and the leading universities. They're saying, Hey, wait a second, we we need this right. We need these courses I've spoken to a dozen schools in the last couple of months on the very topic, So I think there's this shift that's happening. And no longer is it about where you went to school and what classes you took its what do you capable of? People have to take control of their own brand, and they have to start building a book of business are VP of marketing. Her daughter just got hired and she said, You know, it's amazing. Nobody asked me for my transcripts are they want to know that I graduated from N Y U? But they don't care about what classes I took. They want to know about my internships. She worked at Food Network. She had a great internship there. She had another one somewhere else. That's all the questions they wanted to know. So it's a high school student started so you this it's the some of your experiences and I say Absolutely, they should start a business. But you know, my kids are going to College I, but But I think college is different and the learners of today and one other statistic that the learners of today we'll have 10 jobs by the time they're 40. And that's a that's a job every two years, depending on if you graduate from college or you're speaking to the converting a creative life, How about skills based on your teaching skills? They can apply yes. So I think people should find what they're passionate about, and they should go get educated on those things. So if you're really excited about photography, I don't know that you need to go to college for photography. Should go take a course on photographer. You learn how to do it and then get practical experience. Because I think Tim said it earlier, You may find out that you don't even like that thing, right? You and bled rather find out now than invest four years of my life. Uh, so I have some thoughts on this just because I go back to to teach a class of high tech on fresh twice a year at the college level, and I spent a lot of time with high school entrepreneurs via the block A couple 100,000 at least. And I would say a few things. So I think that you have your entire life to be an adult to make money. And if you feel like you have to capitalize on one idea that is the idea. You're probably not going to succeed because as an entrepreneur, you need to be able to create opportunities, the same issues, like inventors who don't tell anyone about their invention. They want everyone to sign in India. They're gonna fail anyway, so they should just quit and do something else. I mean, seriously, it's kind of mind my feeling about it. I would say. Also, there are I have met. This is not always the case. Dale isn't it is an exception, but I have met people who view college is a vehicle for preparing them for a job. I do not view liberal arts education as having that function. I think it is to create a well rounded human being. Okay, so I have met people who have started companies very early because they felt internal external pressures to do that. And there's phenomenally, financially successful and phenomenally one dimensional. You can't talk to them about anything other than what they dio in the business sense. And I think that's a shame. I think it's kind of a tragedy. So what I would say is, if you are like, possessed by some demon, because you are that inspired about some business you want to try? Sure, you know, like, go for it if it's really that type of like, driven by the universe. The only thing. Even if startups were the hot thing even if Mark Zuckerberg went on the cover of every magazine, I would still want to do this even if we were in a nuclear winter of start up financing. I still want to do this. Okay, fine. But otherwise I would say that your whole life to be an adult, you know? And it's also a question of like first worlders Third World, right? If you're if you're in a it's social economic situation where you're in Bangladesh like well, I could like fund myself going to college, and then maybe I'll get a job like replacing hubcaps, and you have been How's business idea business idea. But if I'm like one of your kids, that's like I like I could do. Think Brown or Harvard or Columbia or whatever my kids are in Bangladesh. Yeah, just just just some food for thought. I think education is not purely a vehicle to a larger paychecks. I think it I'll just hijacked that for a second, say, now, is it just not a vehicle to a larger paycheck but to a paycheck? It's not a vehicle to a paycheck. And there's this narrative that we've been telling our our kids, our peers for several generations, which is, if you grow up, you go to great college, you're going to get a great job that that narrative is still president. Still, the dominant narrative that we're telling our world, at least in the sort of socioeconomic circles that we participate in largely in this room was one that I'm participated in. But there is that Ah, belief that go to college, get a job. That narrative no longer is true. The unlike the people who are doing the thing that they went to college for is at an all time low, and that's that's unemployment and underemployment is even tenor 10 or 18% lower than that. So I'm not as good It with stats is my down there is. But generally speaking, I think it's time for us to, um, to take a new look at that narrative and decide for ourselves. Is this something that is going to school, delaying something that we really want to do? And if it is, because it's going to provide a job or a resource at the end, I don't believe it. If you're going because it's gonna provide a wealth of human experience and you have the ability to do that to sort of not being adult, then I think that is an option. But it's not an either, or I think it's very, very individual, and I think is what we believe in creative lives. The future is very skill based and and exploring that is a very good way of identifying if you want to do it or not, cause you might think I want to be a photographer more than anything, and at 16 or 18 or whatever, you go do that thing because it's a very low risk. You don't have any bills, etcetera, you know to speak of, and you find out that way I don't get nights and weekends off like I can't go out and play with my friends. It's a great way of experimenting and a low risk, low value sort of away. So, um, individual, it's it depends on the individual and what these smart guys said before me. Well, we just gentlemen, that time flies. It does. I think we are about time to wrap up. I got one request. One way didn't right here, So we're gonna send him. It's a good one. This anyone says, I'm sitting drawn close. Bring it on forward product manager in the Bay Area here. My question is, I love this idea of outsourcing everything. But what are some things that you love to do so much, or you inherently think shouldn't be outsourced? Personal vision should never be outsourced. One, cause it's personal to generally speaking, that is the thing that should differentiate you from all your peers. It's a culmination of your life experience. It's the way you see the world and outsourcing that is sort of ah, it's. I think it's anti entrepreneurial for one. Now, I'm gonna put a slight twist on that. It's if you have a vision that you can merge with other really smart people and sort of leverage that I wouldn't consider that sort of outsourcing. I would consider that sort of leveling up a little bit and put yourself around really, really smart, talented people. But vision and the thing that you believe in is it's hard Teoh for for at least for me, it's hard to kick that thing to the curb. What do you guys think? You shouldn't outsource that part of what you do that you love. So you didn't like Zuckerberg? He still codes. He loves coating right? So I think that's a key thing. And I talked to a lot of people who are its outsource, and they regret that they outsource. Or they hired somebody to do the job that they really like to do. And then they're like they're bummed out in their company or their job because they're not doing what you really love to do, especially if they're trying to scale their business and then they end up leaving the thing. That is the thing that they wanted to do in order to be the scaler part of it, and then you find out I've got this great scale business that I know. I'm not a manager. I'm not attacks. I'm not a why on the coder and I have my 100 miles from coating the real problem. Yeah, I'm gonna get so gathering my thoughts. Deveney. Okay. Yeah, I would say, um uh, do not outsource your dating. Don't ever. No scouting. Yes, I think it's all that leverage, right? And it's about best in highest use, making sure that you're a if you really love it and be if you're really good at it, right, and you like doing it, then you shouldn't. You shouldn't do that. The other things, you should try and get leverage. But, um, if you're good at it and you love doing it, then then you should keep it. I think we've got one final question right here in the front room. You I'm one of the benefits that I have experienced with my experience here. The creative life is that we were just having a really awesome conversation. Patrick and Carlo and John and I at the tables right before we came in. And, um, I think that this is really important for the online audience to hear, too. I have my own opinions because I'm actually a lawyer, dealmaker and negotiator myself. My favorite quote is the Tim Ferriss quote, that is, Reality is negotiable who love that quote. And I just wondered if any of you could speak. Um, basically on if you had any suggestions, as Teoh negotiations techniques and how you get other people on the same page or close to the resolution that you're interested in. That's really good. I want to hear from this guy. Yeah, but just one quick note read. Derek Sippers writing just a really quick. He found a CD baby. Incredible programmer. He has a very short book that talks a lot about answering your questions. Okay, it's a good were three reading. Uh, I don't have a great answer. I feel that the the most successful negotiations are ones where both parties feel like they got something out of it. I think that's just understanding the other party, what they're trying to do that I've been in negotiations with with Hollywood firms and other is that worth like Clearly it's one sided and you walk away not feeling good enough doing a negotiation that just makes you feel bad, and I'm always amazed that the other party made me feel so bad. And so I tried to go in there making making sure that we're both thinking something out of it or not. We got some things wrong with the deal while we making this deal. If we can't get figure it out, but don't get me wrong. I've been in the other side of table where I've kind of slant something down, almost wrote. You're a pretty good negotiator class for its but e is a psychological tactic there, but anyway, but it's you do that also, but I feel like I be opt optimal, and I think it just understanding what they're looking for and trying to find those those deal points is most negotiations have multiple deal points, and you can give on some things and just make sure walks away, hopefully feeling because most negotiations aren't the end of the relationship, that's just a start of the relationship. That's the worst thing is, if you have a bad relationship, what's then? What's the point? You started your answer up saying you didn't have very good answer. You're dropping tons of knowledge, especially that last colonel, I think, seriously, under promising over delivering is a former sales guy. I used to think that, you know, your job is to negotiate a great deal for the company and even at the expense of I win, you lose. And you know, when I think back on some of those days, I mean just made so many mistakes. I feel badly about it today. You know what I mean? Like we want. And we're high fiving because we negotiated so well. And in a personal scenario, I went Teoh we're gonna by a house and we were negotiating over the price. And the guy who was selling the house came back and raised his price. I'm like, Hey, that's not how you negotiate. What you doing? We're moving towards a closer. You're going there because you have the market moved, you know, that's what. And I remember thinking what an ass like just trying to maximize every last dime. And it just wasn't decent, you know? And so I think, as Mika said, it's the start of the relationship and the very best are I win, you win. And one other thing is, have you ever seen the show on TV, where these guys they sell real estate. It's on Bravo TV. It's a $1,000,000 listing is that was called. I was watching this on Virgin America flying, and they have the TV and I'm watching this thing and they they're in a negotiation and said to the camera, They're telling you the truth. And then to the guy, they're negotiating with their lying to their face. They're saying the maximum I can go on this house. My client won't go above a penny above two million. And the client, meanwhile, just said, I'll go 2 to 3, you know, when they're negotiating and I'm like, they're lying like, Don't lie, you know what I mean. So I just think transparency, honesty, win, win is is the way to go. And you know, when you walk away both feeling like you want, it's magic. That's that's a few things. The first is the first is distinguishing between positions and interests. So if someone has a very staunch position, they're digging in their heels like that's their position. He can phrase it that way, like I understand your position, like what your interest like, Why do you have that position, and it turns out that things were very easily resolved. Oftentimes it's like, Well, the guy, the reason that this this family won't sell this land to this developer isn't because of the price, which is what he thought it was because they associate it with their son, who was killed in the war. And and so the developer says, We'll erect a statue to your son, and this is nothing like okay got done. And you have that often comes from digging one level deeper, deeper. I will say a few other things. The most interesting long term, profitable and enjoyable deals I've ever done have always come after developing having a human exchange developing human connection, the other person. So it's like, Tell me about where you grew up, like what sports did you play? What's up? How does that tattoo Muna in your arrest? You know, like all this kind of stuff, where you get a little more color and get a better feel for the report that you could have Not just that the clothes, but like 2345 years down the line, and very closely related to that is two things and we could go on and on about tactics. But I think these are a few the most important. When people expect you to pitch something or to negotiate, they brace themselves for the cell. Right. So they're like here she is going to propose this and then I'm gonna counter with that. And often what I will do is out almost convince them not to do the deal. I'll be like, you know, like, this isn't this type of thing isn't for everybody. Like, if you fit in this category, this category or the product of this fits in this and this doesn't make any sense like I can't help you like as an advisor. If I'm talking to coming back, I can't help you with, like this this, this, this, this or this or this or this. However, like if it's this or this, that was stock and, like, maybe it makes sense. Maybe it doesn't so being very low pressure. And lastly, is he or she cares less winds always like he cares less ones. So it's like when you and off sometimes that's an act. Often times it's because you know what your baton as your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. You know, your walk away. You know you'll be okay, because maybe there's option A and Option B, but you figured out what option C is. That is the ultimate leverage you're dating advice to. Since my peers, I feel like, said, there's there's the whole course on negotiation that was just presented by these these folks. I'm gonna try and say some things that are a little bit different. And one is there's a really interesting technique that I've been practicing lately, and it course it depends on the stakes, right? So everything is about steaks. And if the stakes aren't low or are something that you can live, this idea of not negotiating at all, just accepting the first offer that comes okay, that sounds good. And with the goal of its if you are thinking about it from a long term basis, you can get in, have a relationship, do the thing you want to do such that when the next round of negotiations come around, you carry the hammer. It's a really interesting approach. It depends on what those original stakes are. Of course, two other pieces of advice that are also, um I feel like different from my peers here. And they also don't work. They're highly nuanced. One is toe. Have someone else negotiate for you. Yeah, that is the purpose of an agent. That is the purpose. For years as a photographer and a director before I had agents and managers and stuff like that in that role, I would have to negotiate tooth and nail with these people to get an extra dollar. And then, you know, you sign the agreement at midnight and then it at 7 a.m. You show up for call and the people that you were just bashing are you have to just like, Hey, you want to get a coffee? Let's go. It's good start today. It's like it's so weird to go from this combative, you know, And then there it creates a sort of a false a sense of a relationship where there was something that was there was bad blood there. So try and have someone do that for you. If it's possible, if you know it's gonna get a little bit rough, and then the complete other end of that spectrum, I realized I'm all over the place. But these let's try and talk about some outliers have been effective at the complete opposite. End is, I've seen people negotiate over the phone and through lawyers and through all these mediators for, you know, over something for months and months and months. They walk into a room and they can work it out in 45 seconds because there's a human being to human being. You realize, like all this honesty really comes out. And you just because you know that you're both interested in getting a deal done. So a simple connection with no one else around where you can just go human to human. The last thing you can't do a good deal with a bad person doesn't matter what you negotiate doesn't matter what the contract says. If you get that like Spidey, sense not gonna work out. Intuition is invaluable. And with that, I think we probably need to wrap up this session. How about a round of applause for my fine hand? Thank you

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