A Masterclass in Entrepreneurship with World-Renowned Strategic Consultant Frederick Cary

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for joining us. Our goal is to help you connect to real people who found success turning their side hustle into a main hustle, and we hope you can too. I'm Adam Kaler. I'm joined by Kyle Stevie, my cohost. Let's get started, all right. Welcome back, everybody to the Side Hustle City podcast. Kyle Stevie is once again in the house and today we got a Frederick Cary special guest. Thanks for joining us, frederick.

Speaker 3: 0:43

I'm really happy to be here. Good subject to talk about, for sure.

Speaker 2: 0:47

Fuck, average be legendary. That's your quote. Let's just jump right in with it. I love it.

Speaker 3: 0:52

Yeah Well, you know that's not only my quote that I actually have a registered trademark. Yeah, many of you other fuckers try to use it.

Speaker 4: 1:00

So is it as the trademark with the asterisk, or did you actually put the U in there for the trademark? Yeah, no.

Speaker 3: 1:06

I had to do it with the asterisk.

Speaker 2: 1:07

So senior executive, entrepreneur, strategic consultant, attorney, investment banker, chief executive officer, idea pros, like that's a lot of stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:19

Yeah, you know, as I was saying, I have no life, but it's just it's. It's like 50 side hustles altogether.

Speaker 2: 1:29

I love it. Yeah, so that's very similar to you know, with some of the people to listen to the podcast or dealing with. You know they try some things. Maybe some of them work out, maybe some of them don't. You know, I do the same thing. I probably got I don't know five businesses going on right now and then every once in a while I'll get a wild hair and I'll I'll do something just to see if it works. And, you know, throw shit at the wall and see what sticks right, right.

Speaker 4: 1:51

So what point? At what point during getting your law degree, were you like you know it'd be a great idea if I went and got an MBA now, because I was a year away? It was a year away and I was like I cannot do another year at school because there's a. My little school had a program with where you get your JD and MBA and like what was nights, so it's five years. I was like I can't do it. It would make so much sense to do it. I just cannot do it.

Speaker 3: 2:15

Yeah, I'm a bit screwed up in that sense I haven't done many things normally, including even getting my law degree. That turned out to be something that was completely accidental. I was, which just sounds an accidental law degree, but I was working with two attorneys. I had a concert production company and we were negotiating a deal for a band and after three months we finally got the deal done and they said who's that asshole? It's your attorneys, such a prick. And I said well, I don't have an attorney, it's me. And they said you should go to law school. We'll make you our partner today, we'll give you one third of everything we make and you go to school, holy shit. So so I said deal, and unfortunately I only had six months of college at the time and so I had to clap, which is you can go take exams for credits.

Speaker 3: 3:12

Most people do it for one class or something. I did it for two and a half years of school in three weeks and was able to get into law school and became their partner, and I did that for several years. So it was really good at it. But I love creating things and you don't, you know, you destroy things more than create them in law, so I didn't really love that. So I started a couple of companies and after my second company went public, I decided to get an international MBA at that time. So none of this is normal stuff and it's not. Don't try to do this at home.

Speaker 2: 3:47

Well, it sounds like you I mean you're, you're a go-getter, you take control. It doesn't sound like you're afraid to jump into stuff, but unfortunately, as you know, a lot of would-be entrepreneurs have doubts. They're scared to make that leap. What did we do? How do we start changing our lives? How do we start to just say you know what, fuck it, I'm going to do it, I'm going to jump into this and I'm going to make shit start happening?

Speaker 3: 4:13

Yeah. So look, number one, if you don't have doubts, if you're not insecure, if you're not afraid, then you're not a human being. All of us do that. I do that when I go into a new venture and, by the way, I have 400 companies under me now that I own 30% of the entrepreneurs that I've built out and it is excruciatingly painful. There's always things going on, there are always problems and you just got to take the leap. There's never. I say that timing and opportunity perfect timing and opportunity they're mortal enemies. They never happen at the same time. When you're ready to do something, that opportunity's probably gone past you. So if you find something that you really want to do and you're really willing to be committed, dedicated, persevered, all over you, then you can go and start. Even if you're upset, even if you're afraid, even though you don't think you can do it, do it.

Speaker 2: 5:14

I love it. Well, people think they have to do everything, like a lot of folks. They don't understand that you have a certain type, you have a certain person. I type, you have a certain set of skills. You can't do everything. Eventually you're going to have to bring other people in. But I think sometimes people get really tight with the equity and they're afraid to bring in partners because they're not sure. They hear horror stories about bringing in other people to their business. But I mean there's only so much you can do. I mean you've got all these businesses under you. You see this happen all the time probably.

Speaker 3: 5:46

Yeah, look, there's a big leap from entrepreneur to leader. They're almost polar opposites, because the entrepreneur starts out, as my dad used to call it, the one-armed paper hanger, which is unfortunately how he described anything that I'd try to do, but he was not very supportive. I think his last words to me were you'll never amount to anything. So we all have that facing us right, we'll never amount to anything. And when we finally take that journey and jump and decide that we want to go ahead and do this thing, we don't want anybody else involved, because if it's going to keep fucked up, we're going to fuck it up. We don't want anybody else to do it. That we can't control. And you can only grow a certain level if you don't bring in those resources, if you don't bring that team, if you don't learn how to migrate from an entrepreneur that one-armed paper hanger to a leader the person who sits back delegates. Bring in smarter people than him or her to really take an operation and run it to another level.

Speaker 4: 6:53

Well, I mean, if you're not going to do it, you'll write your competition is going to do it. So how do you go about assessing? How do you go about assessing Like? Let's say, you get your team together, you bite the bullet, you decide that my shit does stink, I need to get some help. How do you go about making sure that you're ahead of the pack in terms of like, let's us say competition. So let's say, I don't know, pick a business that you're working with, that you have some sort of like a real world story. You can tell us a little bit.

Speaker 3: 7:25

You can tell us Well, I can start with my own company. Idea Pros right, how are we ahead of the pack? One of the ways that we're ahead of the pack is we went where the pack isn't, and I've had about an 80% success rate in my former companies and it wasn't that I'm any genius or anything. I did two things and you guys write this stuff down, because this is all you need to know. You guys don't have to write it down to your audience. I'm writing it down.

Speaker 4: 7:58

We're putting it in the show notes right now.

Speaker 2: 8:00

I'm talking to the man right now. I want to know Okay.

Speaker 3: 8:04

So the first thing you need to do is find a marketplace that's already robust and growing, evolving quickly. That's number one and number two. Find that same market that has big hole in it because something is not happening, somebody's not getting service. There are a bunch of one-star reviews from the three or four or five or 10 competitors that are in there saying they don't have this one thing. Make that one thing. Find out where the hole is and build your business around where that opportunity is. And I'll give you an example my company, idea Pros.

Speaker 3: 8:40

When I started Idea Pros four years ago, I started it because I looked at entrepreneurship, because when I was a kid and you talked about rich people, you talked about the lawyers, the doctors, the business owner down the street, movie stars, athletes and now entrepreneurs. And we got social media telling us how easy it is. You got a 20-year-old kid sitting in front of a Lamborghini saying send me 500 bucks, I'll make you a millionaire. Don't do any of that shit, because entrepreneurship is really hard, it's not really easy, and the data that I discovered was that 94% of the multimillionaires and billionaires who fashion themselves as entrepreneurs went to prestigious schools. Over 60% of them got advanced degrees from those schools and all the rest of us are outsiders. So I saw this marketplace with a hole, the enormous hole. 95% of the market was not being served because all the venture capital money, all the private equity money, all the angel groups were throwing all this capital at the young people that don't know what they're doing. That came from the right schools, and that's why venture capital loses money on 90% of their deals and makes 50 times, 100 times returns on the 10% to do it.

Speaker 3: 9:57

And so I looked at that market and I thought, wow, right now, I have 550,000 new entrepreneurs being born every single month in America alone, which is almost double our birth rate, and nobody's helping them. We have pinpoint solutions. How do I get my app built? Where can I find an engineering company? How can I get my fucking dogs to shut up? Right Dogs, please. How do I find all these things? It's like needing brain surgery and looking for brain surgery equipment. That's all that was out there, and so I wanted to fill that enormous hole. I created Idea Pros to become the co-founder for these people. They come in, they pay us, instead of the other way around. We work with them, we take 30% of the company and we build what their vision is. We build it from the ground all the way to a nationwide launch, while we train the entrepreneur how to be a kick ass entrepreneur that's very knowledgeable. So we fill that enormous hole. What happened as a result of that? In the last two years, I had 100,000 applications. Whoa.

Speaker 3: 11:09

Offering to pay me $100,000 or more and giving me 30% of the company we're going to form together, because those same people we're going to spend 200,000 to build their app 150,000 for engineering and I for 100, will do all of that plus. Build a business with you and all of the naming, branding, positioning, competitive analysis, your customer personas, your marketing strategy, how to go to market, how to associate with the right companies, how to go get financing All of those things. We do all of them as a co-founder, and so we created something that didn't exist before. And here's this robust market with all these solutions going to hundreds of thousands of people, and we found a hole in the marketplace. And that's what you guys need to do. When you start on a side hustle or anything else. You find an attractive market. That's awesome. Find the product problems in that market, Make that what you build and you're going to have a lot better chance of succeeding.

Speaker 4: 12:09

So you're hitting 90% on the companies that you take on 80% Okay. Not bad. Not bad Versus 10% for a.

Speaker 2: 12:19

VC fund. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, fredrick, here you go. What do you think? Spooky Spice? It's an all-pumpkin spice store and it's only open four months out of the year, and we park it right next to Spirit Halloween.

Speaker 3: 12:36

I think you could do that shit all year long. I mean Spooky Spice in July.

Speaker 2: 12:41

There you go. They love spice. They love pumpkin spice.

Speaker 3: 12:45

Yeah, so you can put it next to Starbucks too, because they have that spice latte that they bring up once a year. But do you really want me to analyze that for you?

Speaker 2: 12:56

Yeah, yeah, there we go. Yeah, let's do it. I was. I texted yeah See, I got a million ideas. That's not one of your better ones.

Speaker 3: 13:04

Well, yeah, it's probably not. Well, hopefully not one of your better ones, but why don't you have a store that has a different every three months? You're following a different holiday, you're following a different tradition and it becomes a store that does the Spooky Spice on Halloween and does the, you know, santa's balls on Christmas and work your way through all the different holidays. Now you become this go to spot for the holidays.

Speaker 4: 13:32

Yeah, You're crumble cookie of. You'll be crumble cookie of signature coffee.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Oh, gingerbreads and all kinds of stuff. And yeah, oh man, I've just doubled your business.

Speaker 3: 13:42

Now you only got six more months to go.

Speaker 2: 13:44

There you go. Now I gotta figure out the other ones. So okay, so crazy ideas, right. Like I get crazy ideas all the time and you know a bunch of people to listen to this. They get crazy ideas all the time. They don't know necessarily how to vet these ideas, but like, how do you take these ideas and then turn those into viable businesses? People always want to know that and they're just like they get the idea stage and that's as far as they get, and they never get any further than that.

Speaker 3: 14:11

Yeah, and God bless you guys. If that's where you are, that's probably where you need to stay. The way that you go further than that, the way that you go further than an idea, is when you wake up at every fucking night and you can't go back to sleep and you're taking out your notepad and you're writing in more things about that idea and your life sucks because you're not doing what it is that you think is great idea. Right, so we all have these. Hey, why don't we have this toilet that does this when we shit Awesome Great idea. You're never going to build it. Wake up every night for the next three months and think about why the world doesn't have this. Then you have a chance of building it. That's the number one thing. The second thing which is critically important, but which is why the number one failure point for young entrepreneurial businesses in America every year is not the money. We've built something that's no demand for. Maybe, like you're spicy.

Speaker 3: 15:15

Never know Never know, but yeah, we built something that's no demand for. So think of it this way To create something, to spend all your time, your energy, your money, and creating something there's no demand for, that means you didn't do any homework. Now let's talk about sports. For a second Suppose. I started as the sports team. I've all this money. I started this team and I call you and I say I want you to be the coach of the team and you say to me well, what sport is it? And I say I don't know. And then you say, well, what are the rules? Well, I'm not sure. Who are the competitors? I have no fucking clue. What's the object of the game? I don't know.

Speaker 3: 15:54

How do we win the audience over to be our fans? Clues, Clues that's what we do in business. Yeah, we never do that with a sport. We never do that with a team. We know everything about the competition, the rules of the game, how you play it, how you win, how to exploit their weaknesses, what it is that that audience really needs, to convert them from customers to royal advocates of your brand, loyal advocates of your brand. Right, we need all those things and that's why we never get past the idea stage because we're not willing to do that hard work, which is research, competitive analysis, customer profiling, market opportunity. Go to market strategy. All those things. How do you position yourself in a marketplace to win? That's how you win.

Speaker 2: 16:42

And most people don't know how to do competitive analysis.

Speaker 4: 16:44

They don't know how to do that. They don't know how to do proper market analysis At all, Just competition. But the whole like is this industry big enough for me to even enter and waste my time?

Speaker 3: 16:54

Well, the good news is for about $1,800, my company does it before. You can wander around an idea proscom and find it, oh, st. But yeah, it's not a moneymaker for me, it's just I want to change the statistics and not have the number one cause of failure is the fact that you're a failure, that you built in something that you have no idea what anybody wants and so it's really just a giveaway. Cost me probably more than that to deliver that. But that's a fundamental thing you need to do, not only so you don't get screwed, but so you can go raise some money from your friends and your family. Like if I'm your buddy and I'm trying to start a new business and I say, hey, I got this new tire. You know, I decided maybe we should try square tires after all and set around ones and I want you to invest in it.

Speaker 3: 17:45

If you don't know anything about that business, the likelihood is even your friends not going to be wanting to know it. But if you go in and you say, hey, look, I got this new business idea, I really looked at the market. I thought there was a real opportunity. I didn't realize how big it was. Here. The statistics, these are the competitors. This is the growth opportunity. This is the hole in the market. This is how much money I need to pull this off, and this is what you're going to get in return for helping me out now when you go in there armed with data. You're going to get money from your friends, your family. I had two guys in Canada young guys, brothers that came to me a year ago. They needed $125,000 to build a very complex app. That's what their contribution was going to be. They didn't have a penny and I spent a week showing them how to go out and raise money. They were out 10 days. They talked to 20 people, 18 of them invested.

Speaker 2: 18:41

What that's unheard of. That's unheard for you. To me, raising money sucks Like raising money is the worst.

Speaker 3: 18:48

So they raised 150 grand in 10 days from 18 out of 20 people, and they did it because we built up their knowledge base. Know what you're talking about and speak like an investor. You're going to give me 25 grand. This is what you're going to get in return. This is how I'm going to make it happen. You know, when you approach things from a point of knowledge, then there's a much bigger opportunity. That number one you're going to get the money to do it. And number two you're going to carry it off successfully.

Speaker 2: 19:18

Explain to me. Okay, so this $1,800 thing. Again, I want to go back to this because if you're going to present your idea to investors, you need a presentation deck. But in that presentation deck you've got to have, like, you got to be quick, to the point, you got to be able to speak to the simple slides that you create, the data, everything that's in that deck, 10, 12 page deck, whatever you put together, this $1,800 thing that you've got, that's a game changer, because you know much time start up, spend just digging around trying to find data.

Speaker 4: 19:52

They don't know where they're looking they have it just in one place with one place and one source, consolidating everything, instead of you having to go to multiple sources and potentially do the consolidation yourself. Even that, I mean, just that's time saving.

Speaker 2: 20:06

Or have a guy who's done it 400 times and knows exactly what needs to go into that deck. He's about an 800. Yeah, he's not. Yeah, he's only about an 800. Like.

Speaker 4: 20:15

Larry Bursch shooting a free bar.

Speaker 2: 20:15

Two, ted Williams is here. Yeah, so, yeah. So I mean that's it Like. I mean you've got to be able to get that data, but then it's not just about the random data you found on the internet, it's got to be in the right format.

Speaker 3: 20:34

Yeah, it's like deciding you want to be a race car driver and buying a Formula One car. It's just, it's not going to work out well for you and when, as soon as you get to that first curve, or as soon as you get killed because everybody's coming up your backside whatever you're doing, you need to understand it. And when I first started Idea Pros, we only only spoke to people that you know. You had the $100,000 or more to enter the club and we work with you and of those 100,000 people, 99,000 of them we basically threw away and I struggled really over the last year. Of everybody who came to me wants to change their life. So what can I do to help those people that can't afford that kind of money, that want to get started, and so that I can put them on the right path? So I had that $1,800 thing. I don't want to turn this into a sales page because I'm not making any money on this. You're actually losing money on it.

Speaker 3: 21:34

But I also put together a masterclass on purpose driven entrepreneurship. It's like 18 modules and 15 modules and it really trains a wannabe entrepreneur. But really what it's all about what you need to be doing when you have your idea, you want to turn it into a company and, more importantly, how to be a better person when you're doing it. And one of the things I really want to create is not just really good entrepreneurs, but really good people. And if you start trying to make yourself a better person, you're going to have a better company, you're going to be a better leader, your husband or wife is probably not going to leave you and the dog's not going to bite you. And if you start there and oh, by the way, you can get all of that stuff too If you want to follow me on official Fred Carrey C-A-R-Y, I have about a half a million people following me.

Speaker 3: 22:23

There's a link tree in there and there's several different things where you can get all that stuff. There's free stuff. I did a six minute video on the fly about life and I'm a 73 year old dude been there, done that and you might want to watch that. That one's free and it really inspires people to get moving even when they're not ready to move.

Speaker 2: 22:48

You're 73. 70's a new 50.

Speaker 3: 22:51

Yeah, I'm 73. And I still do most of the same things I did when I was 18.

Speaker 4: 22:56

Yeah, you look, you don't look great.

Speaker 2: 22:58

I look great man. You look like Better shape both of us I thought it was like that real early 60s.

Speaker 3: 23:03

Yeah Well, thank you, I appreciate it. There was a time when that would be insulting.

Speaker 2: 23:09

Don't worry, if somebody told me I was in my early 60s, I'd probably be like, yeah, well, okay, I get it.

Speaker 3: 23:14

Yeah, if I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Well, I mean, where do you stay at, where do you live?

Speaker 3: 23:21

I live in La Jolla, which is part of San Diego, by the beach. And you know I vegetarian and vegan. But that's only been going on for a year after I watched the game changers. Anybody listening, do not watch that show, because you will become a vegan too. And it's not because you're killing baby pigs, it's because these are the best athletes in the world, like Ronaldo, Messi, tum Brady, the Hussain Bolt they're all fucking vegans. And after I saw that and they did a little study of before and after down there, I'm like the next day I'm like, fuck that shit.

Speaker 2: 23:57

Then you change the game.

Speaker 3: 23:58

Yeah, yeah, so anyway. So I live well, I work hard and I work hard. And, yeah, never retire, never quit, turn your side hustle into your real hustle.

Speaker 2: 24:09

Yeah, I mean. That's part of the thing. I mean, if you're sick, if you don't feel good, if you can't get up out of bed in the morning, if you're aching, you know you can't, you can't be a good entrepreneur and you're actually doing a disservice to anyone in your organization If you can't motivate yourself because you don't feel well.

Speaker 3: 24:29

Success starts with self motivation. Yeah, that's it. You can have all the people in the world telling you how great you are, how wonderful your idea is, how amazing your company is, how perfect your employees are, how grateful your customers are, and nothing is going to matter if you don't get up in the morning, even when you don't want to, and say today's the day. I'm going to work harder than I did yesterday, I'm going to make something extraordinary happen. You know we all want extraordinary lives, but when you go to bed tonight, think about one extraordinary thing you did today other than listen to our show. We'll let you count that for that one day, but think about it when you put your head down in a pillow at the end of the night. Did I do one extraordinary thing or out of the ordinary thing, right? And if no, and if that answer is no every single day, then you're doing ordinary things, and ordinary things don't lead to extraordinary lives.

Speaker 4: 25:30

That's it, that's right. I always not to make this part about me, but I always wanted to say did I do something to make me uncomfortable in some way today? Did I get out of my mental comfort or place, even if it's like I have no energy and it's just reading something about from an opposing perspective, like for me it'd be like a progressive or like a super far right mega guy.

Speaker 4: 25:53

Like if I'm reading one of their, if I'm reading a journalist from one of those sides, am I actually giving it 100% focus and trying to understand what that person's saying? That may be it. It may be five rounds of six minutes and jiu-jitsu that day, but there's always something where it's like today I got out, I got it. I was way out of breath. I didn't know if I could finish the workout. I didn't know if I could finish my work. They just something to make me uncomfortable, because I feel like comfort is the enemy of oh it, 100% is.

Speaker 2: 26:21

I mean, yeah, that's why most of our best entrepreneurs don't even come from America, like they're immigrants or the kids of immigrants or something like that, and they just have a different perspective. You know, and we're all fat and sassy here, just living in, living a life and, you know, doing whatever, because we're Americans and we got easy access to food, we get easy access to whatever we want and you know all the information in the world's right here on my cell phone.

Speaker 3: 26:44

Yeah, you know the cell phone, the internet has been completely the opposite of what I thought it was going to be. When that first came out, I was a lawyer and we had a law library with thousands of books and when you needed to find information you'd go in there and you dig it. You find the right book, you read through the cases and now anything that we want, it's available in seconds. The problem is, the lowest common denominator has risen to the top, because awful information is so available that what we do is we spend two seconds looking at something. We have, something that validates our own opinion, and now suddenly everybody is an expert, when the reality is, nobody is.

Speaker 3: 27:31

And so my head off to you that you're going to pick up a right wing story and try to understand how somebody thinks that way. That's what we need more of, but we need less of all this left wing, right wing. We need days of NBC, cbs, abc. It was like all the reporters were saying the same thing, maybe in a different accent, and then you took that news and you dissected it the way you want it, but now it's millions of opinions and almost all of its garbage. So do your homework, spend your time, find your sweet spot and explore the world in a solid, healthy way.

Speaker 4: 28:12

I think internet killed two things. It killed critical thinking If it didn't kill it, it put it on critical condition and rhetoric, because now you can have these huge discussions with people and you never, ever have to see their face. You can be like the biggest asshole ever and you don't have to worry about getting punched.

Speaker 4: 28:35

That's what Mike Tyson said right, not even like getting punched, but just like that discomfort you get when that primal feel you get when you're around someone that you know doesn't like you or is getting you're upsetting them with the way you're speaking and you just kind of like know to regulate it a little bit because it's like, dude, is it really worth getting in a fight over this position right now? But when you're on a keyboard it's just like, oh yeah, well, you're a fat fuck. Look at your picture.

Speaker 2: 29:04

I hate you Well, and it's also you got to think too. I mean, if you're not anonymous, if it's you, then you know you feel like you can say things like. The thing is is like everything comes out right, everything's out there in the world, like. But the problem is is I think, people in the media I think has done this where everything is so sensationalized, people focus on other people's lives. People focus on what's going on in the world. They're not focused on themselves and making themselves better. It's like I want to hear about Beyonce's story when I should be focusing on what is my story? What am I going to do? How am I going to better myself? Right? What am I going to leave the world with? Am I going to leave the world with?

Speaker 2: 29:47

Hey, I built a 500 person company and I employed all these people and you know, then they went off and they did something, as I was actually getting a list together today for a VC because a company we sold, there's been I don't know 15 other companies pop up out of that and three, like three people have created three or four companies themselves from that, built them, sold them, created another one, created another one. Yeah, so it's like you know, when you one group has success, then the people that work for them end up having success. And yeah, maybe we employed a couple thousand people over the years, but then think about all these other companies, how many people they employed. I mean, it's it just. It creates success, breeds success.

Speaker 3: 30:31

Absolutely, and actually that's part of my goal too is, you know, they say you spend the first half of your work life building up your resume and the second half building up your legacy. And and obviously, now that we've had full age disclosures, I'm on that second part of that journey and my goal really is to impact 10,000 people's lives, just enough that it'll shift their direction and their thinking and in turn, those 10,000 can impact a thousand each, and those thousand will impact a hundred and if that works, that's a billion people. And and you know you don't have to have a goal like that. But but to your point, you created one company and it's spawned off into these, all these other things, all these other entrepreneurs, all these other businesses that are successful, and and we can all do that the comfort zone is not really a comfort zone at all.

Speaker 3: 31:38

It's a prison. Yeah, you know, it's like. It's like that bird in the cage that after a couple of years you open up that cage door and that bird's not getting the fuck out of there. When it's that far away from being able to just fly and be free, it's not going to go because that's the comfort zone. So if you think of your comfort zone is that bird cage. You better get the hell out of there well, and the crazy thing is too.

Speaker 2: 32:00

so you know, once you actually sell a company and I read the other day on Bloomberg that there's a VC firm that does not invest in second time founders because you get lazy and it's struck a nerve with me and I was like you know what I? I I'm like that, like sometimes I don't have to be. I mean, I grew up dead broke and I tried hard as hell. And when I look back and I think of, like, who was Adam?

Speaker 2: 32:27

When he was 18, 19, 20 years old, I was a hustler. I was out there busting my butt, trying to meet people, doing all this other stuff, and now I'm like, ah, how can I avoid that meeting, you know? Or you know how can I? This guy needs my help, I don't need his help, kind of thing, you know, and it's it. You kind of get lazy, you kind of get, you know, stuck in your ways and you know you just want to go eat something bad and watch TV or do whatever and not not be as hard working as you once were. I mean, I'm sure you deal with those people too sometimes.

Speaker 3: 33:01

Not only do I deal with people that don't want to work hard enough. You know, obviously, I've created many different companies and it is a challenge to be able to show up ready to play every day, no matter how many times you've done it before. I can assure everybody in the audience two different things. Number one, I've failed many more times than you probably have. And, and number two, it's likely I have more money than you and I did, and I did that because every time I had a failure, I got back up and I kept trying, because those failures turned into successes. Anybody listening Go back and look at the history of Tesla, which was not founded by Elon Musk, but go look at the history of that company, all the failures that they had.

Speaker 3: 33:53

They took 48 hours to charge up the car in the beginning, many, many problems. They were $10 million away from going broke. It took them 10 years to really start making money, almost 18 years to start being profitable. That's a whole shitload of failure. And it's the richest guy in the world, or one of the richest, depending on what day of the week you're talking about. You look at SpaceX losing billions and look at the lofty things this person wants to do. He's accumulating wealth even though the individual business is taking a long time to turn around and be profitable.

Speaker 3: 34:31

And it's that, not even acceptance of failure, it's embracing failure, because failure brings you knowledge. Failure gives you the opportunity to do things in a better way. And if you don't do that, if you get lazy and not even a second time entrepreneur, a third time, fifth time, even from the very beginning, you have to be extraordinary in everything that you do. And that one VC firm. I really disagree with that off the cuff statement from them in the sense that if you did it once and you're successful and you want to do it again, elon Musk, you can get things bigger and bigger and bigger. Number two if you did it once and you failed, you're going to naturally want to try harder because you learn so many things from those lessons. The average entrepreneur takes two and a half times to have a successful venture. So if you got your failure, then you're halfway there to your next success Got it I'm going to be a billionaire.

Speaker 2: 35:33

Well, and also people that are in their 40s. I think what is the most. I think they average it out like most successful entrepreneurs, like 42 or something like that was the age. So I mean, if you're listening to this and you feel like, oh, I'm not my 20s anymore, I'm not, you know, I've got that spark, well, it's the people in their 40s that are found in the really successful companies because, to your point, they know what it's like to fail and they failed and they want to be successful still.

Speaker 3: 35:59

Look, when you look at the people that I work with, that apply here. It's not again the venture capital angel groups. They're dealing with the 20-somethings that come right out of school. They want to start a business. That's it. The average person that I'm dealing with is between 35 and 55. My oldest is 84, my youngest is 11. Good for them. Obviously, in both cases I got the family to agree on those things. But the real entrepreneurs in America are people that largely had been in corporate America, that work their way up their middle management, upper management and they're very knowledgeable. They've saved money, they know how to play the corporate game and now they want to change their life because they hate their life. They're not seeing the advancement that they want emotionally. They're seeing it physically with the paycheck, but they're not getting that emotional connection that you need.

Speaker 3: 37:01

We have very, very short lives. I mean, you know, I don't know how much longer I have to live at 73. I feel great. I work out for an hour and a half five days a week. I have five different 20-something employees that came up to work with me. Four of the five threw up halfway through the workout. It's not light workout, but I have a limited time. Every one of us has a limited time. If you let a day go by, a week, go by a month, go by, a year, go by where you're not doing what you really want to do, then you're wasting your fucking life. That's right, you can't do that. I got on a little spin there. But the reality is older people make the best entrepreneurs because they've grown up in a way and they've realized that button went off. I can't do this shit anymore. I got to buy a gun or start my own business.

Speaker 4: 37:55

Don't feel bad about throwing your spin out there. This podcast is kind of like going to a jam band concert. You never know when the guitarist is just going to go out on a crazy riff or the drummer's just going to do a solo, and then you just want, you got the guy that's the lead singer or the whoever's really the lead of the band. I know like real everybody back in, like all right, we got to wrap this song up a little bit You're going off for 27 minutes.

Speaker 2: 38:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just how it is. Well, even talking to the younger people, I mean it's you know, don't feel like you can't do something, because you know there's an entire generation right now and some people are very critical of the gen. What's the new one? Gen Z's, gen yeah, you got the Y's and the Z's and it seems like every generation there's less and less motivated people.

Speaker 4: 38:41

More polls are coming out that disenfranchised because you know boys are being, they've been disenfranchised. You can, regardless of your political and you can obviously see it the message has always been don't be, don't be. Was don't be, don't be. Like, just don't be over masculine, don't be masculine, really.

Speaker 4: 39:01

They call it. They call it toxic masculinity, as opposed to calling it what it is. Don't be a dickhead Like, be a, but you want to be, you want to be masculine, you have to be. That's, that's, that's what you're built for, built for. And I think a lot of a lot of guys are starting to understand that they can dictate their own path. They're seeing college tuition go down I mean college enrollment go down with young men and they're going. They're starting to venture more towards the trades and a lot of them are starting.

Speaker 4: 39:28

I think that you're starting to see a generation of guys that understand that they have the ability to chart their own path and it doesn't have to be the traditional well, not traditional, but the modern traditional way it's been since, like the late seventies, where it's you got to get your 40 year degree. Everybody gets a 40 degree, makes $600,000 more over their lifetime or whatever the statistics are. And I think you're starting to get to, you're starting to see this. I think that, in my opinion, the future of college is going to be more along the lines of like entrepreneurial programs and it won't even be like you don't even have to go like Northern Kentucky University or UK. You'll go. You'll go to, you'll go to the Carries class here and you'll like, you'll sign up and he'll teach you how to do it.

Speaker 4: 40:11

It's like going specifically for what it is that you want to do, and you, so you went to trade schools. You did the journey, you did, you did the apprenticeship, you did the. You're a journeyman. Now you're going to learn how to create your business. You did two different. You did two different post graduate classes.

Speaker 2: 40:28

Or maybe you don't start your own business, maybe you buy a business off a guy who's trying to retire. I mean, frederick, how many people do you know that are out here that are like, look, I'm done, my kids don't want to take over the business. I'm going to throw it up on you know, one of these broker websites and sell it, and they've got a great book of business. The business has got a great reputation. They're willing to stay on a year or two and kind of on board you with the clients. I mean that just seems like a no brainer for a lot of people.

Speaker 3: 40:56

Yeah, it can get complicated because you need to bring in people that really understand finances and the books and be able to see where the money's hidden and what the results really are, and there's the possibility of losing customers when you lose that figurehead. But there are a lot of nuances there. But there's also a guy with 10 graphs or something I don't want to plug in, but there's one guy out there on the internet that really teaches people how to go buy businesses for almost nothing, and so that is a thing. You have to have the right mentality to do it. I have some young friends that flip houses all day long and they're doing really, really well doing that. What I would say to anybody listening is don't overcomplicate it. Find something that you feel you can be good at and that you're passionate about. So if you can align what your work ethic is to something that you're passionate about, then it's not even like work anymore.

Speaker 3: 42:00

The ultimate goal here for everybody. We all have diverse things that we want to do, the diverse places we want to go to and the diverse ways we want to get there, but at the end of the day, the true measure of success is when you put your feet down on the side of the bed at the beginning of the day. Are you smiling? That's it, and it doesn't matter what you do. Find something that's going to make you smile. And if you find something that's going to make you smile, you're going to work harder, you're going to do better, you're going to have better customers, happier customers, employees that are more dedicated to you, because you're passionate about the thing that you're doing. That's as simple as that, guys.

Speaker 2: 42:37

So tell everybody just really quick before you're a busy guy. You've got California beaches to jump on. All this stuff and exercise you probably need to do still. So how do people get a hold of you? How do people work with you? What's the process like?

Speaker 3: 42:53

Look, I'm going to say this and my executive assistant kills me whenever I mention it. But if you have any question, anything you want to reach out, learn about Idea Pros, anything have any question about life, write to me, Fred, at IdeaProscom. Simple as that. I'll respond to anybody. No dick pics, please.

Speaker 4: 43:18

Unless they're really, really, really impressed.

Speaker 2: 43:23

Well done sir, well done, awesome. Well, I'm sure everybody appreciates that and we're going to put all your links and everything down in the bio for the description for the podcast episode here. But, frederick man, it's been awesome. It's unbelievable that we are able to get somebody like you on the podcast with such excellent experience and life experience and history.

Speaker 3: 43:46

You got some shitty people showing up here.

Speaker 2: 43:49

We got our people. Like the guys we know, some of them I mean yeah, no, but everybody on here is great, but this is awesome and the fact that you I mean you got your MBA it looks like in London or whatever, in Liverpool. In Liverpool I've been my wife's been kicking around the idea of me going to… that's my bucket list.

Speaker 4: 44:07

I'm going to go watch the Reds play. That's my. I'm going to watch. I'm going to watch the Reds play here, and then I want to go watch the Reds play at Anfield. Well, that'd be awesome.

Speaker 2: 44:15

Yeah Well, my wife, she keeps saying we need to live in England for a little bit, like a couple of years, and I'm like, well, I guess I could always go to Oxford or something, get my MBA or London Business School or something, and you know, that'd be awesome just to get that international business experience on top of you know, kind of what I've done here. But that'd give me an excuse to go across the pond and live for a little while.

Speaker 3: 44:34

Well here's what's going to happen. You're not going to do it unless you change that fucking attitude, and then you will do it. And you know. This is the one thing that's better about the world today, you can work from anywhere, and I have a certain subset of people not very many of them, but I hate all of their guts that basically got up and said fuck it. I'm going to spend three months in Portugal. I'm going to go to Italy for two months. I'm going down to the Middle East for a month. I know this one couple that has been doing this for a year and a half now and I'm going to block him on Instagram because every day it's a different story from a different place. Thank God he lost his drone. Once the drone flew away, I could shit for a week till they got a new one, but but, guys, get out of your cage and go do it. You go to London.

Speaker 2: 45:27

I will, I will All right.

Speaker 3: 45:29

Well, if you do, I want to be your first guest on the London show.

Speaker 2: 45:33

Yeah, well, when you make it over there, we'll go out to dinner or something. We'll go get some Indian food. How about that? I?

Speaker 4: 45:37

mean I got a drone, I got to fly out there.

Speaker 2: 45:39

Yeah, then you got to come out there too. That's right, All right.

Speaker 4: 45:41

Fred the Bengals be playing there, we can go do it on when the Bengals go back.

Speaker 2: 45:45

That's right, we can do that Cool, fred. Well, great. I appreciate your time, sir, and enjoy the rest of your day.

Speaker 3: 45:51

Good talking to you guys, and I will enjoy my day.

Speaker 4: 45:55

Thanks, thank you.

Speaker 2: 45:57

Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side Hustle City. Well, you've heard from our guests, Now let's hear from you. Join our community on Facebook, Side Hustle City. It's a group where people share ideas, share their inspirational stories and motivate each other to be successful and turn their side hustle into their main hustle. We'll see you there and we'll see you next week on the show. Thank you.