Entrepreneurship: Getting Started

DK Episode 6 - July 12, 2019 - Duration: 14:59

Drawk Kwast explains what it takes to become an entrepreneur and how to get started.

Video 1 of a 3 part series on Entrepreneurship:

Entrepreneurship Part 1: Getting Started
Entrepreneurship Part 2: The Pivot
Entrepreneurship Part 3: Endgame

Transcript

0:00:04.7 Drawk Kwast: In the next few minutes, we're gonna figure out if you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur, and if you do, I'm gonna tell you how to get started. So I'm out at a bar, talking with a cute girl, and unfortunately her brother is there too. The girl inevitably asked me what I do for work, and I try to be as vague as possible and say, "I own a couple of businesses." The guy immediately says, "Oh, you're an entrepreneur. I wanna start a business." I look at him and I say, "Your lying." Wait a sec. I'm not trying to be cruel. I'm giving you the gift of honesty that nobody else is giving you. You're not interested in becoming an entrepreneur. You're here talking about becoming an entrepreneur in response to somebody else saying that they are an entrepreneur, that is not the same thing as being an entrepreneur. If you are actually interested in becoming an entrepreneur, you would be at home in front of your computer doing things to move you towards that direction right now, instead of sitting here talking about it. In other words, shut up and practice. Here's the thing, you've already taken the first step, you're not being reactionary by watching this video. You saw the title of the video, and you decided if I watched that, maybe it'll move me towards my goal.

0:01:48.1 DK: Well, here we go, we're moving you towards your goal right now. The second part, and you gotta be really fucking honest with yourself for this, you're either a taker or a maker. How do you know? If you're a builder, somebody that creates value, somebody that makes deals, somebody that produces something, chances are, you just wanna be left alone, you don't want people putting their nose in your business, you don't want people stealing money from you with taxes, you don't wanna be told how to run your business, you wanna be left alone to do it, why? Because you realized a long time ago that the people that are telling you how and making these laws and nagging you about your progress, they have no experience. They have no idea what they're talking about. So you pay no attention to them. You plow forward. Just leave me alone to do my thing. That's an entrepreneur. What's the other side? The takers. The takers are the ones that have decided that they can't make it on their own. For whatever reason, whether it be real or fake, they do not believe that they have enough skills and resources to survive, and rather than learning the skills and resources to produce enough value to survive in this world the way they want to, they'd rather take it from somebody else. So what does this look like?

0:03:34.7 DK: This is somebody coming into your office and saying, you need an HR department. HR department isn't going to produce a product or make you money, the HR department is gonna slow everything down and pay a bunch of people to slow everything down. So if you're one of these people that are sitting there going, woo-hoo, $15 an hour minimum wage. I can get more money for doing nothing extra, you're never gonna make it as an entrepreneur. Turn the video off now. But, if you feel like with some practice and a little tinkering, maybe, just maybe you can learn how to create value, and when you create that value, you keep all that value that's produced in excess for yourself. You're an entrepreneur. Okay, so if you're still watching this, congratulations, that's the hardest part to figure that out. Now, it's simply a question of what you're interested in. Let's say that you had an infinite amount of money, and I ask you what you wanna do with your time. What's your hobby? Okay, whatever that is, right there. That's the thing, why?

0:04:57.2 DK: Let me explain entrepreneurship like a race. If 100 people are standing at the start line and that gun fires, 90% of those fuckers are never gonna cross the start line, so you have maybe 10% of them that actually start moving towards the finish line. Congratulations, if you're in that 10%, we've already figured that out or not. So there's 10 people that are running, well, all of a sudden that race starts going uphill and people say, "Oh, but the uphill part is so difficult," 50% of them don't even go up the hill. It's too hard. Then once you get over the hill, there's a river that you gotta cross, you lose another three of them. You're down to two people that started the race, went up the hill and were willing to swim through the river, two. You got 50% odds at this point. Except for one thing, the person that jumped in the river after you, they were an idiot. They don't know how to swim. They drowned. So what happened? Because you simply were prepared and kept on moving forward, you won the race by default. Here's what you need to understand, your success is past all the bullshit that nobody else is willing to deal with.

0:06:21.2 DK: I'm gonna say that again, your success is past the bullshit that nobody else is willing to deal with. So you're gonna pick your favorite thing, your hobby. You're not gonna know how to make money in this industry. You're gonna get into the industry, you're going to go to a conference, you're gonna start meeting people, and when you meet these people, what you wanna figure out is you wanna figure out what the entry level bullshit thing is that nobody is willing to do in the industry for a stupidly small amount of money. And you're gonna do that. When I was a kid, there was a lawn mower shop right across from where I lived. I walked into the shop one day just because I was amused at the Briggs and Stratton motors, which they used on the lawn mowers and also used on go-carts. Found it interesting. So I kind of wandered in curiously. By the time I left that day, I had made a deal with the owners because they had stuff I wanted to learn about, and the deal that I made with the owners was for five bucks I come every day after school and work for them for two hours doing whatever it was that they didn't have the time to do or didn't wanna do. I did all kinds of things, but there's two jobs that I specifically remember to this day, the first one, which was the coolest.

0:07:44.3 DK: They had a big pile of lawn mower blades, and they were all kind of mixed up all over the warehouse, so they cleared a space in the warehouse and they said, "Okay, we want you to take all the law mower blades from all over the place and stack them together in groups of the same blades." It was kind of like solving a puzzle. It was fun. That was the best job or little task I had at the lawn mower shop. What was the other one? You guessed it, cleaning the fucking toilet. And while I remember that, I'm sure I don't remember all of the times I cleaned it, I just remember very distinctly that it was yeah, you're gonna be cleaning the toilets. So when you figure out your hobby and you start going to the conferences and you start calling people and talking with people, figure out what that thing is, that bullshit thing nobody else is willing to do. It'll show people in the industry that you're willing to do the tasks that nobody else is. You have a work ethic. When you show people that you have a work ethic, they will invest in you, and in the beginning, this isn't money, this is an investment of information, they'll help you along, they'll show you tricks of the trade, okay.

0:08:57.9 DK: Once you get to that point where you're making a little bit of money, just a little. It doesn't have to be a lot. Five bucks a day, maybe, I don't know, maybe $5 a month in the beginning. Whatever, getting money. Once you're there, you then want to figure out in this industry that is your hobby, what is a challenge that isn't being addressed? So let's say that you're into running, and now that you're into running and you're trying to figure out how to make money as an entrepreneur in the running world, what do you do? Well, you buy tennis shoes and you start running, right? You sign up with a running club, and you're not good at it, but at least there's a club there and you start learning things and maybe some of the people in the club tell you how to start shaving seconds off of your time and things like that, right? You'll eventually start figuring it out, just hang out in that group, in that industry. After a while, you might figure something out like, "God damn it, my shoes, they're pungent." So you get this idea, you say, "Well, maybe if I could have a device, that's like a vacuum that goes inside the shoes and it sucks air in from the shoes, goes through a filter and then blows the clean air out." I don't know, using a bad example here, but let's say that you built a device like that, the basic idea being you can have your shoes in your apartment without stinking the apartment up, right?

0:10:26.8 DK: Well you solved the problem? Most importantly, and I can't emphasize this enough. You're eating your own dog food. Remember that term? Eating your own dog food. What it means is if you're an entrepreneur and you're gonna produce something, you better be the consumer of that thing, because all the research and development and testing, all of that stuff, you will have holes if it is not something you use. If you're gonna build a refrigerator, you better have that refrigerator in your home. Understand? Okay, so now you're figuring out how to add value to your industry. Once you get here, and this may take months, it may take a couple of years, but you're starting to get paid, and this is the last thing I can leave you with, and I'm telling you if you can make it this far, you can make it. We have a saying in the entrepreneur world. And the first time I heard it, I kind of laughed. As I get older and have more experience, I realize how true it is. If you can make one penny, if you can do something in the world that gives value to people where people will voluntarily give you just one penny, you've changed everything.

0:12:10.8 DK: You're now a professional defined as you get paid to do this. That changes everything. It's the most magical penny you will ever earn in your life, and I hope you keep it. Some people do the dollar, it's not the dollar, it's the penny. Now, once you make the penny, you'll find out you seem to believe you can get a dollar, and if you can get a dollar, maybe you can make $10, maybe $100. Here's the thing, and every time I have seen this with myself and other people, this is always the case. If you can make $100 and you stick with it, you can make $1000. And if you could make a $1000, $10,000. And if you doubt what I'm saying for a second, well, get in contact with me, we'll do a screen share and I'll open up my Stripe account and I'll show you exactly how these things grow. Okay, so that's it. If you're with me this far, it's pretty fucking simple, the first thing, you don't get cool points for saying you're gonna be an entrepreneur. Nope, don't talk about it, fucking go do it. Start taking steps. Every day, you move closer towards your goal.

0:13:38.0 DK: Your goal is your hobby. In the beginning, you're just exploring, you're going through something that interests you, and the reason why you pick something interesting is because there's gonna be a lot of bullshit to deal with, so you better love what you're doing or you're not gonna deal with the bullshit. Then you're gonna figure out what thing nobody else is willing to do, so you can make that first penny, make the first penny, it changes everything, get value by creating value. Once you have in your head, "Hey, I'm a professional," defined by, "I'm making money doing this," then you need to solve a problem. And maybe you look at other industries to get ideas that they use there that you can apply in your industry. Maybe you smoke a lot of pot one night, hit your head and you have this great idea, who knows how it happens for you. But if you hang out and keep an open eye, you'll figure that out. From there, you stick with it, and you will be amazed that those people that laugh at you today for stumbling incompetently towards your goal, in just a little time, you're gonna hit your goal, and they won't be able to laugh at you anymore.

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