Are you looking to start your first business? Would you like some tips?

Transcript

[00:00:00] All right, welcome to this very special episode of the Becoming Great podcast. And as a warm up to this. Me and Erik have been nerding out doing metaphors, and we’ve been giggling like teenagers.

[00:00:16] And there is a very specific reason for that warm up, because Eric was just invited to speak in front of a big crowd of young entrepreneurs in the age of 16. Is that right there? Eighteen to twenty. Eighteen to 2010. All right. And most recently were invited to that cause. I’m awesome, of course.

[00:00:42] Well, I don’t really know what the reason is. They they like to hear my stories and hopefully I have some wisdom to share. I haven’t specifically asked them why they want me there, but I was there last year as well. And that was very, very inspiring.

[00:00:55] All right. So now I will teach you a technique called the humblebrag. It means that instead of bragging yourself, you hire someone else to brag for you. So Eric has hired me to tell you that he has created a marketing company, Catina Media, that went from two employees to 250 employees. And we’re taken public in around six years or so.

[00:01:19] Yeah, give or take, depending on which one of the things you were mentioning. He wanted out in a short time.

[00:01:25] Either way, Eric has experienced a lot of success and a lot of problems and a lot of glorious mistakes living the entrepreneur life. And today we’re going to ask him questions focused on how to think if you’re a young entrepreneur and can answer the most common questions that we got from that seminar, because afterwards, the teenagers, maybe not a teenager for 18 to 20, but the young people have many questions. And we’re gonna answer them here. So let’s dive into it. Are you ready, Eric?

[00:02:02] I was born ready. I’m super excited. Yes. So happy, Eric. By the way, since I didn’t get to introduce myself. But I’m Eric.

[00:02:11] All right. And let’s dive into it. Entrepreneurship. So, first of all, the most basic question asked by Sofia. So I saw the link. Sofia Saddling, what is an entrepreneur?

[00:02:29] Well, how do you define entrepreneurship? I think that’s an interesting way of looking at this. Personally, I don’t like the word entrepreneur because it’s to me it’s like something people just made very fancy and I’d rather say like business owner or self-employed, but I call myself entrepreneur anyway because I want to be flashy. But to me, the definition of an entrepreneur is anyone who comes up with their own projects to make money. And that can be the absolute smallest thing for my story is that I started going all across the beaches of my hometown to collect trash and soda cans from trash cans. When I was 5 or 6 years old and return them to the store and got some little money from that. And to me, that’s being an entrepreneur is coming up with your own way of doing something. Not necessarily having a job and. Who so you want to say something? I said. And so I had to stop. And what I think is the most interesting with this is a big misconception is that personally, I believe that people think that’s me or or Durand-Ruel business. You have to give up your job and do something full time. And I think that’s a very big reason why few people do it. But I believe that you can be an entrepreneur if you’re having just side projects. And the first aim should be to earn hundred euros per month rather than 5000 euros per month or whatever you need. And focus and getting something small started, because I think that’s something that anyone could do without risking too much.

[00:04:08] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you could say then that the antonym the opposite to being an entrepreneur would be to be employed by someone?

[00:04:18] Yeah, I would say that. Or to just do what you have to just do what you’re being told and not come up with new things. You can be what’s called an entrepreneur as well, which is kind of being employed. But you’re still taking a lot of initiatives and you’re coming up with your own projects within a company. So you employ mix that you’re you’re thinking outside of the box and you’re taking initiatives. And so there’s a fancy term for that as intrapreneur intrapreneur.

[00:04:44] So you could kind of be an entrepreneur, but you’re working in a network together with other entrepreneurs, no more like you’re hired by Google and you’re in charge of one project within Google.

[00:04:55] And you came up with that project and you did it. So you don’t need to take the financial risk and you don’t need to do it on your own time. But you’re more of an intrapreneur within a bigger company and you actually don’t earn you don’t own the company, anything else, but you’re just part of that. So it becomes a more explorative and challenging thing to do than it is to to do it on your own. And. To me, for decided that an entrepreneur is the opposite of someone who’s employed. I don’t think that’s necessarily true either. That entrepreneurship could be the opposite of an employment, but you can definitely combine the two. And I think that’s the best way of starting. The best way of starting is to, at least in my opinion, start off with something small on the side of your employment or on the side of school even, and just start doing something on weekends or evenings where you build on something that they’re not necessarily each other’s opposites. There are other very good things to start with at the same time.

[00:05:56] All right. And would you say that everybody could become an entrepreneur?

[00:06:01] This is a question again from Sophia settling. And we got it from someone else as well. But can everyone become an entrepreneur?

[00:06:11] I think that everyone is an entrepreneur. They might not explore it that much, but I think that everyone already is. And I think everyone has already done something entrepreneurial. I think that regardless who you ask, if they have come up with anything that they have done outside of work, where they made some money from, and that could even be sell something juiced that they’ve had that it could have just put in a in a cupboard for a few years. But instead they sold it on online and they might not even have made money from it, but they made more money from it than they would have done if they threw it away. To me, that’s an entrepreneurial act. And just doing that means that you’re taking initiative to earn money when no one else is telling you to do it. So I think that all of us are entrepreneurs one way or another. And I think looking back at everyone’s lives, they’ve done at least one of those things.

[00:07:04] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That seed for entrepreneurship is in everyone. But imagine that the person asking this question was thinking of a successful entrepreneur. And that is of course, in the eye of the beholder. But imagine someone that actually have created their own company and made quite a bit of financial success from it.

[00:07:23] You think everyone can become that?

[00:07:28] Yes. You said it’s in the eye. Depends on where you’re looking from. I think that everyone can be an entrepreneur in the sense that everyone can make money from doing something. If everyone can build a big company, that’s a completely different story.

[00:07:42] Then I would say that, yeah, I’d think that anyone could do it. It’s just that it’s about time as well. I think that most people think of building a big company is something that should be done quickly. But if you’re looking at it as a life project, let’s say you start when you’re 20 and you have until you’re 70. That’s a really long time. So if you start early, then I don’t think that it takes a certain amount of talents.

[00:08:12] Third, third takes determination to bring some creativity and takes passion. So if you just find something that you enjoy and just start building on that, I’m sure that you anyone can turn that into a business. But I think that society and school don’t train us to think like this. School is training us to become employees. We’re all learning the same things. We’re all being told like, yeah, you need to do this to get a job. Why do I need good grades to get a job? Would you get into that school so I can get a job? At least no one told me in school that day. You need to do math because you’re going to run a company and you’re going to need to make shiploads of money and count them. That would have made me more excited. They told me possibly you need to get a job serving that with the right timespan and the right. Curiosity, I think that curiosity is what it takes. Anyone can build a big company depending on how you define big. But at least big enough to be considered a successful entrepreneur.

[00:09:12] I have two roads, two interesting questions.

[00:09:16] We have gotten that could really add on to what you’re saying right now. So I want to start with you, because you mentioned now soft values. I don’t know if that is the term. I call them soft values like creativity, determination, inspiration, stuff like that. It’s not a diploma. You have got it from someone. So we have gotten questions from Sebastian filice. This is Instagram name, I guess that asks, what should you have studied to become an entrepreneur? Someone asked if it’s important to go to university. Someone asked, is it worth taking a business management course because they could be expensive? How important would you say education is for entrepreneurship?

[00:10:01] So, personally, I haven’t studied outside. I stopped school when I was 19 and I did the mandatory things that you were supposed to do. And then I started a company. And I believe that it becomes it comes down to the individual that if you want to learn what’s relevant and you’re eager to learn, then you will learn what you need to learn outside of school. I think that school and educational systems mainly create employees. You’re being trained to think in a certain pattern. You get a diploma that you can show someone who will hire you and to start a company, you know, need no diploma whatsoever. It doesn’t add any value to the person who’s got a diploma.

[00:10:45] No one is the only one who can show the diploma to is someone I would hire you. Yeah, or possibly an investor, actually. But it’s mostly like I was simply an investor.

[00:10:55] But I don’t. I’ve never met an investor that asks what kind of employment you do. They go for personal skills, personality, track record. They go for these kind of things. And a lot of the investors have no diplomas themselves.

[00:11:08] The funnest thing is I remember when I was in school and college, getting good grades was in my world the most important thing in life. It was a panel of 10 of importance. And since I quit school, I haven’t used them a single time. See, that’s really weird.

[00:11:28] It’s a huge difference to some of that question then. Personally, I think a college degree or university, if you want to become an entrepreneur, makes no sense whatsoever. I think it’s a complete waste of time. It’s good to have as a fallback solution.

[00:11:45] It can be good if you have low self-esteem and you want that diploma to kind of feel that you’ve accomplished something. So it might be a way of building yourself up. And to me, that’s it. If you want to build a company, basically the study system is built to you need to take a lot of classes and everyone takes the same classes, at least in that program.

[00:12:09] And the likeliness of you needing everything that you’re being taught is close to zero. Maybe you need 20 percent of that, but you’re kind of. You have to learn all the hundred percent because that’s what everyone needs in the program to be able to say to have that degree.

[00:12:24] That means that 80 percent of your time is wasted for 20 percent invested. That was my experience in school for sure. 80 percent need, remember. That’s it.

[00:12:34] I think the only time it has value is if you want a job or if you want to feel some kind of security and satisfaction from ticking that box. That’s an entrepreneur. It doesn’t add value.

[00:12:45] That’s a real cool perspective. Actually, as an entrepreneur, you learn things because you need them right away. Yeah. So you get to imply what you learn instantly and practice it and see if it actually works. And you only learn things that you need.

[00:12:59] Yes. I’m guessing that to learn what I’ve learned through my my entrepreneurship, I wouldn’t need to take 10 different degrees and then pick the probably 10 percent of each would have been valuable. But that’s the only way I can learn what’s actually needed by the person of Eric in my life. And I think that there are so many more valuable things out there to learn on on YouTube than it is in a business degree.

[00:13:25] And just read how to make friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. That book is, to me, worth more than any college degree I’ve heard of.

[00:13:35] But isn’t it, though, with an education you get prepared because when you start a company, all of a sudden you start to take risks. You start to be exposed to real life in a way, isn’t it smart to take time to get prepared before you start something without risk?

[00:13:53] Once again, it goes down to risk and it depends on what you define by starting something. So let’s say that, you know, you’re 20 years old and you’re gonna choose between getting a job and starting school. That’s like the two alternatives. And in both cases, you can start a business on the side. And I think the best idea is to do either the job or the education and start something on the side. And a couple of years in, hopefully the business has started picking up and you’ve learned more about what you need to learn to do, run the business by starting it. But if you’re taking education for five years and then start doing what it is to actually think you want to do, and then you realize, oh, I don’t even want to do this, I have no use of this. Then you’re kind of screwed. So you’re betting let’s say you’re doing a five year education. You’re betting five years of your life on that. You want to do what you can do after the education, but you don’t know that. So to taken an extreme example, a friend of mine, he all his life, he dreamed to be a pilot. Since he was like 5 years old, there’s something. And then right after school, he went to pilot school, whatever that is, for two or three years and dedicated a lot of money and a lot of time to that. And then he started the pilot and he felt like a glorified bus driver. And he did two weeks and he didn’t like it. But it takes that much time to figure out that you don’t like it. So he invested all the time and all the money in in a picture of what it is to be and the pilot. But there’s no way of knowing.

[00:15:32] Imagine if Kate tried to fly before or did a flight simulation or something. You could have saved himself a lot of time.

[00:15:39] Yeah. And there is all these things around that you don’t really know. How does it feel to fly to another country, wait for four hours, then fly back? How how is all of these things? And I think that this goes back to the education system, that you’re committing time to something and you don’t really know it. So to me, the best thing is to start some side project or do something in the meantime and see how that develops. And you will learn more about what is it that I want to do? What don’t I want to do? What do I need to learn from this? And hopefully you’re learning along the way. I myself would not have taking this study way. I would try to get a job that one way or another relates to what I want to do, even if it’s a lot less paid than I could get anywhere else. And then I would start a side business on the side of that. So if I was 20 right now, I had no money and some ideas, but no real ideas. I want to start a business. I would reach out to people I looked up to and I would offer to help them with anything. They need help. We’ve tried to come up with what does Amy need help with and get a job as your assistant somehow. So I could learn from you working very cheaply. Hopefully get a better job from you sometime during the next five years or else manage to get a company during that time that I can actually put more effort into. And I think I would learn a lot more from being your assistant than I would do go from going to some business school.

[00:17:05] But it’s a very interesting perspective and let’s explore that and let’s explore networking a bit more in a moment.

[00:17:12] But for I had one question here from Wilma Hardeen that I thought was really interesting. How do you and it ties into what you said a couple of minutes ago. How can you handle? How do you handle it if you get criticism or skepticism from other people when you try to start a company? And I guess this is maybe an even bigger deal if your parents have an idea what you should become and then you want to start your own company and do something opposite, how can you handle that criticism?

[00:17:45] So I think that this happens to almost everyone who starts a company because it means that you are following a dream that personally I believe other people wants to follow, but one way or another, they’re scared of it. So they come up with excuses for themselves. And if you were the only one who actually goes for it, I believe that they want to pull you down. And that could be parents or that could be friends or that could be anyone else. So I think that if you are I mean, parents are probably worried for the risks that you’re taking these kind of things as well. Let’s say go. If you’re a 16 year old and you say, I want to be a professional football player. People are going to put you on the head and say, yeah, yeah, good luck. Still, there are thousands of professional football players if someone does it. But I don’t think that most not many people believe in them when they say it the first time, and especially my parents. I’m guessing I don’t know. And I think the same goes for entrepreneurs than that. A lot of people don’t want to see you succeed because they would like to succeed themselves. But they’re they don’t have the courage or what it takes to try. And I would say the best thing about to do here is to look of who are the people you surround yourself with and how can you find people that supports this dream and that shares this dream.

[00:19:03] So a common question that I get is, OK, how do I get a mentor? And my response is, why do you need a mentor? And they have this picture of someone who can teach me everything and and this kind of things. And personally, I’ve never had a mentor. And at the same time, I’ve had tons of them. And what I mean by that is that my close friends are my mentors. I learned the most from them. So I focus a lot of surrounding myself with people that I learn from that inspires me, that believes in me. But I’ve also spent a lot of time on finding those people and having those close to me. So I think that if you feel that you have a lot of criticizer is around you. The best way of dealing with that would be to find people that supports you. And look for those people who in your school or in your work is actually a creative soul that wants to do something outside of the ordinary and ask them for a coffee and see where that leads. I think that that’s the best way of dealing with criticism. But it’s also the best way to grow and learn and feel inspired.

[00:20:13] I really like that answer.

[00:20:14] And so you’re saying that just people will criticize you and instead of trying to deal with them and have good answers to them, let them do what they want and find people that will actually believe in you? Yeah. And that brings us into the topic of networking. And we have, I think, five questions at least here. How important is networking says I mean to Sonnie, how important is that and how do you begin? You want to find mentors that can be your friends. Where can you find these people? How important is it?

[00:20:53] I haven’t found a secret formula. I don’t know where the most inspiring people are. But in at s.m I’ve found a lot of them. And it’s been a little bit everywhere. So if I were to ask myself where are the most inspiring people, then I would start by asking, Okay, where do I think the most ambitious people are? Because to me, ambition is inspiring. And if you’re in school, I’m guessing that the most ambitious people are in various school clubs like the Finance Club or maybe the theater cop or wherever. There are people who wants to do something else outside of the classroom. They are a bit more engaged and other people. So if I would be in school, I would start by looking there and see what kind of friends and people there are there. I would see. Are there other kind of clubs around me outside of school where people are engaged to public? Speaking is a place where I wouldn’t get to know a lot of people from a club called Toastmasters.

[00:21:59] Like people who want to do something extra. But that could be improv theater. It could be singing, dancing. It can be anything that that’s people who wants to do more things than just the everyday life. And I think that it doesn’t really matter if they want to make business. Sure. Business might be what you are most passionate about. But if you just find people who believe in their dreams and kind of look for their dreams, I think that’s a great place to start, because I don’t think it’s. I think to become a professional football player takes a lot of the same things as it does to become a entrepreneur. You need the dedication, you need to believe in something, need to focus. You need to be smart.

[00:22:42] I mean, there’s a lot of things around this that are similar. So if you just find those people and start there, I think that’s a great place.

[00:22:51] I completely agree. I think ambition is something that all of these character has in common. So let’s say you’re in school and couldn’t you sort of ask people questions that would sort of see if they have ambition? What kind of question could you ask people to scout for this?

[00:23:14] It’s a good question.

[00:23:16] So I start with looking into the general interests of people and see how how passionate are they about what they’re talking about. So if I ask you, what do you like to do in your free time and you answer me, play football. Hang out with friends. Yeah. Then you’re probably not very engaged in that and probably not in anything else. But if I ask you the same question and you answer, oh, I love football, I’m training this at this time. I have this dream and this goal. And I love to hang out with these people because they want to do the same thing. Just ask the same question. And it’s a very clear difference in what passion you have. So I think that almost any question would do. And just look for their engagement in their answer.

[00:24:01] I agree. I think people that have high quality and high passion and high ambition, they have that in everything they do. Yeah. It doesn’t matter if it just answering a question or making a life choice. They want that quality.

[00:24:16] Yeah. So you could then start by just talking to more people in school or in the office or wherever you are. I mean it’s scary to talk with new people, but that’s kind of how you go. And the same thing here. Let’s say you’re still in school. Then ask yourself, what’s the most ambitious program? So in high school, we had a program called Gene on our school, which I don’t remember what it stands for, but that was the only program on my school that was in English and that was people who voluntarily shows up all their education in English, even though I’m growing up in Sweden.

[00:24:47] And I can just guess, looking back at those people wanted to take the extra step. They wanted to engage more. So if I were to look for where were the most engaged people on my school, I’m guessing they were in those classes.

[00:25:00] Mm hmm. And you mentioned now that this is a way to find people that believe in you to solve the problem of facing criticism and skepticism and previously talked about.

[00:25:12] Can I find someone that is in the industry I want to be in and work for them kind of for free? You just to learn. Could you expand more on building those kinds of relationships with people there? Maybe be ahead of you in the game?

[00:25:29] Yeah. So first I’d like to say that. Go and listen to our episode 14 on how to e mail people that you look up to, because I think that’s somewhere where I’ve done a lot of errors before and I can see a lot of people reaching out to me who don’t know those very important things. So do you listen and go shake that episode out after this? And to answer your question, I would start by asking myself, what is it that I want to do? What do I want to learn? And. When I was 20, I was pretty sure that I wanted to build companies and I had no idea in what industry, so that could be anything. So I would just ask myself what would be an inspiring company? What do I believe in? And then I would look for a company that’s not too big. Probably 10 people maybe. In my case, that would have been a small that agency or something like that, because then the CEO is probably not too busy. He is not too high up somewhere. You can actually reach him if you’re trying to reach a CEO on Google. He’s never going to reply. But if you really wanted to reach the CEO, some local tech company, then you probably will. And then I would start by looking, OK, who is this guy?

[00:26:44] And let’s say his name is aemon. And what has he done outside of Hockett? What can I read about this guy? We’re going I read about him, Linked-In. Maybe he’s got an interview on YouTube and I can see this thing and then I’ll say, OK, this is someone who inspires me or this is not somnolence. Advise me and before me reaching out, then I could kind of sort that out. I don’t want to work with this guy or I do. And if I do, then I can write him an email or her an email and say, I saw this interview with you on YouTube. I really like what you did here. I saw this and this. I really like that. These are some things that I think that I could help you with or I would just love to help you. I would love to ask you some questions and just start that conversation briefly. They’re not necessarily asking to be Manti or her Manti. Not asking for a job. The first thing to do, but just ask a few questions over e-mail, maybe get a cup of coffee and a couple of e-mails later and see where it can take you and see what do they need. Help. Constantly ask yourself, what does this person want? What can I do to fill that need? Maybe they say, I’m sorry, I’m just too busy. I can’t meet you right now. And then you have a perfect opportunity to say, OK, what kind of busy are you? Is there anything that I could help you foot with for free? Because I just want to learn. And maybe that’s anything from sorting receipts to shredding papers to. I don’t know, running errands. And if you offer to do that, you have somewhere maybe you can start by, if you like, video editing, start by doing a video about that company. They haven’t even asked for it. Just do it to show what you can do it because they’re gonna be engaged. See where where were these things?

[00:28:23] So you’re saying you want to provide value first. So but I guess that person would also have their own needs. Shouldn’t they even bring that up? Or is that OK, too?

[00:28:35] I wouldn’t start there. I mean, it’s obvious that if you’re reaching out to me, you want something from me. That’s kind of the if you’re not only giving me love, then you are thanking me for something already done which you could do. Then you’re probably wanting something from me. So it’s it’s in the subtext that you have a need and you can go to that pretty early. But I wouldn’t go with the need. I want the job. The first thing you do. I’d rather go. I have a question which is a much smaller need, but can lead to the other thing. So you’re not asking for a job until you you’re shown that you can give value. And that’s why you’re there.

[00:29:14] That makes a lot of sense. So imagine now you have surrounded yourself with people that believe in you. Maybe our fundamental and you’ve gotten a little bit of experience from that.

[00:29:24] And so we are settling.

[00:29:28] Ask the question, what is the most important? A good idea or how you are English word? How you’re executing that idea. How important is the idea to get started?

[00:29:42] Execution is a hundred times, but more important than the idea? I would say so. Pretty much all ideas are already out there. Sure, you can’t come up with something new and revolutionizing. But if you’re looking at a thousand things, probably nine hundred and ninety nine of those ideas are already out there, and the 1000s idea is a twist on something else.

[00:30:04] It’s rarely something unique. Probably you take in two things and you mix them together. Let’s say you invented the wheelchair, you actually just took a shower and you took a wheel and you put them together. You didn’t really invent anything. Let’s say you invented Spotify. Yeah. You took music, which was already out there, and you took computers and software, which was already out there, and you come up with a new way of mixing them. So pretty much all ideas are out there and everything is already dead there. And they’re starting new clothing stores all the time. It’s the same thing.

[00:30:34] So the idea to me means nothing unless it’s well executed. So a great idea with bad execution is nothing. A pretty shitty idea with brilliant execution is amazing.

[00:30:50] So let’s say your idea is to start a clothing shop. You want to start a clothing brand. To be honest, that’s probably a pretty shitty idea because there is a billion of them out there. Morelia. And you’re gonna compete with H&M, Zara and all of these guys. Does a really bad idea.

[00:31:06] But if you have the amazing execution, you know exactly what you can do. Then you can create make it. This is really up and coming brand from Sweden that’s going really, really well. But it’s to execution. Now, thanks to some unique, brilliant idea and and you can then take it from there. So execution beats IBM everyday. Sure.

[00:31:28] It helps to have a good idea, but now that makes a lot of sense.

[00:31:33] Because Sebastian Philips, I’m terrible at pronouncing pronouncing names, but he has. How difficult is it to start your own company and become an entrepreneur? And in this case, OK, it’s more important with execution. But how difficult is it to have that kind of strong execution? I heard somewhere that 99 out of 100 companies fail or something.

[00:31:58] Yeah, I would usually say nine out of 10 companies fail. And I think it all ties back in to the length that you’re willing to commit to something. I mean, the reason something fail is probably because it failed in the first three years. Then everyone had a 50 year plan. And the same thing goes for the ambition and the risk level. If you’re if your ambition is to start earning a hundred euros per month and you’re actually somewhat committed to that, then I would say it’s the other way round. Nine out of 10 companies would get there pretty easily and you wouldn’t really need to risk anything. I mean, if you take it to the absolute lowest level, you can start going through trashcans and you can collect soda cans, bring them to the store and you will probably make 100 euros per month and you dedicated some time to it and you can’t fail with that. So it all depends on what kind of level you put on yourself and where you think that you need to go. So this is why I believe the best place to start is where you can start small. So we started our business in two thousand and eight. In 2010, we earned about fifteen hundred euros each to people by the end of that year. So two, three years it took for us to be able to earn more than that. We would get in a working in a food store yost’s being a cashier, that took us three years, but that wasn’t the only thing we did. We had other side businesses, we did other things on the side. But knowing that it takes three years puts a completely different agenda in there. But we will do the same that we didn’t dedicate 40 hours a week when we started, we dedicated maybe 10 hours a week for a couple of years. So I think it all depends on what kind of timespan you put on it and how you define success.

[00:33:48] Mm hmm.

[00:33:49] That brings me to this question that I think is interesting. Again, Sophia settling ask when should you stop being an entrepreneur?

[00:34:00] Well, I’ve never stopped, so I’m not sure if there is a stop. Maybe you can take a break. So basically what I believe is if you get burned out and if you feel that you’re you’re not dealing well with your OK. You haven’t even gotten burned up. If you’re not dealing well with your relationships, if you’re not sleeping well at night, you’re not eating well and you’re not exercising and you’re not having fun. If you’re missing out on either one of this or for that matter, all of this, then I would start with taking care of these things. And if you’re an entrepreneur and you don’t have time for any of this and you feel like life is actually not good right now, then I’d say that’s a good time to stop or at least put it on hold and focus on these five things, because I believe that those are far more important than success or being an entrepreneur can ever be. And I’d say that success is dependent on those things. If you don’t have fun, you don’t have friends who don’t have health. You don’t sleep. You don’t do these things over a long period of time. I say it’s impossible to succeed because what is success then? You’re just gonna crush?

[00:35:19] I really like that answer. Don’t stop. Take a break. Because then it doesn’t have to feel like a failure either. No.

[00:35:26] You just take the is running walk for a little bit.

[00:35:30] I have a couple of personal questions that I want to wrap up with. But first, I thought this was interesting.

[00:35:36] Bam, super sudden. Makes you second asking good questions.

[00:35:39] Here’s one where I think she has a lot of them as well. Let’s say you want to start a social business and at the same time you want to make money and make a competent, honest creating profit. Can these two be combined?

[00:35:54] Would you say so? With social business? You mean something that’s good for society? Yes. Where the main intention is to create that beneficial effect to society.

[00:36:04] Yeah. I definitely think they can be combined. I’m not sure if it’s the most efficient way of doing it, but if that’s where your passion is and that would make you happy, then I think that’s a great place to do business. So it depends on how you want to look at this. If you want to do maximum impact. My personal belief is that it’s better to make a lot of money and give it away to an organization that does maximum amount of impact. For example, mosquito nets in malaria areas in Africa, you can do a lot more difference there than you can doing any calls in Sweden, but that takes a certain dedication and a certain passion. If, on the other hand, your passion is to to help the teenagers in wheelchairs, then you can build a company about helping their lives get better. And you, Jim, probably make a little bit of money from it and you will be able to help. And that’s a great business thing. It’s a great way of doing it. It’s just harder. It takes a different level of passion. It takes a different level of dedication because you have limited yourself into a certain number of areas. But I think that passion and curiosity takes you a long way. So if you’re passionate about something where you can do good, then that’s going to improve your chances of succeeding just because you have the passion and dedication.

[00:37:30] All right. And I have a question for you. Let’s say you never got the idea to create Catina Media. What do you think your life would be like today?

[00:37:44] I’m pretty sure that I would have been an entrepreneur anyway. I’m pretty sure that I would have. Been in a somewhat similar situation that I am right now. So Catina became incredibly successful and I made a lot more money than I will ever need in my life. And if I had, would have went in some other direction. I’ve been so passionate about business and I’ve been coming up with so many different ideas that I’m pretty sure that I would have created a business that would have been successful over this. It’s more than 10 years ago since I started what actually became Catina. So in those 10 years, I’m positive that I would have built some other business, that I would have made it work and that I would have been on, quote unquote, successful entrepreneur by now, but probably with a smaller bank account. And to be honest, I have no idea what kind of idea that would have been, because I had very different ideas before I come to this one. But it would definitely have been then something within the online space. But it could have been anything from. From marketing to writing books to doing. Being an influencer. I think it could have been anything that I’m pretty sure I would have done that.

[00:38:59] Mm hmm.

[00:39:01] That question was from Wilma Love, by the way. I think that’s a user name.

[00:39:07] And this question is from a brilliant man, me, which is your favorite business either like where would you begin if you’re a teenager?

[00:39:19] Ok, so instead of saying something specific, I’ll define what I believe it takes to be a great business idea, especially for a teenager. So to start with, it should be something that don’t require a big team of people. So something that you can do on your own using whatever it is, tools that are out there. Because the second you get dependent on other people, it’s gonna make it trickier unless you have those people around you already. So that’s one of the criteria. If you have the people around you, you can be dependent on them. But if you don’t, then come up with something that you don’t need anyone, which could be super simple thing. Looking at BLOCK or Craigslist or one of these sites where there used items. Learn what people think they’re supposed to cost and whenever something is a lot cheaper than not, buy it and then put it out there a bit over the price that it’s supposed to cost and you’ve created yourself a business. The only thing you need to go is to go and buy it and go and sell it again. And it takes next to no money to start. And there’s more or less no risk if you’re buying cheap items, that could be one place to start.

[00:40:28] And that takes us to the other thing. It needs to require very little capital. And you can probably do this if you have 100 euros in the bank and start buying something. If he has the research and it should be something that is very low risk, which pretty much the same thing as requiring very little capital, you can do this and just dedicate your your time to it. It would prefer to be something that can scale up, which is where this first idea is trickier. It’s going to be hard to buy a lot of things and sell a lot of things. But at some point you would get up to more expensive things, some bigger things, and you would learn more about these things than it would be a simple thing to get started. And if it’s simple to start, very low risk is something you do with your time and you will learn a lot regardless, regardless what project to start, you will learn a lot doing that. So I would just look for those three things. Is it simple? Is it cheap and can I do it tomorrow? And then I would ask myself, okay, how can I get started with this project within a week? And I would get started.

[00:41:28] And then I’m doing something. And I’m sure that, yeah, I spoke about to this guy, Mario, a friend of mine. He’s running a huge blunder, big business selling blunders like making smoothies. And that started with him selling bags of smoothie fruit to cafes. And then he realized that they have shitty blunders. He started selling blenders to cafes and then realized that the cafes are shitty customers because they’d never have any money. So he started selling his blenders online and he realized, OK, it’s hard to sell someone else’s business. He started his own blender brand and now it’s huge. And basically, that’s how these ideas come. It’s you start by selling smoothie bags or fruit and then you realize, oh, maybe they need blunders. Oh, I can sell them online. And I think this is how most ideas go. So you start by saying use things and you realize, oh, my niche might be in buying and selling watches or buying and selling. I don’t know, toothbrushes and you get from there. So you just get started with something that’s easy and low risk and then you will find your way through it.

[00:42:36] And if you’re in the beginning stage, what if there’s something that you cannot do that is super boring or complex for you?

[00:42:43] Elwin Berndt’s on ask if there’s something you can do, like simple accountant accounting. Should you hire someone else to do that? Or should you just forces have to do it in the beginning?

[00:42:55] So this all depends on if you have money or not. If you can afford to have someone else do it, then I would have someone else do it. If you can’t afford that, then you’re screwed because you have to learn it. So then I would learn it. And I think that either way, it could be worth asking someone to teach you, because it might be a lot easier than you think. So, for example, very basic accounting. That’s five hours of your time and you will understand it. But it might look very overwhelming before you try. And it might be a very tricky thing, but basic accounting to that like minimal legal level without knowing how to tax plan and stuff. You’ll learn that with an excel sheet in five hours. That’s that’s what it takes. Mm hmm. So it’s another thing. If you want to learn programming, that’s then you’re in the deep waters. And that might just not be possible to learn just like that. It’s always a good skill to learn. It’s always a good skill to try. But it’s different.

[00:43:55] Right. And we have one more question for today.

[00:43:58] But before I ask that, is there something you want to say to wrap up the discussion?

[00:44:03] So far, we’ve touched a bit about how to be a successful entrepreneur. So I’d like to look into that definition a bit. What is the sex that a really successful entrepreneur? Because that’s what people who start businesses wants to become. And how would you define that? What’s a very successful entrepreneur?

[00:44:25] Someone that has.

[00:44:28] Control over how they spend their time, meaning that they are have put himself in a situation where their needs are taken care of and they can spend their time doing things that they love. For me, they would be working with people that are smarter than me and that I can be able to do creative things. That puts me to flow state and that the result of my action are something positive for other people.

[00:44:57] I really like that definition.

[00:44:59] Ok, so looking at at me, I built a very big company very quickly and by most definitions I was highly successful. At the same time, I was miserable and I wasn’t in good shape and I was in a bad place in many ways. So I wouldn’t consider that to be a successful entrepreneur, even though that would be the common opinion I would see. And I think you’re touching upon a couple of things here where I think our super essential to be a successful entrepreneur. If you just take those boxes, I would say that you’re very successful. You say that you’re controlling your own time and you’re doing something around people that inspires you and you’re doing something that’s valuable for other people. And I would add into that that you’re earning more money than you need. And that’s not that much money. If you were in earn five thousand euros, that’s more than most people need. If you would earn 10000 euros, that’s definitely more than most people need. So that’s per month. That’s per month? Yeah, per month. Then I would say that you’re very successful because you can save some money and you can do these kind of things. And you do you have a business that’s so self-sustaining that if you leave for three months, it’s still rolling.

[00:46:08] I think that’s an important thing here as well. So you know that even if you would get sick or you want to go on a honeymoon or whatever it is, or you’ve got kids and you want to spend the next six months with them, then those things if you have take these five boxes, which none of them requires 100 employees or none of them requires a million euros in the back or at least 10 million euros in the bank. Then I would say that you’re a very successful entrepreneur, and if you would ask me when I was 20 what I wouldn’t consider a very successful entrepreneur was I would have said Richard Branson, Elon Musk or Bill Gates. And like, that’s not what it takes. Sure, they’re very successful groups, too. I guess I don’t know if they’re happy a new company to that box, but there is so many lower levels that you can reach that. I would still consider very successful and it makes so much more sense to aim for those than it does to aim to be Bill Gates.

[00:47:03] This is great because this leads me nicely into my last question. That is again from Cynthia. Sadly, she asked who is, according to you, the world’s most successful entrepreneur?

[00:47:23] Well, if we go by that definition, then I can’t say who’s the most successful entrepreneur, because I only know what they’ve accomplished from a business perspective and possibly what they’ve done for other people. But I have no idea how happy they are, how they control their time or how meaningful they see their life. It’s if there’s one person I look up to, it’s Bill Gates, because he spent his business life building a huge company that actually sold and improved so many people’s lives with Word and Excel and Windows and all of these amazing products. And before he got super old, he actually decided to retire and give away pretty much all his money and then inspire other people to give that money away. And to me, by the means. I can see I would say that that’s the most successful entrepreneur I know of. But yet again, I don’t know if he’s happy. I don’t know if he has time for his family. I don’t know these things that I value higher when I would define what a successful entrepreneur is. But I’m guessing that that he ticks those boxes giving what I’ve seen of him.

[00:48:32] Now, when you say it like that, I’m thinking someone like Joe Rogan is probably pretty high up there by that definition, be successful working like three, four hours per day with something super intellectual. And he’s probably love having. It’s a guy who has one of the biggest podcasts in the world talking to interesting people, different interesting people all the time, being a flow state and then probably has quite a bit of time to do his hobbies and things that he likes on the side. I think he’s working like crazy.

[00:49:01] Yeah, I think I think so too.

[00:49:04] But yeah, I like looking at it that way that he’s probably very high up.

[00:49:09] He’s probably doing things that he really, really loves because you could tell he’s loving to have intellectual conversations and he’s having it all day.

[00:49:16] Yeah. And if he’s doing in pure passion and if he doesn’t feel obliged to do it. So I’m just guessing. If I was your Ogan right now, I would not be able to take three months off because I would be terrified. What would happen?

[00:49:30] No, it’s too important, though.

[00:49:33] Yeah. So to be super successful in my perspective, you can take three months off tomorrow like this and it wouldn’t bother you and it wouldn’t destroy the business. And I don’t think that he can do that.

[00:49:45] So they can’t be super successful if you’re the president of the United States?

[00:49:49] No. Do you think any president of the United States had been happy during their work? Have you seen Obama before and after?

[00:49:57] No, happy. But he probably felt successful and that it was terrible.

[00:50:01] But but not by my definition. No, I would not want to trade.

[00:50:05] I hope Obama is on a beach somewhere right now. He wasn’t in Sweden last week. All right. I think this is a great place to wrap up. This was fun. This was fun. Thank you.

[00:50:16] Thank you, guys. Thank you, everyone, for sending in these questions. It was a lot of fun building an episode upon questions like this. So if you have more questions, please, please send them to podcasts, podcast. Great outcome. All right. Thank you. Sherea Sirio.