Practice #48 - My Entrepreneurial Journey (Longer Than I Thought)

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Recently, I always thought that I was starting my entrepreneurship journey when I first started

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my podcast, or at the very least in those at least couple of weeks prior to that, like

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that summer. This most recent summer, summer of 2023 is when I thought that I had started

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my entrepreneurship journey. But I've been doing this. I've been really taking storytelling

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seriously lately. And in this book, The Power of Personal Storytelling, he gives actionable

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steps at the end of every single chapter. So he gives like an exercise to do at the

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end of every single chapter. And I told myself, I wasn't going to move on to the next chapter

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until I complete the actionable step, because I have a tendency to be addicted to reading.

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I told my friend this over the summer, and that was the first time I'd ever like said

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that. And that was the first time I came to realize that I was addicted to reading because

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I was into reading so much over the summer that I didn't even take action. I was just

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reading, reading, reading. And I told him I was addicted to reading. So I said, I'm not

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going to read until I get 10 leads at the time I was working on a lead magnet and a funnel.

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And I failed. Over the summer, I did fail that quest. I failed within like two days.

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So it was not that it was, I didn't even try to be honest. And so I'm like asking myself

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like, what do I need to do to take action? Now lately, taking action has been a lot easier.

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And I've been a lot better at it because I am actually passionate about what I'm doing

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now. Whereas before I wasn't really sure what I was trying to do. I was just kind of aimlessly

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doing whatever I wanted. But now I'm pretty confident that this is what I'm going to be

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doing for months to years to come. And what I'm, so coming back to the story, I thought

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that I began my entrepreneur journey last summer, like six, seven months ago. But like

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I said, I've been doing a lot of exercises for storytelling. And one of the exercises

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was to try and remember your childhood. So lately over the past week, I've been pondering

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my childhood a lot. And I came to a lot of conclusions and I came to a lot of epiphanies

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and I learned a lot of things that I talked about over the past couple episodes. But what

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I want to talk about today is I didn't just start my entrepreneurship journey. I've been

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an entrepreneur my entire life. And shoot, I was gonna, I wrote down all of the things,

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all of the things that I did throughout my life as an entrepreneur on a sheet of paper

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upstairs. It's in my journal upstairs and I was going to bring it down here and read

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them all to you. But I forgot and I already started recording. So I'm just going to try

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and remember pretty much the first thing that I can really remember doing as an entrepreneur

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was when I was in like elementary school. I was really into makers, which is like donut

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maker, ice cream maker, and then like all the different makers. So we put like me and

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my sister saved up money and we convinced my mom to buy us a bunch of makers. And this

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one maker in particular, well actually before I even started this, let's go back. The original

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entrepreneur journey that I had was a lemonade stand. Classic, right? Everyone has that.

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I remember setting up a table in front of my house right next to the sidewalk and just

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sitting there for hours waiting for people to walk by. And we probably made like $40

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total over the course of like a lot. We were sitting there for hours. It was not a very

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good business model. And we did that for days also. We didn't just do that once. We did

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that a lot. And then we got into makers. Like I said, we got into like donut machines, ice

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cream machines, all kinds of making machines. And my specialty was donut machine. So what

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I ended up doing was I got really good at making donuts. I found a good recipe and I

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started making them a lot. And we would eat them and I would give them to like my parents

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to sample. And it was like this tiny donut machine. It was like, it didn't make full

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sized donuts. It made the shape of a full sized donut. It's like the circle, but it

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was like the size of a munchkin. So it's like smaller than my fist, but the size of

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a donut. So it's like a circle. But so I get good at making these. And this one summer

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is my friend's block party. So I'm like, I see an opportunity here. I see an opportunity

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to make money. And I, my friend invites me to his block party and I decide to make a

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bunch of donuts. So me and my friend make a bunch of donuts and we like stack it all

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up and we bring them to the block party because bring the goods to the market. And we brought

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all of these donuts and we like walked around and tried to sell. We made like, we made like

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one or two sales. It was pretty slow. And then we found something. We found someone.

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We found our hyperactive buyer. He was someone who came right up to us and then bought like

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three donuts. And then we're like, Oh, do you want more? And then he like went back

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to his parents to get more money and he came back for more. And we're like, Oh, do you

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just want to buy everything? And so we sell him, he sells us out. Like he bought our entire

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stock of donuts. So we probably made a decent amount of money that day, like $40. It's a

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lot for elementary school kid. And so we make these donuts, we sell it out. That was like

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my first instance of, or that was one of my earlier instances of entrepreneurship. And

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I have lots of different times. I like I said, I listed out all of the things that I could

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remember. And it took up the entire page. So like a few of them that I can remember right

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now are freshman year during COVID. I wanted to get rich online like everyone did. And

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so I was trying to learn how to code a game. I wanted to my thing at the time was I thought

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that I could it would make me a lot of money to program a game. So that was what I was

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into. I like did a lot of research on how to program and what were the best programming

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languages. And I ended up deciding C sharp was the one that I wanted to do. And at the

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time I only had a Chromebook, a school Chromebook, I didn't have a computer or anything. I had

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an Xbox, but that's that's nothing like that's not going to work for this. So I had to basically

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I figured that I was planning on getting a PC soon, because I had some money saved up.

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And this was actually one of my early reasons why I got my PC. It's the one right there,

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the one that I have on my desk. And so I save up all my money for this PC. And I realized

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that this is not a limiter. Like the fact that I don't have a PC is not a limiter, because

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I can still learn all of this stuff on my Chromebook. And so what I do was this was

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during the pandemic. And so we're in e learning. And we're also in hybrid. So my school, during

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my freshman year had a hybrid thing. So we would go online for most of our classes, but

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then for like a third of the time, we would be in the building. And so I just remember

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sitting in my study hall in the back, literally just scribbling notes, learning about programming

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on my journal on my notebook. And so that's basically what I did. And I didn't really

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get very far, because I like lost mo I lost like, I don't I think it was just because

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lack of discipline and lack of like true passion for it. And then I did a lot of different

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things. So one of the big things I can remember also is in middle school, I would I wasn't

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the rule in my household was we had to pay for our own lunch if we wanted to get hot

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lunch at school. So we had to pay for with our own money. But my mom would go shopping

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for food. If we so she would pay for food if we packed our own lunch. And me being lazy,

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I didn't want to pack my own lunch. And also it was a point that the school hot lunch was

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really good, at least at the time. And so I figured out a solution. I was like, Oh,

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okay, well, I want the hot lunch, but I don't get it for free. Like, I'd have to pay for

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myself like I wouldn't get it paid for by my parents. But then I identified that a lot

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of my friends got their parents to pay for their hot lunches for them. And then I also

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figured out what they wanted that I had. So they wanted snacks, they wanted chips, they

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wanted like applesauce packets, they wanted all kinds of snacks. And they didn't have

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that their parents wouldn't buy that stuff. But my parents did my mom would buy like the

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big, big box from Costco of like chips of snacking chips like hot like Doritos, Lays,

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all that stuff. And she would also buy like applesauce packets that I could trade. So

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I basically made a bunch of deals, I would bring a bunch of applesauce packets and a

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bunch of chips with me to school. And then in the early days, I would walk around trying

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to find customers, I would literally just walk around with my chips and my applesauce

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packets right at the end of the hot lunch line, like right when they got their food,

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I'd be like, Hey, do you want to trade like two chips for your lunch? And I made a lot

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of deals. I remember like a lot of times, I never went hungry, by the way, I never I

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would only bring chips to school. And I didn't like chips. So I wouldn't eat them myself.

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I made a risk every single day to rely on my customers to pay for me like to rely on my

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customers to provide lunch for me, because I didn't like chips. I didn't eat them. I

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didn't like them. And they were gross to me. So every single day, I always made a deal.

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Like I would always get a lunch. Now, some days I got a lunch for like one chip. And

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other days I had to trade like three or four chips depending on like other people's desires

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at the time. And I built up a clientele. I remember at my the peak of my business, I

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had like two or three regular purchasers. So every single day, I would bring like, I

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had a deal with them, I had like a regular guaranteed rate with them. So I would trade

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like two chips for one lunch guaranteed every single day, which the normal price was one

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chip per lunch for other people. But since these guys were my regular, I paid them more.

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So it was like a whole thing that I had going on. And then sometimes other people would

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just see that I had chips and they'd offer me money and I take it. And it was this whole

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like whole thing. And I remember at the end of the year, I had to clean out my locker

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and there was literally mice in my locker and like a bunch of chip dust everywhere because

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like a bunch of chips exploded. It was not a good site. And there was actually a mouse

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that ran out of my locker when I opened it. So that was that. And that like, that was

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one of another of my entrepreneur endeavors. And also I got pretty good at that. I went

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on a this was all during middle school, by the way, I went on a field trip to it was like

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overnight field trip over the weekend to amusement park to Cedar Point, it was out

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of state. So we had to drive all the way down and we did it because it was like we were

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in a competition, we played the competition and then we went to the amusement park. And

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I just remember my mom gave me like $40 for the whole weekend, which would provide like

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all of my food. And I did pack a lunch also. So I really it was just $40 for just the park,

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which is a lot of money because I mean, the park food is expensive. So I remember I went

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to the park and I bought all my food that I wanted. I did not hold back because I was

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given $40. So I bought like a big massive nice burger, I bought a bunch of other like

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fruit, fries, all kinds of stuff. I like pretty much spent nearly all my money. And at the

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end of the day, I remember I only had like 10, maybe $10 left. And what I did was I was

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like, okay, I see an opportunity here, a bunch of people on the bus ride home are gonna want

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a snack, but they're not gonna have any money because they're gonna they probably all spent

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all their money already. So I can take or not okay, not that they probably didn't realize

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that they're gonna have to sit in a bus ride without any food. And they probably saved

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a bunch of money for the bus ride home, which wasn't until the next day. But I was gonna

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take advantage of the fact that everyone was tired from an entire day of playing our instruments.

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We played in a competition in the morning. And then we went to an amusement park in the

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entire afternoon and we didn't leave to like late at night. And so I was gonna take advantage

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of a bus full of tired middle schoolers that want like food. And they all have money because

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they save they save it for the bus ride home, which they're gonna have to pay for food on

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the way home. So and I had like $10 left. So what I did was I went to the store, like

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the candy shop, and I bought these like gourmet starbursts. Oh, high juice, they're called

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high juice. And they're basically like starbursts, but like gourmet and fancy. That's what I

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like to think of them as. And I buy like a few packs of these. And there was I like

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walked around the bus, think of a coach bus like, is that what it's called? It's like

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a nice bus like you know, the buses that have like recliners and have nice seats. And then

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there's an actual bathroom in the bus also. That was the bus we were sitting at. So I

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was walking up and down the aisles, like basically advertising the product. And not really many

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people wanted it. But there was one dude that really wanted it. He was like, give it to

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me for free, give it to me for free. I really want it like he really wanted it. But I held

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off I didn't give him anything for free. And eventually, he broke down and he bought my

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entire supply. And I was not cheap with it. I was selling for $1 each, each tiny little

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packet. So you know, a starburst like that tiny, like the starburst is about the size

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of your thumb. I was selling each high juice for $1. So tiny little things. I was over

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selling extremely. And this guy bought me out and I ended up coming home. I left for

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that field trip with $40. And I remember coming home with like $37 and like 23 cents. So that

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was another very successful entrepreneur endeavor. And then another thing that I was working on

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last winter was trying to figure out how to code websites. Because I thought I wanted

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to build my own business online, but I didn't want to have to outsource for a website builder

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and I wasn't aware of like click funnels or anything like that. I just thought that you'd

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have to build it yourself if you want to actually done how you want it. And that was that went

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well for like a month. I actually got pretty decent at building websites. Like I could

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actually style it pretty well. And I was practicing at school also like on my school Chromebook

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there was a website it was like code dev or I don't I don't know what it's called but

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I forgot what it's called but I was using that and I was basically able to code an entire

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website from that. That website on my Chromebook. So that was another entrepreneurial endeavor.

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And eventually, I kind of realized that I was kind of dumb. And now I'm focused over

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the summer I started focusing on the podcast. And I realized that no one's going to discover

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me just on the podcast. So I wanted to focus on YouTube shorts and TikTok. And then I realized

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that I wasn't really I didn't really want to target those people. Like those weren't

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really the people like the people watching my YouTube shorts and TikToks were not really

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the people that I wanted to target. And also it wasn't really building the type of relationship

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that I wanted to build. Like long form builds a much more intimate relationship than just

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like a two 20 second TikTok. And eventually I decided to just go all in on the long form

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on YouTube and just making the best video every single day. And that's a whole story

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on how I came to that conclusion, which I haven't actually worked out that story in

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my head yet. But the one of the big changers was after I made like my third episode, I

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went on a vacation to the Dominican Republic. And I was thinking to myself, how can I like

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what what how can I move this YouTube channel? Like where do I want this YouTube channel

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to go? And the one of the biggest epiphanies that I came down that I wrote down in my journal

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was just make videos that I would actually watch like make videos that I would actually

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watch because at the time I was extremely selfish. I was not really spending that much

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time. And I was just putting out a bunch of garbage, like all those like literally every

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single podcast episode, like the first 100. So podcast episodes were all garbage. And

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even like these recent podcast episodes, I don't consider very good because I just see

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them as practice. I am this podcast is purely practice for me. Like I'm literally just practicing

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all of my techniques for the YouTube channel. So I'm not really worried about the podcast,

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but the early like the first three YouTube videos were really trash. And then once I

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made the mediocrity is not your role model, that was like the first video that I actually

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spent like a decent amount of time on I spent 15 hours on that one. And then ever since

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then I've spent more than 15 hours on every single one. So that's like the story. And

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it was all because I don't know. But there was something I wanted to bring this all connected

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to. I don't know that I went on a huge tangent. I just wanted to say all of the entrepreneurial

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endeavors that I went on and how I didn't actually realize that I was an entrepreneur

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all my life and do like pondering my childhood has been very valuable for me because I'm

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getting way more confidence over myself because I always thought that I was wasting my life

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until like sophomore year. I was thought that my entire 15 years, the beginning, the first

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15 years of my life, I always thought it was just a waste. And if you think that way, then

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that is a huge confidence destroyer, because then you only have three years of experience

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while everyone else has their age like 1825, 50 years of experience, while I only had three

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years of experience. But now pondering my childhood and finding all the value behind

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my childhood, like what I just went through today about my entrepreneurial journeys is

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an extreme confidence boost because now I reclaim all of those 15 years that I lost

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because I decided that I was wasting my life even though I wasn't really wasting my life.