From Idea to Exit: Lessons from a Podcast Host with Chris Hutchins

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Billion Dollar Moves. Today, we'll be telling a great story from idea to exit, lessons from a podcast host. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Chris Hutchins into EO Fire Studios. Chris is a successful entrepreneur, investor, and financial optimizer. He's founded and sold two companies, invested in over 30 startups, and hosts the top-ranked All The Hacks podcast. And today, Fire Nation, we'll talk about that origin story.

0:43We'll talk about the aha moment. We'll talk about the fundraising process and some great tools and tips there. We'll talk about recruiting, leading, and motivating a team, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Chris and our sponsors. The Gold Digger podcast, hosted by Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. One of my favorite recent episodes is titled How I've Built an Unmatched Team Culture, an insanely important topic for all business owners to dive into.

1:21Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises and Franbridge Consulting has guided them. Franbridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson, has done more placements than any other in the country, and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. Chris, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people would disagree with. Thanks for having me. Hello, Fire Nation. I guess I'm working on this book about the principles of an optimized life.

2:02And the first principle is like conventional wisdom sucks. So I think pretty much everything you've probably heard about becoming successful, you could at least question, if not throw out the window. I think really success is often too external and not internal. If you love what you're doing and other people make more than you, who cares? Like if you can live a life and you're happy, I think that's far more important. I love that. And Fire Nation, I've actually found that to be the case multiple times. And When you become an entrepreneur, you kind of say, you know, which way is the majority trending?

2:32Let me pause and reflect and nine times out of 10, go the opposite direction. And now we all love origin stories, Chris. And, you know, we're talking today about from idea to exit lessons from a podcast host. So take us through your aha moments and decision to take that leap. Yeah, I've had a couple of leaps. And I think for people out there that think it's just going to come naturally, it just never does. Early on in my career, I thought I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I just went into investment banking and management consulting thinking that was the path. And I went to an event on the weekend called Startup Weekend.

3:09And I was like, oh, you could build companies? That's like a thing you can do as a career? I have to do that. Where do people do that? Everyone's like, oh, they do it in California, in Silicon Valley. That's like the hub of it. And I was like, well, I have to go there. And fortunately, at the time, I didn't feel this way. But I got laid off. And I was like, I just have to figure it out. And so I think you'll never necessarily be told what to do. Sometimes it just has to happen to you. You have to figure it out. And along the way, I've started and sold two companies. And every time it was just, let's just take a bet either on the side or just kind of see what works.

3:39Like experimenting is my favorite thing. And I think far often people think, oh, well, I can't go bet on myself because if I don't have a salary, if I don't make a lot of money, it's not going to work. And I try to say, think of everything as a time bound experiment. It's not about not having a job and not having a salary. It's about can you sustain yourself for long enough to see if it works? And when you frame it like that, taking the leap is just so much easier because it costs a whole lot less to live on no salary for six months than the rest of your life. That's very true. And one thing that I've recognized is so many people think they need like years and years of savings before they can make that leap because they're just kind of picturing this existence of huddling in a hole and trying to create something that actually gets some form of traction or momentum for all this timeframe, when in reality, you can really improve a concept much, much quicker than that or disprove that concept that is not going to work.

4:33And a lot of entrepreneurs, especially Chris, listen to this show, they actually do need to fundraise on some level to get their business off the ground, any money to get that initial rolling of the ball and also to keep things rolling. Maybe there are little ways into the business and they're like, man, I want to take the next level, but I got to hire, I got to advertise, I got to do all these different things. I want and I need some more money to do that. So talk to us about the fundraising process as you experienced it. Yeah. So I've had a couple of startups where you raised, you know, probably three or four different rounds from, you know, one to probably$10 million.

5:09And I think at the end of the day, there's a few things to keep in mind. One, it's always better to raise money from people who can lose it because so so that advice of oh raise money from your friends i don't love that unless you have a lot of really rich friends who won't miss the money because there's a lot of pressure when you know your friends lives and well-being or your family's lives and well-being is kind of dependent on your outcome so one i would say to the extent it's possible try to raise money from people that can afford to lose it but when it comes to you mentioned hiring fundraising anything it's like it's all about process and it's all about momentum so i looked when i was thinking about how do I run these processes at kind of parts of an organization that are really, really systematized and process oriented.

5:50So I looked at sales teams. I'm like, oh, they always have these CRMs and these funnels and like these, you know, periods which they follow up on specific cadences. I was like, let's just do that. So I made a list of all the investors. There was like 50 or 60. I put them in a CRM. I started reaching out to them. I started running this process knowing that you didn't want people too far ahead or too far behind. And I made it very easy to say no. I think investors of all shapes and sizes, they always want to open up the future for maybe if you become the next Facebook, they've never said no. And so every time I met with someone, I just wrote back a day or two later and said, hey, things are moving quickly.

6:27If you're not interested, no worries. And it was just such an easy way to get these people who most entrepreneurs think, oh, well, that guy hasn't said no yet. So he might be in chances are he's not interested, you know, like, or she's not interested in your business. And that's fine. Get those out of the way. Focus on the people that are there. And, and when you're, there's going to be something about your business that you think makes it not investable. Just call it out out front. So I would walk in, we had no traction on, we didn't know how to grow beyond a small amount. So I would walk in the door and I would say, Hey, if you guys want a company that's figured out customer acquisition, we're not it.

7:00And I can walk out the door right now. But if you're okay with a company that hasn't figured that out, let's keep going. And more often than not, you'll get them to psychologically accept that that thing you don't have is fine. And they'll say, okay, come on. And later when they're thinking about the deal, they'll be like, well, actually we did tell them we don't care about that thing. And it has a lot of effect there. So I think those are a few things I've done on my show, a bunch of episodes on how to be backable with Sunil Gupta episode 37. There's a lot of data there. I don't want to dive into that, but there's a lot of you can learn there.

7:30Let me ask this. How did you find that initial list of investors that you went after, that 60 or 70? If you're raising in tech community venture capital, you can just go look on a site like Crunchbase. But in general, if you find companies like yours and they've ever shared who their investors are, or you could just ask them. Now you have a list. AngelList has a list of people who invest in companies. People now put it in their Twitter bio. I think as you start to talk to people that are doing similar things to you, you can get that list. Don't start with the introduction. Just start with, hey, I'm not looking for introductions.

8:05I'm just curious. You've raised some money. What kinds of people have you raised it from? And once you start to figure out a few people, it's much easier to kind of build out that list of whatever kind of business it is. There's a guy named Bryce Roberts who worked at O 'Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures that started this thing called Indie VC. And he's doing a lot of stuff around bootstrapped businesses and raising money for companies that have revenue and aren't necessarily looking to be venture scale, billion dollar, you know, or bust. And one thing that I will say as well is don't let that number 60 or 70 investors kind of intimidate you, Fire Nation, because the reality is if you can find one, three, four individuals and you have real conversations with them and then you had that kind of honest question like Chris is talking about where, hey, if this isn't for you, I totally get it.

8:49Like, just let me know. But also, I'd love to know if you know anybody in your network that are peers of yours that this might be of interest to, you can start to kind of have one introduction lead to three. You know, those three introductions might lead to a total of five. Those five introductions might lead to a total of 24 because one person just opens up his Rolodex. You just never know how you're going to get to that number. It doesn't have to be like this big intimidating one off the bat. And Chris, we have now twice mentioned teams. I want to dive deeper into this because you're a master when it comes to recruiting, leading, and motivating a team.

9:24So share your journey in becoming so good at those three things. I think it really all comes down to my personality is about identifying a thing and trying to figure out how to make it more efficient. And I think everyone probably has one area in their life where they're like, whether it's repairing a car, it doesn't matter, repairing a car, it doesn't matter what it is, harness that ability and apply it somewhere else. So when it came to recruiting, I was like, it turns out recruiting is very much a process and it's a numbers game and you need lots of people. And I just started thinking about it from that perspective and not getting too caught up in, oh, well, this person said no.

9:59Well, statistically, if you reach out to people, it's like 2 % are even going to reply. So you just have to accept that. And then when you find something that you really like, be willing to commit and go all in on it. So understanding the process, asking lots of people who've run that process, building those allies who are willing to share. I think another big principle across any area is as you learn about something, share it with other people. And oftentimes, they might not know that insight that you just unlocked, but they might have another one. So in every aspect of business, when I'm trying to get better at leadership, management, recruiting, as I'm picking things up, I'm sharing them back to the people who've helped me along the way and building up more and more insights that I can share.

10:43And sometimes I'm even making like a Google doc, like a little private Google doc and saying, Hey, thanks for talking to me. I compiled a list of all of the things I learned about recruiting thought I'd share it back to you in case there's something on this list that you haven't found. And then it's crazy because they start sharing that with other people. People reach out to you for advice. And now all of a sudden you're like the most well-known expert on a thing three months ago you didn't know anything about. So for me, it's a numbers game. The best employees make all the difference. So spend your time there.

11:13When I was the founder CEO, I think it was like 50 % plus on recruiting. So like I spent a lot of time there on, on leadership and management. There is one person's advice who I've taken so many times. I've watched the same YouTube video, probably 10 times from a guy named David Marquet. He is a submarine captain and notably turned like the worst performing ship in the Navy around to be the best. And I did an interview with him in episode 39. And his thing, which was counterintuitive to all military leadership, was that he stopped giving orders. And someone would come to him and say, what should we do here?

11:50And he'd say, what do you think we should do here? And he just basically refused to answer orders. Obviously, if there was a mission critical thing, he would. But he pushed it back everything to other people and asked them to figure out the answer. And he just gave feedback and helped them arrive at the answer. And he built an entire team that was self-dependent, didn't rely on him and became the top performing ship in the Navy. So there's a YouTube video where he walks through that philosophy. We did it on the podcast. That style of leadership is just so much more effective because you don't have to be involved in as many things.

12:22And the more you can delegate and outsource and trust your team to do, the more effective you can be and you can spend on higher order projects. See, I love that process because at the end of the day, what you're doing, Fire Nation, is you're telling that individual that, hey, you now have responsibility for the outcome of this project. So you are going to take pride in that. You are going to figure out what is the best possible way to do this that you know how. And again, the most important thing, you're going to take ownership, pride in that thing. Where on the other hand, if you're just getting quote unquote orders from above, then your attitude is just like, I'm just going to follow these orders.

12:57If it fails, it's not my fault because I just am doing what I was told to do. If it succeeds, it's not really a win for me because I just was doing what I was told to do. So that's what happened. And there's just like this kind of like, okay, now I am just a robot. Whereas you say, okay, hey, how about you figure it out, you know, and do your best and then get back to me and let's talk about this. And then the person's like, wow, like I'm going to get kudos, you know, to the nth degree if this works and if I'm successful at this, but I'm also, it's my fault. It's on me. If this fails, I have responsibility for this.

13:29And, you know, most individuals really operate well in that scenario because as humans, we love that opportunity to be responsible, to progress in a positive manner and not just be this person that's turning a wrench at a factory eight hours a day. So there's a lot to think about, a lot to talk about here. And we're going to dive into some interesting topics when we get back from thanking our sponsors. I'm all about lifestyle freedom. I want to be able to do what I want, when I want, and there's no better time to kick your feet up poolside than the summertime. But to achieve this lifestyle freedom I speak of, you and your team need to work smarter, not harder.

14:09That's why we're so excited about HubSpot's integrated AI tech. It's helping teams of all types and sizes automate the more tedious parts of running a business. With AI-powered tools built into HubSpot CRM, you can pull reports, sift through loads of data to see what's working and what's not, and even craft content all in a flash. In fact, recent research shows that marketers are already saving significant time spent on manual administrative tasks. I'm talking slicing time in half thanks to AI. From five hours to 2.5 hours a day, which amounts to almost four weeks per year. With all that extra time, you could be exploring new hobbies, spending more time with your family, and enjoying that happy hour vibe every single day.

14:49Learn more and get started today at HubSpot.com. More and more entrepreneurs and investors are discovering the awesome franchise opportunities that exist outside of food. Franchising can simply be the better path, and interest in franchising is at an all-time high. Lucky for you, John Ostenson, founder of Franbridge Consulting and a frequent EO Fire guest, is here to help you explore the premier franchise opportunities. Today, John and his Franbridge Consulting team are part of the largest brokerage in the U.S. and have vetted the market thoroughly. Franbridge is hands down the premier source for the best opportunities in the non-food franchise world.

15:25They represent every type of non-food franchise, from healthcare to dumpsters, youth sports to business services, specialized senior care to pet grooming to insulation and floor coatings. John has served as an Inc. 500 franchisor, a multi-brand franchisee, and he does more placements than any other in the country. Sign up for a free consultation call with John today or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. That's FranBridgeConsulting.com. Chris, we're back and you spent a decent amount of time in venture capital, which is very interesting to a lot of people because they're interested in venture capital.

16:03What are your lessons from that experience? Yeah, so I spent about three years or four at Google Ventures, now called GV, and probably did 200 pitches and probably thousands and countless of emails from founders. And I will say one thing that really is important. So I broke down three things and I was always looking for one to three of them. And if there were zero, it was an immediate no. If there was one, it was a question. If there was all three, it was like, write the check right away. And I wanted smart, passionate founders. I wanted a big addressable market and traction. And it seems so silly.

16:38Of course, you would want those things. But I think people underrate number one, which is that a smart, passionate team of like people that are excited and with a caveat that can do the thing they're saying. So if you're three business people saying you're going to do something that's very technically hard, like, yes, you're passionate, but you can't actually do the thing you want. So assuming that that team could do the thing they want, that was enough. I remember multiple instances where the market wasn't clear how big it was. They didn't have a lot of traction, but they were just so passionate and capable of doing the thing they wanted to do that it was a no-brainer.

17:12One of those was a company called Clever. And they had this tool that made it easy for the data systems in schools to talk to each other. So believe it or not, educational software is dinosaur ages. And they made a system where the school's database of students could talk to software companies that were building software for students so they wouldn't need to send manual CSV files of everyone in the class so they had accounts. And it's like, I don't know if this is that big of a market, but they are so passionate about solving these problems. And they ended up having, you know, a nine figure exit as a company, which was an awesome story.

17:47But at the time, they didn't have the traction, they didn't have the market. So I think a takeaway here, I did this amazing episode with a woman named Vanessa Van Edwards, who is like the world's expert, in my opinion, on charisma. And so the ability to convey your passion and kind of get people excited about things, which you could kind of call charisma. She defines charisma as the balance of warmth and competence. And we talked all about how to work on that from various different social cues in episode 47. But that conveying your passion for a thing and learning to tell a story about why you're the one to do it can be enough at that early stage.

18:28Obviously, if you're so narrowly focused on, we just want to make better straws for, you know, bottled water. Like if it's too small, it might not work. But if you're, if it's any size market that could be big, that, that was enough. Like, I didn't care if you had the traction yet. I just cared that you were attacking a space that could be big, but that passion was so important. And so I think that was the thing that people underestimated sending along a deck with a thousand slides with, you know, charts and projections. I was like, show me that you are going to be here when this is hard, because invariably, as you know, everything is hard.

19:05And if you aren't obsessed with the problem you're solving, then it's just not going to work. Fire Nation, lots of value bombs there. And just go back, listen to that process. I mean, there's a lot of things that Chris shared that are write down points, and you might want to be thinking about what he shared and how it can apply to you and your business. And I want to dive into more detail about things that I consider are definitely in the top 10 of many entrepreneurs' focus points. That's life, that's money, that's travel. And you've optimized those things to the nth degree. Talk about how you've done so.

19:44I grew up as someone who wanted to have an amazing life but couldn't afford all the things I wanted to do. Like out of college, I had a job and then I got laid off and I was trying to make it work. And so I just started figuring out there has to be a way to do things without having to spend as much. So I think there are a lot of people out there, funny enough, in a different FIRE community about financial independence, retiring early, where they're like, let's cut back on costs. And I said, let's apply all these principles of optimization to the things I want to do in my life, to my health, to my travel, to my financial situation, and find ways to cut back on the amount things cost without cutting back on the experience.

20:22So I've gone super deep on the credit card points and miles route. I probably have 12 million points right now. And my wife and I and our two kids, we almost never travel, you know, get a probably 5 % to 10 % effective return on all spending. And I'll drop a few examples so that it can be very specific. There are a lot of times where you're like, well, I'm just buying something. I don't have any category bonus. You have a credit card that earns one point on everything. But I've got this grocery card that earns four points per dollar at the grocery store. So if I'm buying something at a Home Depot, I'm just going to go to the grocery store, buy the Home Depot gift card, get four points back for the grocery store purchase, and then go buy the Home Depot purchase with the gift card.

21:03Um, you know, almost all credit cards have some form of benefits that you probably have never read or thought about. One of which is very common is purchase protection. So on most credit cards, if you buy something and it breaks in 90 days, the credit card will pay for it to come back. Buy an iPhone, crack the screen within the first three months, credit card companies paying for that iPhone screen to get repaired. And so I'm just always trying to read the fine print, figure out the optimizations, figure out how to make everything work so that I, you know, and not leaving anything on the table.

21:34Because when you have more money, you can invest back in yourself, you can invest in your business, you can save up so you can quit your job. One easy thing everyone can do, at least everyone in the States, there's a website for your state that is an unclaimed money registry, where it's like you maybe you're overpaid at a hospital and they sent a check, you never got it. And there's money sitting there. And if you search that database, you can just file file a claim for all the money you're owed. And I've had listeners I have a great story of a listener who's starting a company that he was able to fund with$4 ,000 that JPMorgan Chase owed him that he never knew about.

22:11And so, you know, it's not sometimes it's $10, but sometimes it's thousands of dollars. So that's some of what I love to do. On the health side, I've tried to figure out what are the things people using concierge doctors, what are they doing to diagnose situations earlier to optimize their health? But then, you know, I'm not going to spend the$50 ,000 a year for the concierge doctor. So what are they doing and how can I apply it to my life? So I've had a concierge doctor on to walk through that. We've had countless episodes on optimizing your money, your savings, your investing, your travel, everything.

22:43So I love living an upgraded, living an optimized life. I prefer not to spend as much money as other people are doing to have the same experience. Fire Nation, so many lessons learned in this episode. of talking about from idea to exit, lessons from a podcast host. Chris, give us the one key takeaway from everything we chatted about here today that you think Fire Nation needs to hear. I'll repeat something I said. We're all obsessed with something. There's something that we optimize beyond what the average person does because we just care and we know everything about it. And if you can learn to harness that ability and you can apply it to any other aspect of your life, I think you can live a happier, healthier, wealthier life and you can watch your business and your life and your relationships flourish.

23:29If you want more tips, obviously I have a whole podcast of tackling almost any topic you could imagine at all the hacks, but that's my lesson to you all. Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with CH and JLD today, so keep up the heat. And Chris, if Fire Nation wants to check out more about you, follow you, connect with you, what is your call to action for our listeners today? I mean, you're listening to a podcast now, so you can search all the hacks on whatever app you're on. That's my show. You can go to allthehacks.com and find links to the newsletter, any episode we've done.

24:03Search for anything. I'm Chris Hutchins on the internet. There aren't a lot of us. So that's an easy one. Chris, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, and value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you, brother, and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks for having me. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Chris for sponsoring today's episode. hey what can 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book The Common Path to Uncommon Success is a revolutionary 17-step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle you've been dreaming about.