The Hidden Rules of Business No One Talks About with Ujwal Arkalgud

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's Reds rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down the hidden rules of business no one talks about. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought Ujwal Arkalgud and Eofire Studios. Ujwal built and sold his company for$60 million by learning the hidden rules of business no one talks about. Today he teaches founders how to outsee, not outspend the competition. and today we'll be talking about the moment that everything clicked, the two broken paths, the third way, the rule master's path, and oh so much more.

0:34John Lee Dumas:And a big thing for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ujwal and our sponsors. Fire Nation, are you ready to build something special in the next 50 days? Check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something, short and strategic step-by-step videos by me, JLD. On day 50, you'll have a valuable asset, and the best part is it's completely free. Visit eofire.com slash YouTube and start day one today. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

1:14John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. High Level Fire. dot com. Ujwal, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Most people think success is about resources, money, connections, timing, maybe even working insanely hard. But I believe success is actually primarily about perception, not how good you are, but whether the system is prepared to recognize you as being legitimate. Fire Nation, the hidden rules of business no one talks about is our focus today.

1:58John Lee Dumas:And I want to start by talking about the moment that everything clicked for you. You said real business success isn't about money, network, or luck. Take us back to that moment. You realized it was really about seeing the hidden rules that determine who gets both attention and trust. Yeah, I sort of learned this the hard way, trying to bootstrap a tech company as an immigrant founder. You know, I did everything right on paper. The product was great, worked insanely hard, you know, learned as much as I could, met as many people, networked, you know, all the things that the typical playbook tells you.

2:33But yet I kept hitting ceilings, kept hitting walls one after another. And that's when I realized that I wasn't losing because my product was bad or I wasn't working hard enough. I was losing because I was just bad at the game. And in particular, I was losing because I didn't understand the rules fully. So let me elaborate on that. We all talk about rules as something that we share in society as something that's visible. But the reality is, and we all know this, the reality is there are a lot of rules that are invisible. So how you show up to a meeting, classic example, we all know this. Don't go to an interview, you know, looking like you don't belong in that office, whatever their culture is, right?

3:21That's the classic thing your parents will tell you. Or I don't know, my dad will always tell me, cut your hair before an interview. But these are all examples of invisible rules. But then in any industry, there are a ton of these invisible rules. So there could be rules about how you should talk, what language you should use when describing your product or when talking about the problems in the industry, how you should present your information, what kinds of formats are acceptable, or how much you can push on the prospects challenges. There's all these unwritten rules. And most, I would say 99 % of entrepreneurs I meet have never thought about this.

4:09and what I've realized through my own experience and now working in private equity and having advised a ton of other entrepreneurs, having been through a couple of exits myself, what I've learned is this is the number one factor, especially now when AI garbage is everywhere. How do you become credible? You gotta start seeing the invisible rules.

4:30John Lee Dumas:The invisible rules, Fire Nation. And I mean, like we were just talking about, that AI slop, it's everywhere. You need this information now more than ever. So I want to talk about the two broken paths. Most entrepreneurs, they're told to follow either the insider track or the venture-backed playbook. So why do those paths fail the majority of people? And who are they actually designed for? I mean, the reality is, you know, our culture, even look at the show Silicon Valley, our culture celebrates this idea that you've taken someone else's money. If you think about it, like when we buy a house, for example, and we borrow money from the bank, nobody celebrates and says, oh, congratulations, you borrowed two million from the bank.

5:16Nobody celebrates that. In fact, they celebrate when you've paid it all off. On the other hand, in entrepreneurship, somehow we celebrate, oh, congratulations, you took two million dollars of somebody else's money and you're going to now throw it around. First of all, that culture itself is ass backwards. It doesn't make any sense. Secondly, now you've got someone else's money and then we celebrate all the other status markers, fancy offices, uh, you know, taking your team to Vegas to party, to celebrate the year end, all this crazy stuff. And what we don't celebrate is all the hard grunt work, the little moments of pressure we handle and all the things, all the small things we do in order to actually build a product and a business that people want, that people are willing to pay you for and pay you fairly for.

6:04And so what happens is we create this culture of hundreds and hundreds of these companies that just eventually go broke. So they take somebody else's money and they eventually go broke. And we say, oh, don't worry about it. It's just a numbers game. And I think something is fundamentally messed up about that because entrepreneurship is the largest contributor, especially in North America, the largest contributor to any kind of systemic social change. It helps uplift people out of poverty, helps give access to new ideas, new systems, new tools to underprivileged or underserved populations. It does all of these things.

6:43For me personally, coming out of a middle-class background to be able to have these experiences and now live a certain kind of life, I would have never dreamed of this entrepreneurship made it possible. Right. So I think this is the challenge is that we all absorb this message and we think that's how that's the only path to building a business. And for me, the reason I also, you know, kind of wrote this book, Invisible Rules is because I wanted to show people that there's other ways because, you know, I built in John, I built and sold my company. I didn't make a single headline. Right. Nobody cares about a 60 million dollar exit, but it's life changing for me.

7:20Right. And so it doesn't make headlines, but it transforms not just how you live your life, but what you can do next, the level of freedom it gives you. I think there's a lot to be talked about in terms of creating those pathways for people. You don't have to have sexy businesses. You have to have businesses that make you fulfilled, that give you a pathway to success. And I think that's really my preoccupation.

7:46John Lee Dumas:Now you did say pathway, and I want to talk about the third way, because the rule master's path, it's a completely different approach. So let's talk about how someone without funding, without pedigree, without connections, how can they still win by decoding specifically how credibility truly works in their industry? Yeah, we started our conversation talking about, you know, just being able to see these invisible rules in your industry. So I'm going to start by giving you three shortcuts. The first relates to your product. So there are rules that dictate how your product is perceived. When you understand those rules, how you frame your product completely changes.

8:29So let me give you an example. My last company called Motivebase, it did market research, social sciences research. Our product was we would tell human stories to large corporations. So stories of consumers, but told through the lens of their beliefs and values. Really powerful stuff. But guess what? A CMO sitting in the boardroom couldn't care less. They want a quick stat so that the meeting can move on. They have three minutes for the consumer insight. And I can't tell a story about a family of four in three minutes. And so we discovered very quickly that if we didn't figure out how to turn our deep insights into that three-minute soundbite, our product would not only be perceived as less valuable than what we do and what we want, but it would never scale.

9:17The moment we figured that out, that that was the invisible rule, you needed to have a soundbite that was three minutes, had to have a number and had to have some kind of a consumer quote. The moment we figured that out, everything changed. So in your industry, think about what is that invisible rule or a couple of rules that shape how a product is perceived and reframe it. Immediately you'll see a lift. So number two, your credentials. So we talked about positioning the product. The next is positioning you as the founder. You know, I was selling market research, social sciences research. Everybody thought I had a PhD.

9:54I did not. And so the first couple of years, John, I spent arguing with people and like defending myself. Oh yeah, you know, I couldn't get a PhD, blah, blah, blah. And then I realized, what am I doing? I need to play the game differently. So because a PhD or a credential is valued more, I'm going to reverse the game. And so the story became, hey, the reason I don't have a PhD is exactly why you want to buy from us, because it allows me to not be bogged down by all that academic BS. And instead, I'm going to give you I'm going to solve real problems for real people in an efficient and useful manner that academia doesn't do.

10:34And suddenly all these corporations were like, yes, that's true. Academic stuff is great to read, but, you know, not really usable. And so suddenly I became kind of this rock star within that world because I flipped the lens. But to flip the lens, I had to understand what is the invisible rule. Right. And then the number third is, and this is perhaps the most important, we all work so hard to build a product. And we put all this effort, but we don't think about how our effort is interpreted on the other end. So there are invisible rules around that. So again, going back to my example, I realized that I can give them the best market research in the world, solve incredible problems.

11:16But if I don't help my customer, who is a manager, if I don't help them get a pat on the back from their vice president, if I don't help them get into, you know, the big kids table, an executive meeting, get more airtime in front of the execs. If I don't do that, I haven't done my job. That's the invisible rule. The invisible rule is your research has to be so good that I have to be, I have to get notoriety within my company. People have to think I'm the rock star in the company. And so the moment you start observing these invisible rules, you realize, oh, crap, I'm not doing any of these. And I will tell you, this is not, you know, I went through this exercise.

11:58I went from a million in revenue in year two. We made these changes to five million in revenue in year three. Wow. All we changed was these three simple things, how your products perceived, how you are perceived and how your effort is perceived.

12:14John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, value bombs have been dropped and we're just getting started. We're gonna talk about outseeing the competition, overlooked to trusted, seeing the rules in real time and more when we get back from thinking our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you're growing fast, your backend can't be stuck in slow motion, bills flying in, approvals getting bottlenecked, vendors chasing updates, that kind of busy work drains your energy and steals your focus. That's where Intuit QuickBooks BillPay steps in. QuickBooks BillPay helps you stay in your zone of genius by automating backend tasks. I'm talking bills, vendors, payments, even 1099s.

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13:22John Lee Dumas:Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Inc., licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Fire Nation, are you ready to create something special in just 50 days? If you just thought yes, then check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. Every video is short, clear, and built to move you forward one intentional step at a time. Clarity, offer, validation systems, momentum. By day 50, you are not working on something. You have built something. Something to be proud of. And this is completely free on my YouTube channel right now.

13:59John Lee Dumas:If you're done letting weeks just drift on by, visit eofire.com slash YouTube. That's eofire.com slash YouTube and press play on day one. 50 days will pass in the blink of an eye. The only question is whether you'll still be thinking or finally building something special. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more.

14:36John Lee Dumas:Everything you need to succeed all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business. And their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. So we're back and I want to now talk about outseeing the competition.

15:16John Lee Dumas:I mean, what is the mindset shift that you have found allows entrepreneurs to spot patterns their competitors miss? And then of course, position themselves as the obvious choice. I think there are a couple of things. The biggest thing is we've all been sold this bill of goods that speed is critical. But what I've learned is the biggest advantage isn't speed or scale. It's sight, right? It's understanding what's happening so that you can solve that problem really, really well and then scale. By no means am I saying don't scale your business or don't hit that accelerator pedal. It's about when you hit it.

15:56And the reality is, and this is a statement that I make constantly to remind myself, and I'm going to say it, it's kind of like a mantra. Credibility scales faster than competence. And I want that to sink into the listener, right? We all think we're so competent. We've gone to the right schools. We've worked really hard. I don't know, our product is amazing. We've built all this stuff. And we think competence is enough. It's not. Credibility scales faster and works harder for you than competence ever will. This is why sometimes we all look at our competitors who are probably working with inferior products, right?

16:37And still winning bigger deals than we can. This is why. Because they are considered more credible. So this is the fundamental thing. And unfortunately, shouting your credentials always backfires and trying to, you know, trying to buy your way to credibility always backfires. So the whole point about trying to outsmart the competition is to first of all understand, and this is critical. think about what is the one cultural tension that everybody sort of talks about in your industry that you can take a stance on okay there's always a cultural tension so let me break that down um i'll give you a simple example okay so um i was buying honey the other day at a at a local farmer's market.

17:33Okay. The classic cultural tension with honey is that if that honey is in a squeezable bottle, you automatically assume, I'm not going to name the brand, but you automatically assume it's something that can be found in a grocery store. And you automatically assume it's not that great in taste. It's not that great in quality. It's not going to give me all these health benefits. But if it's in a jar that is messy to serve yourself with and messy to use and kind of looks rustic, you assume, oh yeah, they must have just, they must have just, you know, got this honey, harvested this honey. And it's like as fresh as can be, right?

18:13It doesn't matter if it's the same quality. There's an inherent cultural tension here, right? And the tension is that we're assuming that there's a certain quality we associate with a certain packaging and the way something appears. And this type of tension exists everywhere, right so for example in our market research industry the tension all revolved around what people thought were trends you know people argued about oh yeah gut health is a trend and somebody would say no no gut health isn't the trend it's actually probiotics that's the trend and gut health is the outcome and all of this stuff so there's in every industry there's that tension what most businesses don't do is they don't take a stance on that point of tension so we did we said okay hey, here's the definition of a trend.

18:58A trend isn't what people are talking about. A trend is why they're talking about it. So if everybody's talking about probiotics, we want to understand why. And turns out it's because, you know, people are losing faith on the healthcare system and they don't want to, you know, keep going to their doctors and shelling out tons of cash. And they're trying to look at alternative medicine and Eastern medicine and all of this other knowledge in order to live a more proactive, healthy lifestyle. That's the trend. And so we took a stance on it. Now, what happens when you take a stance? Half the audience goes away.

19:33Right. And that's fine because the other half not only buys from you, but they become your biggest advocates. And you go from having a hundred thousand deal, hundred thousand dollar deal with McDonald's to a million dollar deal with McDonald's. Right. And so that's the difference when you take a stance. So when it comes to outsmarting the competition, forget about how much money they have or the fact that their product is shitty and yet they're winning deals. First focus on what is the cultural tension in your market? Figure that out and take a stance. What is a stance that you can back up, that you own, that fires you up, that makes you feel like, yeah, this is why I wake up and do this thing and own it.

20:11And do not be shy about losing a part of your audience because the other half will more than make up for it.

20:17John Lee Dumas:Yeah, I love taking a stance. And one thing that I actually am a big fan of is the phrase, love me or hate me because there's no money in the middle. And Fire Nation, you're not looking to resonate with everybody because you want those passionate, loyal individuals. You're only going to get them when you really take a stand for something that A, that you believe in, and then of course B, they do as well. Now I want to talk about seeing the rules in real time. Can you actually walk us through a simple, practical exercise that our listeners, entrepreneurs on Fire listeners can use to uncover the unspoken rules that are shaping their industry and start playing on their own terms.

20:55Yes. Simplest exercise. Everybody has ChatGPT now. Open up ChatGPT and have it look at the last year of industry conferences around your industry. So let's say you're in a B2B industry, have it look up the last year of industry conferences and have it outline design patterns in which people always talk about whatever the type of product or the type of problem you're solving okay so so let's say um let's say you're providing ai solutions to large companies okay so you're going to all these ai conferences all you have to do is open up chat gpt and have it summarize how what is the language people are using and how or what are the patterns let's say, that people are using when they talk about AI and its implementation in large companies.

21:46So why do this? Because patterns of language get embedded in people's brains. And when you first talk to them and the way you position your product, you can't break that pattern, unfortunately. You know, we would all like to be rah-rah revolution. You know, my product's a revolution. It's going to change everything. Yes, there's a time to do that. If you do that out the gate, you're not creating psychological safety for the buyer, right? You're making them feel unsafe, like you're going to uproot their lives and make them work harder and make life more difficult for them. So first step, just simple experiments with ChatGPT.

22:24Or if you're going to conferences, pay attention. You can even record on your phone, just record conversations you have, and then later use ChatGPT to transcribe and find patterns. These patterns are critical because you want to use these patterns and literally memorize them. So for example, you might learn that when people talk about AI, they have to also talk about safety. Or when people talk about AI implementation in companies, they have to talk about some kind of accreditation or compliance. Whatever that is, you got to figure out what those are and literally create a mind map for yourself.

22:57You can draw it out, use one of these mind map tools online. This is the first step I always advise people to do. Just this small step, it'll honestly take you 15 minutes on ChatGPT now. It will straightaway teach you so much about your industry that you haven't thought about. Because in essence, what it's showing you is that there are assumptions people make about how to talk and how to appear credible. that if you don't follow those rules, you skip those assumptions and you are unnecessarily working harder to sound credible and to attain some level of authority in the conversation.

23:35John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, I hope you're taking notes on this because these are value bombs and you've mentioned your book a few times. So why don't you really take us home, Ujwal, about what Fire Nation can look forward to within this book. I know you have something really cool as an offer for our listeners as well. So Fire Nation, get ready for this. And then we'll say goodbye. Sounds good. The book is called Invisible Rules. And honestly, it's for what I call the 99 % of entrepreneurs who are tired of the system being built for the 1%, right? Entrepreneurs who are tired of either being told that, oh, it's their fault, that they're not succeeding, or that they need to work even harder.

24:15They're tired of applying the same playbooks, but it's not working for them. They're either stuck. They're not able to grow. they're not able to progress or achieve the lives they want to achieve, this book is for them. It's for the 99 % of entrepreneurs. And honestly, it's a guide to win without permission by understanding how credibility actually works. So in this book, I'm going to teach you to understand what invisible rules are, how to spot them in your industry and whatever you do. And then once you spot them, how to use it to revitalize or build your business wherever you are in that journey.

24:50And it's got tons of examples and tons of practical tools on how to achieve that. But for me, the biggest takeaway, the goal for me with this book is that if you're an entrepreneur that, and you're building quietly, uh, and you feel like you haven't had the right resources or the right guidance to help you really scale your business or grow your business. I want to be able to help you through this book because, you know, I'm so lucky that I've had these exits and gone through these experiences. My goal with this book is to genuinely be able to help the entrepreneurial community, but in particular, the part of the community that doesn't fall into the typical Silicon Valley unicorn startup narrative.