The New Era of Entrepreneurs - Doing Good While Still Making Money with Kurt Long

0:01Light that spark 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 inclusion and marketing. Today, we'll be breaking down the new era of entrepreneurs, doing good while still making money. To drop these value bombs, I brought Kurt Long into EO Fire Studios. Kurt believes in business as a force for good. He has grown and sold three successful businesses and serves as an investor, advisor, and board member for others. He is currently the co-founder of Bunker. In today's foundation, we'll talk about doing good and making money.

0:41We'll talk about some specific questions that Kurt believes you need to be asking yourself. And then we'll talk about aha moments and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Kurt and our sponsors. Sales Evangelist, hosted by my friend Donald Kelly, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now. A recent episode you should definitely check out is the five ways to do daily outbound with LinkedIn.

1:17Listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises and Frambridge Consulting has guided them. Frambridge'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 free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. Kurt, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. First, thanks for having me on today, John Lee, and it's a pleasure to speak to Fire Nation.

1:58I know you have a lot of entrepreneurial minded people out there and I love entrepreneurs. You know, on success, I think that people only have half of the definition of success. Correct. They think in terms of and it's the definition. I kind of looked it up. You know, it's getting what you want. And that might be fame. It might be notoriety. It might be a girl. It might be a project. Whatever it is, it's getting what you want. And it turns out that that's a missing definition because the second half of that is wanting what you get. And a lot of times those are unexpected things. And all too often I see very successful entrepreneurs reach a phase within their business or when their business sells and you realize they've been really unhappy.

2:56Um, and they've been under a lot of stress and, and you think about this thing and you say, well, how do we get, how do we get what we want and what we'll get? Um, when you start a business, you think about, and when you start a business, every day you walk into your business is starting a new business. That day is a new day. So it could be at the beginning or it could be in the middle of the journey and you say, how do I want to spend the next 10 to 15 years of my life? And how can I construct a business to support what I want out of my life in terms of travel, partner, children, anxiety, not anxiety?

3:33What kind of people do I want to hang out with? What do I want my health to be? How much emphasis on wealth creation? Do I enjoy notoriety or do I like being behind the scenes. And if you get in touch with that upfront and build a business around it, it turns out you can do both. Get what you want and want what you get, John. And Fire Nation, that's why we're talking about the new era of entrepreneurs, doing good while still making money. And I want to talk about what it looks like when it comes to doing good and making money in today's day and age. It's hard, first off. And I'm only going to touch on a couple of terms.

4:13You might've heard of B Corp. You might've heard of ESG. You might've heard of social impact investing. And I've been involved with all of those things and more of trying to align doing good, uh, and doing well. And I got to tell you a lot of the, this is my opinion, a lot of the academic treatments of these topics, just undervalue how hard it is to start a business, get revenue going, get profits. And really, it's really hard to think about, you know, I'm going to do really good in the world when you're trying to figure out how to sell your product or make money. So you kind of get back into this definition that I've used for a long time, which is my definition of an entrepreneur is transforming a vision into a sustainable reality, creating value for all involved, beginning with the life of their customer.

5:11So if we start that journey with the life of the customer, and then as we do better and better, it gives us a chance to share with our employee team members. It gives us a chance to share with community. It gives us a chance to share with shareholders. It gives us a chance to share with the families. But if you start the journey of good intention for the customer and focus maniacally on creating value in their life, it creates an abundance that can be shared with everyone else involved. So that's a high level. And then I have some specific things to go into, John. But before I do, is there any follow-up on that first concept before I kind of get into the meat of the thing?

5:53Let's dive into the meat right now. Okay. There used to be a term called eating your own dog food. and it was a Silicon Valley term. And it meant that you use your own product. And, you know, it kind of famously came out of Apple when they were using the Mac. And believe it or not, people were still using typewriters instead of using their own product and famously management at Apple. And I don't know if it was Steve directly, but it was executive said, listen, stop it. We're going to eat our own dog food or we're going to use our own product to make it great. And you kind of get into this idea of whatever I'm selling, whether it's a service, whether it's a product, do I use that product myself?

6:38And a follow on to that is, would I or do I have loved ones using my product? And you can do this in most businesses at the earliest stages. You know, listen, if you're doing a pharmaceutical drug or something, that might take a little a while, but most businesses from day one, you can use your own product or ask loved ones to. And here's an interesting reflection. If you don't, well, why don't you? Is it that it's not aimed for you or you just don't, you don't think it's healthy or you don't think it's productive or why wouldn't you ask the loved one? So if you can get into that concept of using your own product day one, not only do you build a base of users and a base of belief in your own product from the core out, you also align your interests and the customer's interests, which is the first departure point on doing good.

7:40Like, listen, if it's good for me, then I believe it's good for them. And I love that as a first rule. And we certainly use that rule here at Bunker, which is the next, you know, the business I'm building right now. And Fire Nation, I really hope you're understanding that this process is doable, especially when you're hearing from people who have been there and done that and are laying out the roadmap, which is what Kurt is doing right now. So Kurt, keep it going. Yeah. So that's the first question. The second question is, do I invest my own money in this thing or do I want other people's money?

8:13And if I get other people's money? Do I put my money alongside it? And a follow on to that is, this is a little higher bar, I think, is would I take, and I'm presuming we all love our mothers, would I take my mother's 401k and put it into this business? And if the answer to either of those is no, That's okay. It might be just, well, it's an early stage of the business and I don't want to risk my mother's 401k in this. It's just not the right time. Or maybe it's I don't have a repeatable sales cycle. Hopefully it's not because you think the business is unsustainable due to, you know, ethics or due to the way that you're treating your suppliers or your teammates.

9:04So the second part of it is, would you put your own money or your dear loved one's money into the business? And if you've answered yes and yes to the first two questions, you've gone a long way to doing good in the world. I've got a third question to set the final basic bar. Set it, brother. Does my product attract a criminal element that is core to their business? And you might say, what is that? Well, let's take opioids. you know, um, well-intentioned. Uh, I'm sure I don't want to, I don't want to question the intent of the inventor of it, but we all know that there became a criminal element that got involved and it did a lot of damage.

9:57And still to this day, it's derivatives, you know, take a lot of lives in the country saying, well, is that because of the product? Is it because of my supply chain? it's somewhere between the product and the supply chain that you have to evaluate and tighten that up another example might be end-to-end encrypted messengers today they are used by criminals to conduct all kinds of nefarious affairs now are both of these products good in some way yes but do they attract a disproportionate of criminal activity that does a lot of harm in the world? Unfortunately, yes to both. So now you kind of look at this and you go, if I answer yes to the first question, do I use my own product?

10:49Second question, would I invest my mother's 401k or my own money? And you got yes. And then no to the third question, my bar is you're doing really good. and you should expand that business. You're doing good in the world. You're going to employ people. Your interests are aligned with your customers. You're making the world a place. So that is the basic bar, John. And then I've got a couple follow-ons to that. And Fire Nation, you have been learning a lot from somebody who has been there and done that. We're going to be learning a little bit more specifically about Kurt's story, as well as other value bombs, when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

11:29Happy 2024, Fire Nation. Q1 is here, and that means new goals, more growth, and upgrading your day-to-day workflow. While most sales folks are stuck in the mud of manual scheduling, digging into data, and tracking down leads, let me share a better way to win so you can get a jumpstart on your year. The new HubSpot Sales Hub is smart sales software for today's multitasking reps. It's built to help you manage every stage of your sales pipeline with ease. It's filled with easy-to-use and powerful tools that make closing deals and collaborating across departments a breeze. Sales Hub is an all-in-one platform for multiple things, including converting contacts into customers, accelerating sales with smarter sequences, managing deals with simple and powerful tools, forecasting targets, and smarter sales insights.

12:12Plus, you can supercharge your work with AI-powered apps like ChatSpot. Bottom line, Sales Hub is focused on helping you work smarter, not harder, so you can get after all those other New Year's goals. Close more deals and get on track for your best Q1 yet. Explore the new HubSpot Sales Hub and AI tools like ChatSpot at HubSpot.com slash sales. More and more entrepreneurs and investors are discovering the awesome franchise opportunities that exist across a variety of industries. 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.

12:54John 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 franchise world, including both active and passive opportunities from TRT to insulation, youth soccer to pets, senior care to health and wellness, and more. John has served as an Inc. 500 franchisor and a multi-brand franchisee himself, 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.

13:29That's FranBridgeConsulting.com. All right, Kurt, we're back. You have a couple follow-ons that you wanted to tack on to what you've been sharing so far, and then we're going to be talking about how you've done this specifically. So take it away. I would call this kind of next level. I mean, and this is all within the context of we all know how hard it is to start businesses, make them profitable. So, you know, you've got to find a compromise between doing good and profiting, right? And so that's the balance we've struck with the first three questions, which should be yes, yes, no. The next two questions I'll call kind of next level questions of if you really want to put yourself, kind of differentiate yourself out there.

14:12It's to say, the next question is, do you live near or in the community of your typical customers and your employees? And you might say, what is that all about? Well, there's been a tendency over the years for very successful business people to live far away from anyone that looks like a customer to them or might be an employee of their company. And they get detached from the impact that their products and services have on just everyday people, which I think is important. I'm not saying that you have to live right beside them. I'm not saying that you have to be there all the time, but you should have a deep invested connection to a typical employee and a typical customer so that you can see the results your business has in those communities.

15:19Like I said, it's next level, but that's a belief. And then kind of Nobel Peace Prize winning level is to say the first four, you've passed the first four. The fifth question is, do you stand up for the human rights that are given kind of like, let's just say the U.S. Constitution, at least in the first 10 amendments, and then say United Nations human rights laws? And do you treat people with decency on a consistent basis? And it's not perfect. We all know that running business is not perfect. And often we agonize over some of these decisions. And that's a good sign if you're agonizing over the decisions, but that you respect people's rights, your suppliers, your employees, certainly your customers.

16:08And if you're doing all five of those, I feel like there should be a business category for the Nobel Peace Prize, John. That is basically my version of how to do good while you're doing well. And I can tell you, if you take that definition of entrepreneur, focus in on the customer, and then as you grow and expand that out to say, well, I can reward employees, reward community, respect my suppliers, it grows out. And then those five tenants really take care of a lot of it. And maybe when you're a bigger business, you can go look at your environment, social governance score, your ESG score, and you can figure out maybe if you want to be a B Corp or all these other kinds of metrics out there.

16:57But those five are what I stick by. So Kurt, I want to end by talking about what you're building over at Bunker. What was your aha moment for this specific company that led to the birth of Bunker? Bunker is the fourth business that I founded, been part of multiple other ventures as a formal advisor. And during that time, we've generated well over a billion dollars of shareholder value. So when I give these ideas around, hey, doing good while doing well, and being a decent human being in today's market is an advantage. people want to work for companies that at least try to do well and treat people decently so i want to before i kind of segue to bunker john i want to give a little more context of i'm not here to be a charity i'm here to make money for the shareholders and i love building profitable businesses and i love having customers around the world and all these things and i just see these tools to get there.

17:59So in the COVID era here, and we had sold Fair Warning, multiple hundreds of millions. And that was at the end of 2019. And we're looking at what to do next. And it's a digital, you know, it's a, we're living digital lives. And what I noticed is that the tools that we use most commonly, which are email and text and social media messenger and cloud storage and password managers, not only were they, and I hadn't used any of these myself as much for a long time because I had staff around me. You know, after the business is gone, you're like, oh, wow, I have to do all this myself. And they were cumbersome and they frustrated me.

18:48And everything I went to do, like just finding an attachment, an email thread or printing out a document or getting spam or I was just so frustrated by it all. And worse, I was an undated with imposter kind of people, people that were trying to conduct fraud or, like I said, spam or different kinds of scams. You know, the Amazon package, fill this out because your Amazon package We need your credit card and let alone on social media. And it turns out, meaning those messengers, it turns out there's billions and billions of dollars of losses because these tools that we use are open to imposter attacks.

19:34And I had been involved in AI a lot and knew that these imposter attacks were going to get worse and worse. There were going to be video fakes. There was going to be voice fakes. the phishing attacks of how it won't be as simple as the Amazon package. And I'm just sitting here looking at it going, you know, listen, we just did a great thing in healthcare where we drove privacy, changed the industry, protected human life. I know we can do better than this collection of tools. So let's build a platform for people, families, entrepreneurs, people who have a lot to lose in their lives. And quite frankly, I turn to everyone, let's build a platform that has absolutely secure and private messaging while respecting the rules of the law so that criminals can't use it.

20:25And let's have secure cloud storage and let's put a password manager in place and all of the essential elements all working together in one seamless package that's hyper secure, but still easy to use that people could use around the world. and it took us a couple, two and a half years to build that. And as we've introduced it, we've got customers now in 29 different countries. It's been a very exciting journey to see the lives, the people that are using the product and to see the quality of people they are and how it's transforming their lives, making them more secure, making everything easy to travel, saving them time.

21:09And now we're in growth mode and we're in hiring mode. And that's the overall story, John. Fire Nation, the origin story of companies like these are always inspiring because what I wanted to do is plant a seed about what you can do to do good and make money in this world. And also surround yourself with other people who are having that same mindset. So Kurt, if you wanted to end with just one short, 30-second concise point you want to make to Fire Nation around the topic of doing good and making money, what would it be? 30 seconds, go. Big isn't always better. Two of the greatest businesses I've ever seen or been a part of are both just family businesses.

21:52One, XPT in Kauai, Hawaii, run by Laird and Gabby Hamilton. Small business, amazing impact. Another one is just a Michelin star restaurant, family owned in Florence, Italy. I'm so jealous of both those businesses and they are not big, but they're beautiful. Fire Nation, let that be inspiring for you And be inspired because you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with KL and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And Kurt, where do you want Fire Nation to go to connect with you, to learn more from you? What call to action do you have for our listeners today?

22:25The easiest is to find me on LinkedIn, CEO, Bunker, and entrepreneur philanthropist on LinkedIn. And that'd probably be the easiest. You can also visit our website at Bunker.life. It's a great product. I love it. I'm using myself all over the world. I've used it in probably 25 different countries myself personally. And that's B-U-N-K-R dot life. And Kurt, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Awesome. You're doing a lot of good in the world, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Kurt for sponsoring today's episode.

23:03In Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs are great at three things, productivity, discipline, focus. that's why I created the mastery journal so that you can master these three things productivity discipline focus in a hundred days and we're talking step by step so visit themasteryjournal.com and I'll catch you there or on the flip side sales evangelist hosted by my friend Donald Kelly is brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals each week Donald interviews the world's best sales experts successful sellers sales leaders and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now.

23:40A recent episode you should definitely check out is the five ways to do daily outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to Sales Evangelist 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 free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com.