Furkat Kasimov on Why Most Businesses Fail (And What to Do Instead) | S2 Ep. 182

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder Story. Today we have Furcat Kazimov and Furcat you are a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience. And I can't wait to extract 20 years of experience today into this conversation because I'm sure we're going to learn a ton. And we love when the audience can take some really good practical strategies away. I know you are the author of a book called Don't Do This, A Guide to Business Survival, which I love that. Businesses, as we know do not survive most of the time. So the fact that you are helping them says a lot about you. So let's start off with going back in your history.

0:47So why did you 20 years ago become an entrepreneur? Thank you for having me, Dan. Well, many years ago, I always wanted to do some sort of business because I believe that I have the skills necessary to build something. And, you know, I knew that I'm not a scientist. I knew that I'm not going to be a doctor, but I knew that business is something that I really like and I'm really good at. So I tried many, many different things. Unfortunately, a lot of them failed. And I include a lot of my past failures into this book. And I think this is true of a lot of businesses. Many entrepreneurs try one thing that fails.

1:32They try another one until they succeed at something. So I had a lot of success, but I also had a lot of failure. I can relate. I have half a dozen to maybe 10 failures in my lifetime where ideas just never went to fruition. So when you go look at failure to success, what is something that makes the difference? I think for a lot of startups, one thing that makes a big difference is to learn from other people's mistakes. Because that journey is not something new. Many people have built companies, they already made mistakes, and you can learn from them. You don't have to repeat them. You can learn from other people's mistakes.

2:22So do that. That's much better. Isn't it amazing how entrepreneurs can sometimes be stubborn, even though they find out the mistakes of others, yet they still continue in that path? So you, over the last 20 years, what has helped you break down the barrier of understanding? I'm going to learn from other people. Was it a mentor? Was it books that you read? What was it for you that really broke it down where you were like comfortable enough to say, OK, I need help and this is OK? Well, it starts out from looking inside and saying, you know, I'm not good at everything. I don't understand everything.

3:05So let me learn from somebody who's done this. Maybe it's an advisor. Maybe it's a consultant. Maybe it's another entrepreneur who gives a lecture or does an interview or a podcast and shares their experience. And to me, it's not necessarily that I'm not going to have the same mistakes. But if I learn how they dealt with it, how they dealt with those difficulties, maybe my experience is not going to be as difficult. because I will know how somebody else dealt with it and I can deal with it too. You see, business mistakes is not something that you can necessarily avoid. No matter how smart you are, how good you are, these mistakes will happen.

3:53It's how you come up against those challenges. That's what makes a difference. So what is a challenge for you that you overcame that looking back, you're like, wow, I did it? I think one of the most common challenges that a lot of companies have is bad communication with their team members. And one of the things we did is we hired a communications coach to help us work around those differences. And one trick that I learned from him is to ask my team member, can you please explain to me what I just told you? And it was just astonishing to me to learn that I believe I communicated A, but that person understood B.

4:40So there's a big disconnect. So just asking that person to communicate back what they understood made a whole lot of difference and avoided a lot of mistakes that were happening. It's very hard to see the mistakes that you're making, right, from the outside. I'm with you. It's really great and super beneficial to have somebody see those because how we think we're doing the right way. But when somebody else watches, it's amazing what they see. There's so much advice out there. So many people that have had success or that act like they had success. Maybe they did not because anyone online can say or teach anything.

5:22What is some advice that you hear that you're like, I don't really like this advice. or it's just something you don't agree with? I think a lot of advice out there is very generic. And they would be like, well, you have to have a differentiating strategy. I don't necessarily agree with that. It's possible that two companies pursue exactly the same strategy and one just has better execution than the other one. So I don't necessarily believe that a lot of the generic advice makes sense. Because even if you don't diversify, even if you just have one revenue stream, you know, you get criticized. Well, you have all of your eggs in one basket.

6:13Well, that's fine. Just watch the basket. So my advice is don't necessarily look at the generic advice. See what works for your business. Sounds like it's not a one size fits all because it's very dependent on the person and the business that they're in. Maybe the industry, there's a lot of factors involved. So thank you for sharing that. I really like that. I really, really like that answer because it is so true. Most advice is very generic or general. And it really, and there's many people that have done against that advice that have success. And there's people that haven't had success that follow that advice.

6:51So when you see a company starting out and maybe they hit three, four, five, six years, what did they do in order to sustain and grow for that long? Well, one of my companies has been in business for 14 years. And I think one of the most important things is to actually have a vision, to have a plan. Many companies start without a business plan. And the problem with that is they don't think through, what does this company look like in five years? What is our vision? And they just work day to day. They have a lot of grind. They have a lot of problems they're solving. But they don't have that North Star.

7:36So having a North Star, having that vision, where you're going, is really helpful. Because everything you do has to get you closer to that vision. What do you tell startups when they're like, I'm solving this problem. I think this is my customer, but I don't know how to come up with that North Star. Is there something, an exercise or something that you find works in order for people to do that? Because I agree with you. I think a lot of people start, but it can be hard for some people to come up with a clear vision. What you're probably referring to is that a lot of companies struggle to get a product market fit, meaning what they're offering is not really getting that attention from their potential customers.

8:26So maybe they're offering something that their customers don't want. Their customers might want something else. And the problem with that is that sometimes you have to tweak your product. You would have to go to some potential customers and say, hey, do you want to become my design partner? Come help me build something that makes sense for you. And that will probably make sense to other companies like you. So by enlisting help of design partners, maybe you give them your product for free or you give them a very good discount. They will help you improve your product or your service. so it fits their needs.

9:10And then others are going to say, well, that company is using it. I do the same thing as that company. Maybe I should be using it too. So having design partners, I think is very important. I'm curious when you're digging into that, and I appreciate that, the go-to-market strategy. When you're looking at creating a service and creating a good price point, what do you do or what have you done in the past? Because I think a lot of people like you were talking earlier about, they figure out something that they can solve, but they don't really have the service or product yet because they don't really even know what people, like how much they'll pay or what exactly is it?

9:53How do you formulate that? How have you formulated that in the past? So one of the things I've done is I called a lot of potential customers and I said, tell me about your problems. And it was surprising to me how many CEOs or big executives at very large Fortune 500 companies would accept that call and they would just spend an hour telling me about their problems. And to me, what that told me is that they're struggling. if somebody comes in and fixes this, it's going to be a good business for somebody. And I think if you don't know yet, go and interview potential customers. Ask them, what is your problem?

10:41How can I help you? What do you need help with? If I do something for you that solves your problem, how much would you pay for that? Thank you for sharing that. That is something that even I have struggled with. Even today, there are products or services that we offer. And I think, I don't know if my price is right. I don't know if it's even solving the exact problem. I love the idea. It's so simple to call people, get on the phone and talk to people, even though we're trying to think about what they're thinking. But that's such an easy and simple strategy that you don't have to spend money on.

11:17So thank you for sharing that. You've got the success of decades of experience. You're looking at, you know, you've solved problems. You've helped maybe thousands of people. You've made money for yourself. You're having a comfortable life. And then all of a sudden you think, I need to write a book. And I'm currently writing a book myself. And sometimes I want to quit writing this book. But I know I have to push through it. So what do you hope? We've talked to a lot of people that have written books. What do you hope to get out of writing a book? and how do you see this benefiting you besides a monetary value?

11:56Well, that's a great question. See, for the last 20 years, I have discovered so many minefields on this road to the gold at the end of the rainbow. And I know how to get to the gold at the end of the rainbow by starting a business, growing a business, scaling a business. And I wanted to give this map so other startups can avoid these minefields and just have a better journey. To me, if I can do something for small businesses, for startups, or for medium businesses that can solve their problems, help them survive, like if more small businesses survive, higher people, I think we'll have job growth, the society will be better off.

12:49And to me, whatever money I make from the book, I'm just going to invest it as an angel investor back to those startups. So it's just having this ecosystem keep going, growing, so other companies succeed and people get jobs and the society will be better off. That's the idea. Hey, that's the first time I've ever heard of that. So that's very creative. I really like that idea of the giving back. My last question for you is around AI. what are you currently doing or what are maybe the companies that you're helping, what are they doing when it comes to leveraging AI to benefit them in business? Well, I'm currently building a company in stealth mode that is going to use AI to help companies with marketing.

13:43And it's in the development stage right now. I have the architecture ready. I have some of the designs ready just being developed as we speak. I think what companies need to understand is that AI is here to help you. It's a digital worker. And don't be afraid to invite AI to your meetings and ask AI questions. What would you do? You're going to get very surprising answers that maybe your team members cannot come up with. And sometimes those are good suggestions. Sometimes they're not, but they're just your team member, just like everybody else. So having an AI to get creative, to improve your efficiency is going to help your business.

14:31So I think it's important that everybody realizes that and treats AI just like they would treat an outside consultant. consultant and invite them to your meeting table and have somebody there, you know, who would write a question to your AI or ask AI. And then everybody listens to the response and says, well, that's interesting. We didn't think of that. I got to say, most, whether it's ChatGBT, Claw, Gemini, any of those, way smarter than I am, way better ideas than I come up with. So yes, they are the greatest digital employees that I've ever had. So I am really appreciative of your time. By the way, I can't wait to read the book.

15:15I hope a lot of people buy this book so you can then reinvest into other companies on top of the impact that you're having. I can tell you're passionate about that. So if people want to find the book, they want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more information, how can they do so? Well, this is very easy. All they have to do is they have to go to, don't do it. dot AI. And there's a link there to Amazon and some of the other platforms where they can buy the ebook or the paper pack version of it. And I just want to tell everybody that if you buy the book, you like it, give it to your friend.

15:55So, you know, they can learn from it as well. And just spread it. Don't do this dot AI. Best URL. Love the book website, by the way. I can tell that you know what you are doing when it comes to branding and marketing and business building and scaling and over 20 years of experience. But Furcat, this has been great. Thank you so much for joining us today. All the takeaways. I know I'm going to go implement some stuff right now. Things that we talked about. And I'm really inspired to now go and help others as well. So thank you for joining us today on FounderStory. Thank you, Dan. Thank you for having me.