The One Thing You Need Before You Start a Business

0:00Alex Chisnall:What stops founders from building something meaningful isn't the lack of ideas, it's the fear of getting started. I'm Alex Chisnall and this is Screw It Just Do It, a podcast for people who are ready to stop waiting, take action and make things happen. It's a huge amount of problems that need solving in the world, so it's the greatest time ever to be a nut. What we're going through at the moment is the end of the industrial age and the beginning of the digital age that includes AI. What was the one thing you needed to enable you to screw it, just do it and take you from where you were to where you currently are right now?

0:35I needed to work for an entrepreneur and I needed to be the shadow of an entrepreneur. Then I needed a credit card. I started all my businesses on a credit card. I needed sales skills. I needed to do relentless amounts of selling. Are you currently where you want to be? I'm playing with house money.

0:52Alex Chisnall:Before we get into today's conversation, this is genuinely relevant for a lot of founders listening. Are you running a business that pays supplies abroad, receives international payments, or operates across borders? World First helps founders manage global payments and FX more efficiently with access to competitive exchange rates and tools designed specifically for growing businesses. World First have given us an exclusive offer for podcast listeners to get 50 transactions completely fee-free for 60 days. Head to worldfirst.com forward slash screw it to create a free account and claim now. Now let's jump into the main conversation.

1:28Alex Chisnall:What are you most passionate about right now, like midway through 2024? So my passion hasn't really changed. I really believe entrepreneurship is what's going on in the world. Can I answer this properly, like a decent? Yeah, 100%. So Adam Smith created the four factors of prosperity, the four factors of output, economic output. And he said you need land, labor, capital, and enterprise. So those are the four factors of production. So the agricultural age was land meant everything, and it didn't really matter about labor, capital, or enterprise unless you had land. So the relative importance of land was huge compared to the other three.

2:11Then technology changed things, and we had a massive depreciation of the value of land. It didn't matter. You didn't need much land. You needed enough land for a factory. But now you needed labor. You had to have people and you needed capital to build the factory. So ultimately, we didn't need land. We didn't need much enterprise. We needed capital to create a factory and we needed labor to staff the factory. Two systems emerged, socialism and capitalism. Capitalism argues that capital is more important than labor and should get the majority of the benefits. And socialism says labor is more important than capital and should get the majority of the benefits.

2:50And we fought multiple wars over this question. Yeah. Right. So so that that was the industrial age, labouring capital. Technology came along and changed things digital and it democratised business. And it meant that anyone could have a global audience. And actually, what it means is that you don't need a lot of capital to start a business. It once used to cost millions to start a business. Now you start a business with next to nothing. And you also don't need a lot of people. You don't need one hundred and fifty people to start a factory. You need four of you to make a few YouTube videos and sell some stuff on some websites.

3:23so what we saw is now we don't need land now we don't need capital now we don't need labor but we need lots and lots of enterprise right now the problem that we're going through is that the schooling system was designed to teach you how to become labor right so it was basically how to think of yourself as a unit of labor and that's the whole the schooling system is a factory to produce factory workers now what's going on is the world doesn't need factory workers we need entrepreneurs so the thing i'm most passionate about is we're going through this massive shift where everyone has to become an entrepreneur everyone has to have entrepreneurial spirit join an entrepreneurial team that's what the economy wants and needs right now so i'm super excited by a that trend be the technology that underpins that trend like ai and digital and all of that sort of stuff and kind of trying to teach people and educate people and share the story of This is what's happening in the world.

4:20And it explains all the arguments and it explains why governments are broke. And it explains why people are hating on the rich people and why there's capital bubbles, you know, money just piling up in places because we don't know what to do with it. And why people who have great degrees can't get jobs. Right. All of that gets explained when you realize how the economy has shifted towards the fourth factor of production, which is enterprise. So I know that's a weird thing to be passionate about. Yeah. But that's what I'm passionate about.

4:49Alex Chisnall:What do you think? Again, I think a mutual friend of ours, Mr. Simon Squibb, what do you think about what Simon's doing? Yeah, Simon's great. He's an amazing entrepreneur and he built and sold a company. And as what happens with most people after they build and sell a company, you kind of think, well, what's my purpose? What's my next thing? He found TikTok. Do you have a dream? What do you want to do? He wants to encourage people to do entrepreneurship. we would disagree on a few things um so simon and i disagree and we should simon and i should you should facilitate a debate between the two i'd love to uh i don't believe that everyone needs to be a founder and i certainly don't believe that people who are struggling to pay the bills should go off and be a founder yeah and i'm with you on that and i've got a few comments on his LinkedIn and stuff like that.

5:39Alex Chisnall:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm, and these are slight disagreements. Yeah, yeah. Wholesale, like big picture, I agree with Simon. Yeah. Small scale, I think if you're struggling, you should join a founder's team. You should work for a founder. You should be part of, you should do everything you can to be a direct report to a founder. I also don't necessarily believe in everything should be free. Okay, great. If you sold a business for tens of millions, but ultimately the idea that every piece of education and training should be free there should be a there's definitely should that there's free has a place and youtube is full of free yeah but also there are things that are worth investing into and that's not bad i personally wouldn't be interested in free i'm interested in stuff that i can pay extra for that is is exclusive and nuanced and yeah you know i'm happy to pay i've got a business coach and i pay $1 ,500 a session to sit down and talk to someone who knows more than I do.

6:40So I'm not angry because it's$1 ,500 a session. I'm a capitalist. He's a capitalist. He wants to get paid. I'm happy to pay. So nothing wrong with that.

6:50Alex Chisnall:No, and I agree. I saw a few of that. And I agree with what he's trying to do. And I think he's fantastic at what he does. He's great. But when I saw those bits around calling out like Richard Branson and Stephen Bartler, I was like, I don't agree with that. I think that's because Simon is a bit of an attention whore. He likes the attention. He loves a bit of debate. I'm happy for him to see this. But spammy. He loves, if I can hijack attention, because he's such a great entrepreneur. Yeah. He knows how to kick doors off hinges, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what he's doing. He's kicking doors down.

7:29He's getting noticed. You're talking about it. I'm talking about it. There you go. Ultimately, he wins.

7:34Alex Chisnall:He does. Ultimately, he wins. And I want him to win. He's great. Yeah, same, same. I took us on a detour then, but I'll bring it back. Quick fire rounds. What did you need? What was the one thing you needed to enable you to screw it, just do it and take you from where you were to where you currently are right now? Initially, I needed a mentor. I needed to work for an entrepreneur. and I needed to be the shadow of an entrepreneur. Then I needed a credit card. I started all my businesses on a credit card. You know, a little bit of capital, a little bit of funding. High risk, but that's, you know, I just needed that little bit there.

8:13I needed sales skills. I needed to do relentless amounts of selling to build my sales confidence and sales skills. Couldn't have done it without sales skills. Okay. Yeah. and are you currently where you want to be? Beyond, you know, like I'm, I live in my dream home. I've got three healthy kids. I've got a lovely, gorgeous wife. I've got a fluffy cat that is great for no stress. I travel the world. You know, I'm playing with casino chips now. Like I'm playing with house money. So like I'm having a good time. You know, does that mean that I have no ambition? No, I've got more ambition than ever.

8:55but I'm so grateful like had I been born in any other time you know 80 years ago it was a D-Day you know those 15 year olds on the boats you know they just born at a particular time where that was what they had to do so I'm just grateful for everything I'm born at a particular time where I can be an entrepreneur it's what I'm good at if I was born at another time I'd have to be on a farm. Yeah, yeah, true. Yeah, yeah. I'd probably be some dog's body for a lord.

9:30Alex Chisnall:Right? In the medieval age. Yeah. What do you think, looking back, was the big domino that knocked over all the other dominoes? If you hadn't taken that one action, nothing else that's happened? You know, it's weird that everyone always asks me about my relationship with John. So 19 years old. John probably barely remembers the time he's... Because I've had young guys work for me who have come up to me later and gone, you know, it was incredible working with you. And I've gone and started. I've had a dozen people go off and start seven figure businesses. And to be honest, I've had people who've worked for me and I've not really remembered a lot about it because I'm building a team.

10:08John probably doesn't think a lot about what happened, you know, his experience with having me on the team. But I think a lot about the fact that I had a mentor at that time. Yeah. um you know so if we go back to first domino yeah i think having having that experience of going from zero to six million i think we did in our first two years or in year two we did six million so i think it was like zero to a few million and then you know maybe it was might have been zero to two million two million to six million it was like pretty fast growth so doing that with john and being his shadow for two years that probably was like a big big first mover but that was built on doing my first, he only hired me because he saw me do the nightclub parties.

10:50And he said, well, if you can do those nightclub parties, you can come and join the team. You know, that was the, that was the thing. So that was a first domino.

10:57Alex Chisnall:Okay. You know, and I did the nightclub parties. I've got my confidence up because I worked at McDonald's, you know, working at McDonald's on $3.25 an hour. Um, you know, it gave me the confidence as a 15 year old to be running a multi-million dollar restaurant um you know we used to do five thousand dollars every half hour in the lunch rush no way yeah and i was production i was on production right so i'm 15 years old i was a crew trainer calling so i built my confidence at mcdonald's um you know i then worked behind a bar a cool bar that gave me a bit of confidence then i did my nightclub parties yeah you know and then I got a job with John and then I started my own company.