How to Start Your Dream Without the Tools

0:00We are live with episode three of Simon Says. Why are we here? We want to help people dream. We want to help people find their dream and want to help people that have found their dream figure out how to make it happen. Now, there is also a little twist. Sometimes people think they know their dream and we're going to help make sure that it's really their dream. And this whole podcast is designed to try and help the people that have a dream, make it real, make it grow, make it go where they want it to go. But also for you to listen in and see how you can help, see how you can learn from the questions that people ask.

0:39Because quite often we don't know the questions to ask. We don't know what we don't know. So I'm hoping by you listening to people's dreams, you'll be inspired. But by listening to the questions and the answers, maybe it will also help you realize the questions you should be asking as well. and also you can contribute. Of course, you can contribute by sharing this podcast, by subscribing on Spotify to Simon Says, but you can also comment. We're reading the comments. If you have a thought or an insight or something to share that you think will help the dreamer, then say it in the comments wherever you're listening to this podcast and we'll try to share it if we think it's going to be valuable.

1:15If you want to be on the show, there is a link in my bio where you can sign up and call in. So we have four amazing callers today, all with really interesting dreams. And I hope today we can make a huge difference to their lives. I'm really excited to say we now have a sponsor, a company called High Level. They're an all-in-one platform funnel building. They help you automate your marketing and manage your leads. I know with all my heart, the number one way to make a business work is learn sales. And here's the exciting news. You don't even need to learn it anymore. Sales is a system like anything else.

1:54They didn't teach it at school. I think I know why. It is something that can set you free. It can help you. It can honestly help you figure out exactly where your business can go. Because if you can sell something to someone, then you know you've got what you call market fit. But if you can't sell something to someone, you know you haven't got a market fit. And being a good salesperson is just telling a story and then having tools like High Level to help you do it. So thank you to them for sponsoring us. Them sponsoring us also gives us a chance to not only produce a show like this, but also fund people's dreams.

2:30And so we're playing around. This is episode three, but we're looking at ways that we can maybe fund someone's dream on the show in the future, for example. Or the lives that you're running right now, people do give gifts to us to say thank you for the content that we make. And we're trying to figure out ways that we can instantly give that money that you gift on these lives to the dreamers that call in to this show. So, our first caller is Noah. Noah, how can I help you? And the first thing I'd like to ask people is, how much money have you got in the bank? In my savings account, I've got around$2 ,000.

3:08Okay, Noah, what's your question? How would you start building a fishing resort from scratch, including getting land, boats, cabins, and customers, especially if your parents want you to go to school instead and if I need a partner to make it happen how do I find the right one okay how old are you 16 16 wow I started my first business at 15 years old so I loved I love to have a young caller call in with a big ambitious project like that so that that's really cool um why is it important that this this resort happens what What is it that's driving you to want to do it? Because I love fishing and interacting with people who have the same interests as me.

3:53Okay. So, look, I often think with a big idea like your idea, it's a bit like looking at a mountain. You can see a big mountain in front of you, and the question you're asking is how to move that mountain. It's a good question, how to move that mountain. Now, the Chinese proverb that says you move a mountain by moving one small rock at a time. OK, so what we have to ask ourselves with your idea is like, what are the small rocks? One of the small rocks for me is literally like starting with a WhatsApp community of fishers. So people that fish, I'm sure you can see them when you're out fishing. You can see the.

4:33Hi, how are you doing? You say, look, I'm starting a resort. would you like to join my whatsapp group of you know fishing resort buddies and literally just try and build up 50 100 people in a whatsapp group now you might already be a part of some of these whatsapp groups yourself but you want to own one that you can control the messaging and so when you're thinking about building something as ambitious as you're building sometimes building up little bits first so you know get that whatsapp community built then look at how you can build out a pricing model for something like so for example you could go to an existing resort your competition someone that's doing something similar and you can interview the founders you can say how did they do it you can go do a podcast about how people have built fishing communities or fishing villages you can start a little podcast where you learn from those people and then people can hear your content and that money from the content that you generate could help you start at least being full-time focused on this by paying you a wage.

5:32I don't know what you're planning to do in your education, but I think the best education is life education. And if you've got an ambitious project like this, you want to go work in an organization that's doing something similar that maybe can teach you what you need to know. But I honestly think with this sort of idea, first step I would do is build a small community. And then if you managed to get a thousand people on a WhatsApp group, lots of investors would believe that you could start selling phishing products online. If you could start selling phishing products online and making money from it, then you start seeing multiple revenue streams, right?

6:05You've got your social media that's making money, you're making money from this community. You're then actually having a revenue stream to be able to build a resort and then maybe actually have customers come to that resort because you've got a community already. I think community build is the answer to most people's first step. And they don't want to do it because it requires a bit of effort, a bit of patience but if you've got no money and you're young i reckon that's that's the way to go um now you can build a big business plan and you can go and get an investor uh but i reckon uh that will take time and that will be hard i'm not saying you shouldn't do it i'm just saying um build the plan for sure but i i would personally start by doing these little steps yeah okay all right noah thanks thank you for calling i appreciate you good luck with it okay our next caller is harley harley how much money you got in the bank uh maybe a thousand pounds a thousand pounds okay tell me what's your question uh it's uh essentially have you ever dreamed of recording a podcast or a song in any location yes i'm doing it yeah so essentially my business idea is a mobile studio that's predominantly for music production but obviously able to cater for podcasting and things like that and the reason why i wanted to do it is because i live in london at the moment but i love cornwall and I'd love to record my music in Cornwall.

7:47So I was thinking maybe putting a whole studio inside a van and being able to drive anywhere at any time. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, thank you very much. So yeah, I've started buying equipment. We tested it in my friend's painter and decorator van. We managed to squeeze a lot of things in there. um but yeah the the issue at the moment i guess is not having uh professional level equipment just because of the level of entry there is of that to be able to offer people professional level recording at this stage sure okay so first of all my first ever microphone is actually in my background just here um and it was a hundred pounds so i had two thousand followers and a hundred pound microphone is how I launched what I've now got today 17 million followers half a billion views a month and you know it all started with a with a with a crappy microphone so it's just the way it is at the beginning and however if you write to the equipment makers and you say I'm launching a podcast um or I'm launching my music career would you please sponsor me or give me some equipment you'll be surprised how many people will respond with yes and it's certainly worth a go right i would no harm in trying and i would try if i was you um equally i think if you just show behind the scenes of the process of this happening you know you kitting out the van you getting the van i'm assuming you've got the van already right they're kitting it out making it nice you know that video those videos could do really well and then you can get the videos sponsored um you might even get like a van company that gives you a van later um and sponsors you to use their van like i think sponsorship is one of these things that not taught in school it's one of the easy ways to kind of start a business and get it going yeah no i totally agree uh it's not self-income particularly uh experienced with getting sponsorships or anything like that but um well it's not you don't don't don't self-sabotage yourself you don't need experience you know a lot of the time again like you just it's just systems most sponsorship is just sales okay and sales is easy your story that you just introduced to me if i had an equipment company i'd give you the equipment okay it's not sales as you see it it's not like a salesman you think is a car person you want to buy this car it's really nice it's you know goes fast i know i'm just going to sell you sell sell no sales is storytelling and you're telling a story about how you're going on this journey and you service the need that you had you want to do your music anywhere.

10:28Like that's all that you need to do is tell the brand that story. People have got confused about sales. Sales is not this bullet point, the reason they should buy. It's a story and you've got a story. So don't self-sabotage yourself by saying, I don't really know that world. It's easy. The big thing I think with sales is you've got to list out all the companies you can work with. So you need targets. And then again, this is why I'm really happy to have a that aligns with what I believe. So a high level is a sponsor of mine, a CRM program that's sponsoring this podcast. You put all the names and email addresses of those people in that system, and then you set up a regular way of communicating with those people, right?

11:07So, you know, lead management is part of what the service offers. But it's just, the way I look at it is like, sales is just permanently communicating in a way that doesn't annoy the brand. What you're doing, so that they one day go, you know what, we really want to do something a little bit different with our equipment. And maybe, oh, this kid keeps emailing about his idea. Why don't we back him and then promote him and support him? You'll be shocked how luck comes your way if you follow through. And then the other thing I'll quickly tell you that I learned myself at 15 starting a business was like you could get pre-bookings.

11:45So let's say you're going to be in Cornwall in August and you can always say Wednesdays and Fridays, you put a Google Calendar thing up and then people can book your van and you get them to prepay like a deposit, right? A hundred pounds or whatever it is. And then they can book your van. And again, you can get, I can see you getting 200 quid a week, 400 quid a week just by doing that. A Google Calendar doesn't cost you anything. Doing a little message out and asking friends to tell friends. There's a lot of people looking for recording studios and it's not that easy to find, especially in Cold War.

12:19So you might find you get some bookings and then you start having some regular money coming in from this traveling, you know, music van. I actually think you could be, and then you do content around it. I think it could be, I think it would be quite good. And the people that I do, they might have their own equipment they could bring as well. So not all the equipment has to fall on you, right? Like myself, I've done mobile podcasts. I have the equipment. I could put it in your van and use it, you know? It doesn't always have to be on you to provide the equipment. Okay, yeah, fine. And one thing I was thinking of is maybe targeting producers in sort of remote locations and saying you can bring your equipment into this van and we'll drive you to their clientele.

12:59Do it. Good idea. OK, awesome. All right. Try all of these things. Press all the buttons. Right. Don't waste time. How old are you? Twenty five. Twenty five. You know, like, have you got kids? No. Right. I wish someone when I was 25 told me this. Use every hour you've got spare because as you get older, it's going to be harder. It's going to be harder. You won't have as many spare hours as you have now. Use them all. Maximize it all. Less Netflix, more focus on getting what you want out of life set up. So you invest time now so you have time later and build your dreams. You don't have to go work for someone else.

13:44but you have to fight you're at the perfect fighting age you've got experience you're not a kid you know stuff and if you go fight now you do the hard thing now to have an easier life later and you can fight now it will be harder to fight later do the fighting now you get what I mean? I do, I do yeah go fight, go fight for your dream push it let's go All right. Good luck, man. Stay in touch. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, guys. Sometimes we're too laid back, you know, especially when we're young. I was intense when I was young. I'm so happy I was intense. I was intense because I had no choice, right?

14:30I had no choice. It's really powerful to have no choice. I had no plan B. I couldn't get a job. I had to make my business work. No one was ever going to pay me what I was worth. because they have no qualifications, I had to make my business work. You guys need to have that same fight, and it will work if you fight. Right, next up, Bruno, I believe. Bruno, welcome to the show. Tell us, how much have you got in your bank account? What's your question? So, currently, I have around$3 ,000 in my savings account. yeah okay all right bruno what's the question so my i think the question that i have now well i have many but um to being a founder and at the beginning like how can you manage everything when for example i'm at university currently finishing my last year and also working part time to finance, well, to put the money in the business.

15:43But how can you manage everything in the beginning? I think that's the main question. Okay, a couple of things. You've got to focus. Don't try and do so many things. Try and focus on what you're good at. I personally love having a co-founder. If I look at my career, I've built 19 companies. The businesses that have always done well, I've had co-founders. so I think it's quite important to understand like in school they teach you right do an exam sit down do it on your own you can't do it on your own get help so maybe have a think about what a co-founder could look like someone that could come in and help you I'd rather have 50 % of something that's successful than 100 % of something that burns out burns me out and I don't enjoy it so I would write down if I was you the things you don't like to do and then the perfect persona of what a co-founder looks like.

16:38Because I say to you, look out for red cars. You'll see red cars everywhere. You have to have a little bit of a target of who you're looking for. So that's one thing. The other thing is just say no to more things. Again, if I was younger, if I go back to my younger self, I would say say no to more things. Don't do too much. And make sure you're filling your own bucket first before you try and help everybody else. you know so yeah that's that's my quick advice bruno i hope it helps you yeah currently um i'm working uh with two friends of mine they are software engineers i think well i'm a lot in your lives i'm cya security i was also at the health bank event yeah and what i want to build is a platform of cyber security education where we can bring people and try to bring awareness and education for free and currently i'm more focused on building a community on discord and i'm building multiple things i don't have people yet joining because i was like making sure everything was ready and also making content for the people um and that's what i'm focused now also like last semester in my university i'm already working and doing my own project for my business So that's also something that is good.

18:20I built the cybersecurity assistant AI. And just yesterday, I put it on my Discord server. Great. Keep going, man. How old are you? I'm 23 now. 23. Yeah, look, keep going. I have seen you active in my Discord. And so you're networking. You've got an idea. Keep pushing. I see it happening. Just keep pushing. I would make your social media a bit more personal because I know you as CY Security. I've never seen Bruno anywhere. Now I know you're a human being. I actually think you should make your brand have a little bit more like who's behind it feeling. Because now I've seen you communicating a lot of time on my channel, but I've never heard your name before.

19:09But look, keep going, okay? Well done. Keep pushing. And I sense if you keep pushing, it will definitely work. don't stop. All right. So, yeah, I think, guys, listen, you've got to focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes I know it's easy to think I'm going to start two or three businesses, multiple streams of income. We all hear this guru jargon. It's not multiple streams of income. It's something you enjoy doing that makes you money. And then maybe as it works, the one focus works. You can invest in other things so try to do one thing well instead of trying to do 20 things and not so well and enjoy the journey you know like people aren't enjoying the journey enough so just dig in enjoy the journey and focus right uh i want to show you a clip uh this clip we're going to do a little reaction on it it's a great example of a young person starting something that's working so let's have a little listen i started a business that changed my life and i never expected this it all started with me building up a brand and packing orders on my bedroom floor just before school two years later i'm 15 and i've sold over 12 000 towels nationwide from elite athletes to menopausal women and even pets people are using cool towel to stay cool and comfortable every single day and it's actually making a difference i've had over 500 five-star of you and donating to big charities and last week i launched a fresh batch with new packaging and they're already flying every tower is packed by hand by either me my friends or my family because quality matters when your buildings aren't real so if you train over here easily or just love a clever invention now's your chance grab one before they're gone i've linked them in my tiktok shop okay what i love about this is that the entrepreneur tells a very personal story He shows the struggle.

21:02It's not a big fancy warehouse. It's not a big fancy car. He's not flexing his big fancy apartment. He's showing you what it's really like. I think we need more stories like this. Don't create content. Just document what you're doing. And I love it. I love to see honest stories. I mean, most people would listen to that and be like, oh, you can't pack by hand. You know, most people won't even start. They've got an investor that's going to give them, you know, the resources to make it happen. Nearly every single successful entrepreneur I know does things manually until they can do them automated.

21:36So I've invested in a water company in Tunbridge Wells called the World Tunbridge Wells Water. The founder of that business hand bottles the water. Now, I could have said to him, oh, this isn't going to scale. It's not automated. You know, he figures out his client market fit. He figures out who's going to buy his product. He works out his pricing. People start buying the product. Money solves all problems. So you don't need to have everything fancy from day one. And I want to make sure this message gets out to more people. So well done, Cool Tao. I love what you're doing. Great to see it. And keep showing people behind the scenes of what it's really like to be an entrepreneur because it's the journey that's the fun bit.

22:13Right. I just want to, again, thank our new sponsor, High Level. For those that don't know High Level, there's a link in my bio down below. You can use it for 30 days for free if you go use the link in my bio. It's an all-in-one platform, which I know a lot of people say this, but I use this product. I really believe it's good for funnel building, automation marketing, managing your leads. Sales is the secret to making a business work. And they don't teach you it in school. And in fact, somehow when I was at school, it made me think that sales was a negative thing, like a dirty thing. Sales is the answer to every single business.

22:49Every dream you have, if you can get sales, you can make it work. All you need to do is learn how to sell and then use tools like High Level to make it work. Okay? It is, to me, crazy how easy it is now, thanks to tools like High Level, to make your business work through sales. If you can sell one cool towel, as we just showed you in that video, then you can sell two and then you can sell three. And then that revenue comes in and you can buy even more product to sell even more product. Like, you only need to sell one T-shirt to build a billion-dollar company. You sell one T-shirt and it works.

23:24Then you can afford to buy two T-shirts and sell them and it works. Now you can afford to buy four T-shirts and sell them and it works. Sales is not a dirty word. It is how you unlock freedom in your life. So thank you to our sponsor, High Level, for providing a tool that lets people do sales. So next up, we have another caller and his name is Nikhil. Nikhil, are you there? and how much you got in the bank account and what's your question? Yeah, so I have$100 right now in my bank account. Okay. Well, other than that, my... Yeah, because I'm paying my college fees right now with my savings. Okay.

24:09Yeah. Well, my dream is to launch a manga and comic book publication company in India, basically. i'm from india and most of the publication companies out here are situated or located uh on the northern part of our country and the southern part of the country has no creative block regarding these comic books and manga or like the book publications and my dream is to like launch this launch a company where uh people could come like writers and illustration illustrators can come and like showcase their creativity and i just want to give them that creative reading freedom and by giving them royalties based like funding and payments and all so my dream is regarding that like to build up okay got it so just so you know i think on the shelf behind me here is the comic book that i launched in india i don't know if you know i launched a comic book in india did you know that?

25:15No, it's funny Okay, so if you google it I launched a comic book called Devashad in India it was based on the Mahabharata right, do you know the Mahabharata? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course Okay, so I launched it I lost 1 million US dollars it was a complete failure Okay, so by the way, I've learned the most in business when I failed so your call really resonates with me um and and so um first of all i think the whole idea of like creating ip in general you know what i mean by ip intellectual property that is that yeah so that that i think that's one of the things ai is not going to be able to disrupt because if you've created IP that people love, then you can use AI to animate.

26:08You can use AI to get the word out more of your IP, but your IP will be yours, your copyright, your protection, right? Brands like Disney will actually benefit from an AI world, okay? Because they'll be able to get their IP out to more people in more ways because of AI, right? So I actually think IP is a really good business, creating international property. I also think it's really interesting to support artists. so I learned a lot making that comic book and I realized there's four or five people needed for every comic book page yeah you need the story you need the illustration of the characters you then need painting of the characters you then need the typeface lettering on top so there's quite a lot involved in making a comic book I don't think people realize I'm assuming you know but um yeah but I think there's something really in it I would probably start off by creating a creator collective i'd probably get all the creators in a room and start having discussions about do they want to own their own comic book because most of them if they're good artists will be working for an existing company so you want to understand what their motivations are and would they like to own part of a company then you can all invest together in this new entity that's probably how i'd do it if i had no money that's a good idea yeah well we can do that so my goal was that because i am already working with a company population company it's from as i said it's from the northern part of my country and they do have 10 plus tight ips with them and they are doing a very good job like being bringing books and all but the thing is i just wanted uh because uh they had like they were bringing the books and all but they didn't give uh their artist a complete freedom uh creative freedom for uh writers or illustrators and i get it so of course well that's just the way it is though you know like stan lee who created spider-man i mean if you saw the videos towards the end these people get used that that's just the way it is you could change the industry i think that would be amazing i want to see you do it nikil go and do it and let me know how you get on stay in touch okay okay next up is abby abby are you there what's in your bank account what's your question i think abby is joining hello sorry no worries what's in your bank account abby and how can i help you um sorry i've got five grand in my bank account um my idea is it's called trash talk so it's a women's social group tackling loneliness through litter, community walks, cyber clubs, cultural skill sharing, really want to tackle waste and loneliness at the same time.

29:03So partner with local businesses, if they've got surplus ingredients, create fine dining experiences accessible to anyone from like regardless of income. Yeah, so I just sort of want to know what is the best way to sort of start something like that? and would you recommend a CIC? Okay, so I'm going to give you advice here. It doesn't mean I'm right, okay? But I'm not a fan of CICs. I think businesses that do good should be allowed to be profitable and not have to think about charity ticking box items, okay? I think that a for-profit business that does good can just stand on its own and be a limited company.

29:54I think the CIC is, for me anyway, your model, I think you can charge all sorts of ways to make money out of what you're doing and you can charge and help people. There's nothing wrong with it. Now, sometimes people want to do a charity structure because it makes it look better. It's like you are clearly trying to do something that helps people and helps the planet, right? You don't need a charity structure to prove that. You just need to do that. Okay, so for example, me, I thought about this five years ago as well. I thought, okay, I want to help people. I don't want to charge people for help.

30:27Maybe I'll do a charity. Okay, I'm so glad I didn't. I did a for-profit business that does good with the profit. You can do the same. If you start getting into the CIC structures, all sorts of rules, and I bought a staircase in Twickenham. I would never have been allowed in a charity structure easily to do things like that. right people like why are you wasting money on a staircase you know like forget it you know like just just there is a problem in society at the moment where people that do good somehow they're not allowed to earn any money and they've got to run it as a charity otherwise you're not really doing good it's not true you can do good and make profit and i think we need to i think we need to praise people like you that want to do good i want you to earn more money doing good than you are working in a business that doesn't do good, right?

31:17That's the way it should be. So I think I wouldn't worry about the CIC. I would just worry about what my business model is. And I think to start something like this, I think you're already doing it. Just by coming on this show, I mean, I'm just looking on my live now, there's about 3 ,000 people listening in. So you already have it. It's already happening. I also think Trash Talk is a really good name. So I would just check trademark, make sure you can own the name of your idea. Because I think Trash Talk, my guess is that's probably taken. So you need to have a little play around with the name.

31:47But go check. It's free trademark registration to check. It's free to register trademark in the UK. And one sector is about£300. So it's not huge money to go and do it. You've got a bit of savings by the sounds of it. So I'd probably invest step one in just getting my name owned and controlled and then get the social media handles for it. And then I think probably, you know, you can start off by just doing, you know mindfulness runs or you know just a few community activities um i'm assuming you've got a job right now yes i do yeah yeah okay so you know just just build up slowly maybe just do a few community things if you can do one or two community things a week and still have a job and then you start to see the membership base build up maybe there's a moment where you can say to the thousand members hey look guys would you all be willing to put 10 pounds a month in the middle so i could do this full-time and you know and activate more things for you and do more activities for us and save the planet more you know like i think you can build it up slowly by building some community activities and community groups um but i like the vibe i like the idea of linking trash and cleaning the planet to like that whole mental health support ecosystem i think i think there's something really fun in that um so i'm quite excited about it abby well done

33:10okay right uh

33:16we're gonna now have our last caller for today um kieran kieran are you there and tell us how much is in your bank so i can make my advice relatable to your financial situation and what What is your question?

33:41All right. Kieran, can you hear last chance? Otherwise we'll move on.

33:50All right. It looks like Kieran is not there. So guys, I'm just going to close today's show by just highlighting a few things. I think it's important when thinking about your dream to think about things not as this massive mountain of an idea that you're trying to make happen, but more as a step by step process. Sometimes to build a tech company, you first have to start by washing some cars and maybe think about things not in your ideal business from day one. But where can you start that can allow you to be free from working from someone else? I often think that's in the service business, building a service company.

34:32Something initially that you own, that you can build up, that you control and hopefully frees up some of your time to work on that big idea. What I'm seeing way too often is people want to launch a tech company from day one, and they've watched too much Dragon's Den and have got confused about how business works. It's not here's an idea, give me a load of money. It's here's an idea, but step one is probably nothing to do with the actual idea. So, for example, Airbnb, a multi-billion dollar company you all know today, you know how they made their first income? what their first income was. It was selling cereal boxes at an Obama rally.