144: Evolution of the Entrepreneur - Should You Turn Passion Into a Career?

28:30Nick Bare:and you have to be very honest with yourself. And you can't try to convince yourself that you want to do something that you really might not want to. For example, if someone told you, hey, before you start this business, I know you're, let's, for example, say that we're back in 2012. And I'm living this lifestyle. I'm watching these bodybuilding motivational videos. I'm skipping class to go to the gym, eating every three hours, chicken, rice, broccoli, all of the things, just living the life, living the gym rat life. And I make the decision to turn it into a business, my work, my future career.

29:23Nick Bare:And if a mentor would have pulled me aside and said, I see what you're doing but let me just ask you a question I see you have this passion around the lifestyle and you are lit up with what you are doing, what you're learning how you're training, how you're eating but I want to just give you a piece of advice if you turn this into your work right now will you be okay in two years, three years, five years 10 years, that by making this decision to turn your passion into your work, 10 years from now, you might not be able to be living the lifestyle that you live now because the work has evolved and transformed into something different.

30:17Your passion is now your livelihood. do you have a different relationship with that passion and if someone would have approached me back then I would have said yeah no it's all good I'll figure this out I'm not thinking 2, 3, 5, 10 years in the future and I think that requires a level

30:41Nick Bare:of self-awareness that many of us aren't willing to explore or really think about because that's the reality of it. For many people who start a business or pursue a career as a whole, if you're fortunate enough, you're pursuing that career, you're starting that business because you love something about it. Whether that's being a doctor or a lawyer or you build homes or you run sales training, whatever it is, chances are you're pursuing that as a career because you found something you love at some point.

31:32But will you be okay with turning what you love into your work? Or there's a chance that it's not your passion anymore because you're not doing it just because you get the choice to, but because you have to.

31:50Nick Bare:That's a really hard question to have to ask yourself. And that's honestly what has sparked this entire podcast and discussion. Because what I found is the passion doesn't have to die, but it's probably going to, in 99 % of the cases, going to evolve. And you have to be okay and willing to adapt with that evolution to keep the passion burning hot. The passion is going to look different. I mean, I'm not living the bodybuilding lifestyle in 2025. I'm not skipping work and I'm not skipping nights out with my family to go to the gym. and I'm not carrying a gallon jug around every day and I'm not eating chicken rice and broccoli every three hours.

32:47Nick Bare:I'm not watching bodybuilding YouTube videos and I'm not on these bodybuilding.com forums anymore.

32:58I'm grateful that my passion that started in 2012

33:04Nick Bare:is still similar and it is the foundation for what I'm doing today. But there's been a huge evolution in the process. As I was thinking about this, I couldn't help but think back to a few months ago, maybe over a year ago now, I had Jordan Syed on the podcast. And I love Jordan. I love what he does in the health and fitness performance space. And he walked into our HQ, which was our old HQ, our old office building at the time before we moved into this new one. And he was looking around and he's like, dude, this is amazing. I love this. I'm so proud of you. But I would never want this for myself.

33:55He's like, I don't want to have to manage all of these people and have the responsibility. And I don't want my passion to turn into this thing that I have to manage and adapt to and evolve. I want to keep the thing that I'm doing that I'm so passionate about at the scale it is right now

34:22Nick Bare:so I can manage that and I still love it forever. And I respected that perspective and that opinion and that he shared that with me. because we all get the choice to

34:39turn our passions into what they become.

34:44Nick Bare:Do we keep them at the scale? And I don't want to say small, but do we keep them at the scale that is manageable

34:52and familiar and comfortable? Or do we take the chance and turn that passion into something of much larger scale with the chances that the passion, which is so fiery hot, might burn out because you're not able to dedicate your time to the actual passion anymore because of what is required through the process. So that's stage one.

35:25Nick Bare:I think whether you're an entrepreneur or you're pursuing a career, In many cases, not all cases, but many cases, it starts with a passion. Now, stage two is titled From Passion to Process. And I would say that this started in 2016, four years after starting the business. And the first couple of years of my entrepreneurial journey were interesting because, as I mentioned, I started BPM in 2012. I graduated college in 2013, commissioned in the U.S. Army, went right to Fort Benning, Georgia for a year of training. Then from Fort Benning, Georgia to Fort Hood, Texas, took over a platoon as an infantry platoon leader, which was a very demanding and full job.

36:21So I was building the business in my free time, before work, after work. And this was primarily through social media

36:32Nick Bare:and documenting my journey of building BPN and my training and nutrition and experience with the military. And then when I got stationed in South Korea for a nine-month training rotation in 2016, this is where stage two really started to evolve. And this is where I learned that your profession, what you turn into work, might start stealing time away from what was once your passion. Because that passion now turns into a process. And I realized that in the first three, almost four years of starting BPN, things weren't changing. I wasn't willing to adapt. I didn't prioritize the process because I was so obsessed with the passion that I was dedicating my time, my energy, my resources to the passion, as opposed to the process of building the business.

37:49Nick Bare:And then when that changed and I made the decision, I'm going to dedicate now my time, energy, and resources into building the business, there was a cost to that. And that cost was that I couldn't spend as much time living the lifestyle of what I was once so passionate about. but what i discovered through this is that that passion for the lifestyle that passion for the gym that passion for the meals every three hours that passion for the bodybuilding motivational videos all of those things it didn't die it just started to expand and evolve. And it evolved into falling in love with the process of building the business, which I didn't think that I was going to love initially.

38:51To be honest, I thought the business was going to build itself, which I was so poorly mistaken.

39:02And this might be a temporary or poor, permanent experience. What I mean by that is

39:16for an entrepreneurial journey, there's so many different ways to build a business. One of my favorite quotes is, the concepts are few, but the methods are many. There are many different methods to build a business.

39:33Nick Bare:And from a founder, I've had friends who have founded businesses and some have taken one route, some have taken the other route. But for many of the friends and founders who have started businesses, it started in stage one. It was this passion that was fiery hot. And then you get to a point where you realize that the process is more demanding and it's pulling me out of what I'm so passionate about. So I've had friend founders who, go route one, which is they double down on being the operator of that business. They get into the weeds. They embrace the process and learn how to scale the business.

40:19Nick Bare:That's route one. Route two is that they want to be completely hands-off and they go either sell that business or they hire people or delegate all the responsibilities of operating and building the business. So they can just keep living the lifestyle and someone else builds the business alongside of them. There's not a right or wrong answer. There's just two different routes. And that's why I say that feeling of the passion pulling you more towards the process, that can either be temporary or permanent. It's temporary if you offload and delegate all the business responsibilities to someone else.

41:04Nick Bare:it's permanent if you make the decision to operate the business and be involved in the process. So this is a pivotal point, a crucial point for many founders and entrepreneurs. How involved do you want to be in the day-to-day operations of the business, which might pull you away from the reason you started it in the first place? But in my case, I fell in love with the process. I I fell in love with learning how to tell stories and build brand and code websites. I fell in love more with that than I was in love with the bodybuilding lifestyle that I embraced in 2012 when I first started BPN. In 2016, I embraced the process and I fell in love with it.

42:07The passion had evolved. Like I said, it went from passion to process. So here I am, 2016, stationed Camp Casey, South Korea. And I'm sitting in my barracks room one night

42:28Nick Bare:and I'm just thinking this was right when I got there. I knew I was going to be transitioning out of the military the following year, 2017. I had a four-year active duty army contract and I had a decision to make. If I was going to transition out of the military in one year, BPN was not large enough at the time for me to live off of. I couldn't sustain a living off of it. We were generating$2 ,000 a month in revenue at the beginning of 2016. So I had a choice as I was sitting in that barracks room on my bed in South Korea in 2016. Do I double down in the process and turn this business into something that will be something?

43:24Or do I let it die and then post army career and exit, go find a new job. Just find something different, something new.

43:39Nick Bare:And I decided to double down on BPN. And the goal was by the time I left South Korea on this nine month training rotation, my goal was to go from doing$2 ,000 a month in revenue to$10 ,000 a month in revenue. And we did that within the first 90 days.

44:03And I fell in love with that process in the first 90 days. Some of the things I did

44:15was dedicate a lot of time

44:17Nick Bare:to learning how to tell stories and document my life on YouTube. and I learned this primarily from watching Casey Neistat YouTube videos. Every night, I'd sit in my barracks room, and for the few people who placed orders that day, I would write handwritten thank you notes in my barracks room. I'd put their name there, what they ordered. I'd thank them. I'd add a little note there. I'd lick the seal. I'd put it in an envelope, put a few stamps on it, and then drop it off the next morning and send those back to the States or from wherever they ordered. But I'd do that every night for months, every order that was placed.

45:06Nick Bare:I worked with my manufacturing team and we got samples made. And I got those samples shipped to me in South Korea. And then I would ask people online who wants a free sample. hundreds of people would send me emails asking for free samples so at night again i'd package up these free samples which were just individual trial sizes of our pre-workout flight i put it in an envelope i'd lick the seal put a few stamps on it drop it off at the post office the next morning on post. And it would take sometimes weeks for these people to receive their thank you notes or their samples. But I was doing this every night.

45:57Nick Bare:And I was learning how to test different functions and features and appearances on our website. I taught myself how to code parts of the website. I just realized that if I wanted this to become something, I had to take the action and adapt to what was required to continue building this business into something that could be of worth some value. And at a bare minimum, I could sustain a living off of. And that's what happened in the first 90 days because I fell in love with the process. Truly. I mean, I'd be leaving work in the evenings and going back to my barracks room and I could feel this fire inside of me.

46:57Nick Bare:I mean, I couldn't get to my barracks room fast enough, throw my shoes off, jump onto my bed, pull my laptop out, start working on the website, responding to customer service emails, editing a YouTube video. I mean, just like a fire lit up inside me, which was so different from the fire that initially kickstarted the idea of VPN in 2012. So stage two is from passion to process. That passion started to evolve from the lifestyle, the idea, the concepts to the process of building something. Stage three, I have titled as momentum makes it real. And this would be the back half of 2016, but especially going into 2017.

48:06Before we started gaining momentum, I say we, it was really just me until my brother Preston and Joe joined me late 2016, going into 2017. when I didn't have any momentum from 2012 to early 2016, this first four years, the stakes were low. There wasn't really much or anything to lose. And when you don't have much to lose, it doesn't necessarily feel real. I was fortunate in a sense that I was in the army full-time.

48:53Nick Bare:I was getting paid a good salary from the military and I was building the business on the side with my free time. There wasn't much free time, but the little free time I had, I was building VPN. So I didn't need VPN to succeed or crush it. I didn't require momentum in this first four years. Really, those first four years allowed me to test and experiment and just try different things. See what's resonating with people. See what worked. Really just be a student. The first four years of my entrepreneurial journey was being a student in preparation for the transition out of the military 2017. but once we finally started gaining momentum, you know, when we went from doing$2 ,000 a month in revenue to$10 ,000 a month in revenue, that momentum made it real because there was then something to lose.

50:03That got me excited, but there was also a level of pressure that's put on you then. Your back is pressed up against the wall.

50:18and there's this responsibility to maintain. You don't want to lose the momentum once you experience it, once you gain it. And when I think about it, and that realization, for almost the last 10 years now, it has been a fight to maintain the momentum. that's what makes this entrepreneurial journey so exciting.

50:54Nick Bare:That's what makes it go so fast. It's also what makes it so scary and intimidating and stressful is that once you have that momentum, which makes it all real, it is now something. It is a thing. You then have to maintain and gain more momentum. the stakes are higher the risks are larger but there's also bigger risks 2017 was the first year that we generated seven figures in revenue that was organically that was without paid advertising but one of the reasons that that momentum made it so real is because the responsibility was now greater not just for myself. Part of it was for myself. You know, I transitioned out of the military so I didn't have that steady military salary any longer.

51:56Nick Bare:But during those two years, 2016, 2017, we as a business made some big moves. One of those was my brother Preston quit his job in Pennsylvania, moved down to Texas. And I told him I couldn't pay him. And he said, okay, that's fine. And then our friend Joe picked up and left Pennsylvania and moved down to Texas and joined us. So it was me, Preston, and Joe living in a house together as I was transitioning out of the military, building BPN. We had this momentum and I felt this responsibility for those guys. That responsibility was heavy. And I felt it every single day. And I could not let my foot off the gas because it wasn't just me anymore.

52:49Nick Bare:It was those guys. And I was responsible for them. And then we signed our first warehouse lease, which put more pressure on us. and what I've learned through that process is sometimes the best way to maintain and gain momentum is to find ways and opportunities to put pressure on yourself now if I think back to it if I wasn't going to transition out of the military I probably wouldn't have had the pressure on me to fight to survive. If Preston and Joe didn't move from Pennsylvania to Texas to work alongside of me for free until I could pay them,

53:39I don't know if I would have had that pressure to fight to survive. Momentum makes it real. And sometimes you have to find ways to keep pressure on you so you can feel the pressure to maintain that momentum. But that's stage three, momentum. Once you get it, once you experience it, you then fight to keep it. Stage four, survival of the fittest. This was roughly 2018 and 2019. And we were scaling at a healthy rate. but we were running very, very low on cash. None of us, me, Preston, and Joe,

54:34Nick Bare:had finance or accounting backgrounds. We thought and knew that the health of our company was based off of what we had in the business bank account. If the business bank account was

54:52enough to just get by. If it was positive, we were good for at least another day. But there were many days and many weeks where we ran very low on cash because we didn't have cash injections in the business. I didn't know or understand how to utilize lines of credit.

55:20I didn't know how to utilize different forms of investment or loans or terms for that matter.

55:36Nick Bare:One of the reasons that cash got so tight is we didn't have terms with our manufacturing partners. So when we placed a production order, which we had 12-week lead times, we had to put 50 % of the money down. And then once that order was completed and shipped to us, we'd have to pay off the remainder and remaining 50%. So we were prepaying all of our inventory before receiving it, which ties up a lot of your cash in inventory. A lot of our cash was sitting on shelves in our warehouse. So between money tied up in inventory on our shelves, money tied up in inventory through production orders with our manufacturers, our warehouse lease, which we signed one to two years prior.

56:34I mean, we were tight on cash for many days, many weeks, many months. and this is the phase and stage of survival

56:48Nick Bare:that many entrepreneurs and business owners and founders go through. You learn a lot through these years and for some, these years last a whole lot longer than others.

57:04We fortunately operated as lean

57:09Nick Bare:and resourceful as possible for as long as possible to maintain profitability and to get to a point where we had healthy cash flows and that we weren't just trying to survive every day, but we started to eventually thrive. I mean, there were many nights in 2018, 2019 that I would lay in bed trying to figure out how we were going to make it one more week. Just stressed beyond all belief.

57:43Nick Bare:And what happens to a lot of people in this stage, survival of the fittest, is that they end up making decisions that are driven through and by emotions as opposed to being patient and being rational. And this almost happened to us once. So here's the story. This was probably 2019. maybe 2018, and we were tight on cash and our manufacturers knew it. And at the time, one of our manufacturing partners offered us up this solution and it was to invest into BPN. So their proposal was that they would inject$100 ,000 into our business but with that hundred thousand dollar cash injection they would own 10 of the company at a one million dollar valuation and at the time that sounded great someone is telling me this business is worth a million dollars and they're going to give us one hundred thousand which would save us for the next couple months.

59:13We can figure out how to get by, but they want 10 % of the business. If I would have accepted that offer out of emotion, that would have been one of the biggest mistakes in my entrepreneurial career ever. 10 % of the business at a$1 million valuation. So glad we didn't do that. So glad I was patient and we just, we just did what we had to do to get by and dig out of that hole. Because that would have been a horrible decision. And I see a lot of founders, I see a lot of business owners falling victim to this.

1:00:09Nick Bare:They get themselves to a really tough spot and someone swoops in, whether that's an investor or a friend or a bank, and they promise to save you. But that saving comes with a cost and that is sometimes giving up equity in your organization. in many cases for a lot of founders, way too much equity just because they're afraid of what it's going to take to maintain that survival. Luckily, we didn't take that deal and me, Preston and Joe really just applied the whatever it takes mindset. I mean, a few of the things that we did in those years that I have just like such great memories about. Remember our early Black Friday sales in those years?

1:01:09Nick Bare:And it'd be the three of us back in the warehouse for two weeks. And we'd be at the warehouse in the office for 24 hours. 24 hours for one to two weeks. And we'd take shifts and we'd sleep in the office and we'd get food delivered. and we'd live off of energy drinks and caffeine and as much fun as it was, it was absolutely exhausting. But we didn't have the resources. We didn't have the ability to hire more people. So the three of us had to do it ourselves. I mean, our Black Friday and 4th of July sales look very different now than they did back then. And this past July for our summer sale, we brought in some temporary staff to help us fulfill all the orders.

1:01:59Nick Bare:We got 35 ,000 orders out within seven days. And I believe we had with temporary staff, 24 people packing orders around the clock, much different operational strategies now compared to back then. I remember this one time where we were really tight on cash and we had to make a payment for our rent the following week. And I knew we weren't going to have the money. So I went on social media and we sent out an email and we said that everyone who places an order in the next 24 hours will get a call from us personally. And thousands of orders rolled in. And for weeks, we were calling people around the clock, thanking them for their order.

1:02:49Nick Bare:Some people we talked to for 60 seconds. Some people we talked to for 25 minutes. But we did that for an extended period of time. But that uptick in sales generated enough revenue for us to pay the rent the next week. And it saved us. And I'll never forget When we first launched whey protein, and I was so impatient to launch the protein, and we were building all this hype and this buzz about our whey protein launch. Before that, we only had a few other products. It was flight, our branch chain amino acid product, creatine, and our pump enhancer back then, which was endopump. and we built a lot of hype and buzz around this whey protein launch and we're talking our manufacturer and it was supposed to arrive to us on a monday monday goes doesn't arrive supposed to arrive tuesday tuesday arrives no protein wednesday same thing and they were just waiting for a truck to pick up the protein from the manufacturing facility and then bring it to us in Texas.

1:04:15Nick Bare:And I became impatient and I just assumed that it would arrive Thursday. So we launched the product on our website and the manufacturer still didn't ship the product. So then me, Preston and Joe were freaking out because we sold all of this protein, but we still didn't have the product. So we went and we rented a U-Haul and we drove to the facility and we picked up the product and we drove it back to our warehouse and we emptied it off the truck and fulfilled all of the orders. And all that to say, stage four, survival of the fittest, you just do whatever it takes. You get resourceful, you get creative, you adapt.

1:05:02You adapt to survive. This is the stage where many people quit and they give up and it gets too hard. This is a stage of testing true endurance.

1:05:22Who is going to persevere to make this work? Who is going to persevere to see what's on the other side? Because if you quit too early, you'll never know what's on the other side. Stage four, survival of the fittest. That is the test.

1:05:41Nick Bare:Now, stage five is from process to people. And for me, this was in 2020 and 2021. And a note I have here is if you decided to forego delegating your entire business operations to someone else in stage two, this is the stage when you learn how to delegate lead and empower individuals to scale scale growth and the health of an organization is dependent on the leadership of the organization and this is where it is more important than ever before to have the right people in the right seats. It requires recruiting talent while also empowering and developing individual teams. This is a stage where leadership separates the highly successful from everyone else.

1:06:48Leadership is the lid to the success of the organization. And I believe that those first couple of hires that you make are the most important hires you're going to make. Because those first few hires you make, they set the tone. They carry and embody and live the core values and purpose of the organization. They guide the vision alongside of the founder. Some of those first couple hires that that we made, those people are still working at BPN. Joe, Preston, John, Jordan, Kerm, Trey. Those people, ride or die, loyal, hardworking, committed individuals. Those were some of the first employees at BPN.

1:07:57and they're still here today building and facilitating growth and scale.

1:08:08Vision through this entire process is absolutely essential.

1:08:16People can execute, people can be disciplined, people can be committed, but if people don't know what the vision is, if people don't know where you want to go, where you're heading and why, it's almost impossible for people to execute.

1:08:40One of the things I have noted here on the importance of vision alongside people, it's Proverbs 29, verse 18, where there is no vision, the people perish. Now, I share that, and I have to say, I don't want to act like or assume that God within the context of the Bible is talking about our personal dreams or goals.

1:09:25because without God's revealed truth or moral direction, people lose self-control, discipline, and moral order. Where there's no vision, the people perish.

1:09:40Nick Bare:This doesn't mean personal dreams or goals, but rather God's revealed truth and direction for his people. Be very clear with that. But I believe that while God is not talking about personal goals or dreams in this context of the written scripture, we can apply this to our everyday life. Where there is no vision, the people perish. What I've learned in stage five is that when you transition from the process and the processes and the SOPs that are required to scale and grow the business, those processes are critical and they get you to an additional stage and growth lever and opportunities. but what holds so many businesses back is not the processes but it's the people you need the right people people who are aligned with the core values of the organization who believe in the organization who want to win but having the right people in the right seats in the right roles if you have the right people on the team in the right roles you can truly maximize success and scale and experience exponential growth.

1:11:18But those people also need vision. And that vision comes from leadership, in most cases, the founder.

1:11:30Stage five for me was where I really started to understand and realize that what scales and grows a business at the foundation, you have to have great products. You have to have quality product or service. And great branding helps as well. in a mission that connects with individuals on a very intimate level. But without the right people in the right seats of your organization, you'll be held back significantly. I believe in people. And I also believe that when there is no vision, that people perish. Stage five, 2020, 2021, was the moment that I really embraced and leaned into becoming the leader that the business needed and required me to be.

1:12:44It's not just operating and managing and implementing process anymore. It's leading people, putting people first. If you put the people first, everything else falls into place. In stage six, this brings it full circle. It's from passion to process to people to purpose. This ultimately is wisdom. It's not just knowing what you have to do, but it's understanding what you have to do and why. And I'd say for me in this case, 2024, 2025. In the last two years, I've gotten to stage six. And in the building process over these last 14 years, so much of it feels messy.

1:13:53Nick Bare:you know it's it's reactive you're adapting in real time and you're making decisions at the best of your ability and you're pivoting here and you're pivoting there and you're just trying to figure it out some days you're trying to figure out how to reach more customers some days you're trying to figure out what products need to be developed to to enter into new markets or categories or interests some days you're trying to figure out how to make a few extra bucks so you can pay rent the next week. There are so many challenges that are sometimes simple, but also sometimes very complex over the journey of being an entrepreneur and taking what was once just a love for something, a passion, and then turning it into something.

1:14:47And then once you make that decision, that conscious decision and commitment,

1:14:53Nick Bare:I mean, you hop on this roller coaster and it's hold on for dear life because this journey is about to get wild and crazy. And it's going to get faster and faster and faster. starts with passion it evolves to process then evolves to the people and ultimately evolves to the purpose why you're doing what you're doing which goes back to that first decision in 2012 why did I decide to start BPN why sports nutrition products.

1:15:41And if you think about it today, we're still doing it for the same purpose. It is to help people. It is to serve others. For a lifestyle that we believe in, for a lifestyle that we live, although it looks a little bit different now than it did back then, the purpose is very similar

1:16:07but we've only been able to get here because we have as a team been open to the evolution. We've been adaptable. We've been teachable. We've been emotionally secure, creative and service-minded.

1:16:30Nick Bare:And that requires humility. that requires confidence, which is built over time. It requires the ability to make decisions that aren't rooted in emotions, but are rational and patient. It requires you to play the long game, making the decision that is hard, but right.

1:17:03over and over and over again. Like I've said before, you build a brand in drops and you lose it in buckets. True purpose, which is wisdom, it's all about impact,

1:17:17Nick Bare:it's all about legacy, and it's about serving people. It's more than hitting revenue targets, it's more than making a profit, it's more than any financial milestone. There's a greater purpose behind it. And if I look back at that 22-year-old kid in western Pennsylvania sitting in his apartment mixing up his own pre-workout supplements because he was so lit on fire because of the lifestyle that he was living and found and embraced. That 22-year-old kid wasn't doing it because he thought he could make an extra buck or because he wanted this company to be valued at a certain multiple one day or any of those things.

1:18:14It was because of a passion, impact, legacy, and serving people. So these six stages,

1:18:25Nick Bare:they're not linear, but it is a full circle stage, which brings us right back to where we got started. Passion and purpose. Just a little bit wiser. So hope you guys enjoyed this episode, the evolution of an entrepreneur. If you have a passion and you want to turn it into something, that passion doesn't have to die. along the way. But it's definitely going to evolve. So I'll see you guys in the next episode.