180. The Money Mindsets You Need to Go From $0 to $1M

0:00Ever wondered why some people seem to build wealth effortlessly while others stay trapped in the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck? Here's a shocking truth. It's not about how much money you make, but how you think about money. Today, we're diving deep into the mindset shifts and creative strategies that can help anyone fund their business dreams, even without traditional backing. This is Ryan Atkinson and you're listening to the Outfit Podcast where we uncover the secrets of building and running successful businesses. And oh my gosh, am I excited for today's episode because joining us is Jasper Eatsing, a former aspiring doctor turned successful entrepreneur who's revolutionizing financial education From buying his first investment property at 19 to building multiple successful businesses, including Brief Media, Jasper Reed has mastered the art of building wealth through unconventional methods.

0:44His mission, making financial education accessible to everyone without the fluff or false promises. I am so, so excited to welcome you on the show. Thank you so, so much for being here, Jasper Reed. Well, thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure. I'm very much looking forward to this. You have such a great and like loyal following. We're talking 20 ,000 followers on Twitter, over 2 million subscribers on YouTube. So I'm excited to talk about everything financially mindset for you. But I want to rewind to your early days. Like what sparked your entrepreneurial mindset? I know you want to be like a doctor.

1:12So like, talk to us about this. Yeah. I mean, it just depends on what you mean by early days. I grew up in a very traditional Indian households. My parents are immigrants from a state in India called Punjab. And like a lot of traditional Indian immigrants, my parents told me that Jaspreet, you have two options. You can either become a doctor or you can become a failure. You get to pick what you want to do. So I wanted to become successful since I was young because I saw how hard my parents were working and I wanted to give back to them. So to me, success meant becoming a doctor because if you just look at like the traditional path, you get good grades.

1:50That way you can get into a good professional program so you can get a good job that should equate to the most success. And that just was kind of what I thought and what I was taught. Well, along the way, I was always kind of like interested in entrepreneurial stuff. Like when I was really young, I got into doing a paper route. I was mowing my neighbor's lawns for like 10 bucks or whatever. And then in middle school, I picked up a drum, a native Punjabi drum called a tol. And I started playing this at people's weddings. I actually paid it for my uncle's wedding just for fun. And the DJ there said, hey, Jaspreet, you know, you're pretty good.

2:25Do you want to make money doing this? And I said, sure. Why not? Yeah, my parents, I couldn't tell them because I knew they were not going to be happy. They kind of had some hit. And when they kind of heard that I was doing this, they were very unhappy. So I had to keep it all a secret. And again, anything that was not like medicine related, like to become a doctor was a waste of time. But I started making a little bit of money working at weddings. And then I got to know a lot of the local DJs. And towards the middle to end of my high school career, one of the DJs said, Jaspreet, you know a lot of kids in high school, how about we host a team party together for the kids in high school?

2:57I said, okay. So I did that when I was 16 and 17 and made a little bit of money by a little bit of money. I mean, the first party that we did, we made$2 each. I made$3 and he made$2. And then after that, maybe a few hundred bucks while I was in high school throwing these parties at a time. So it wasn't a ton of money. I think the most I made was probably close to a grand party when I was in high school. So it wasn't anything crazy, but it was decent money for a high school kid. But for me, it was all a hobby because I needed to become a doctor so I can become successful. So then I go to college now so I can become this smart, successful person.

3:35But what I didn't realize, because I didn't know anybody that really went to university here in America, was that people go to college to party. I thought people go to college to study. and so now here I was a freshman in college I don't really party yeah I was hosting parties but I don't drink I'm not into the party scene and I need something to do on Friday nights so now I have this experience working in the entertainment industry and I was like well why don't I start hosting parties and so that's what I did I started hosting college parties as a freshman in college I became a promoter and then eventually that grew to my own event planning company where I was hosting parties and the concerts and shows in college I started reading books about money management and investing, which told me like all this stuff that I had never, like I didn't know what a dividend was.

4:20I don't know what investing was. I don't know what a rental property was. I was never heard of these terms in my life. And I was like, holy moly, there's a whole world of financial education outside of like school. And I was doing good in school. And I was like, I need to learn about this. And so that was when I started investing my money. And I made a lot of mistakes, but you know, I learned a lot. I want to talk about mindset when it comes to like business? I mean, how crucial is having that right mindset, that growth mindset? How important is that when starting a new business? It's everything.

4:51I mean, if you look at this from just a financial perspective, if you watch Shark Tank, when the Shark Tank sharks invest in somebody, they're not investing in the business idea, really. They're investing in the entrepreneur because it's the entrepreneur that's going to make or break that business, especially when it's in its early stages because you're going to face hurdles no matter what you do. Things are going to go wrong. I don't care what you're trying to do. I don't care who your parents are. I don't care what experience you have. Things are going to go wrong. And when things go wrong, how are you going to handle it?

5:24I'll give you a quick story because a lot of people know me as the face of Minority Mindset. That's my YouTube channel like you were mentioning. The reason why I started Minority Mindset was not as a business idea. I started it because I got scammed in a previous business that I was running. I was running a sock company, an e-commerce sock company. I got scammed by a marketing company. And by this time, I was so fed up because I'd been scammed and screwed over by so many people because I was naive. I don't know what I was doing. I was just doing things. And so I started making videos on how to launch a business without getting screwed over.

5:57Well, that's starting to now pick up and grow. And I started actually on Instagram. And And my Instagram had grown to, I don't know, maybe 50, 60, 70 ,000 followers. And I really didn't have a YouTube presence at this time. So it was really just Instagram. And my Instagram account got hacked. Oh, no. And it was essentially deleted. And so now, what do you do in that situation where you put all this time and energy into this hobby, into this thing that you're trying to help people? Now you get your account hacked. And I remember I went to the gym with my brother and a buddy of mine, and we were just, we were hitting chest.

6:36And I was just like so angry. I was just pumping it out. And I was like, well, what do we do next? And either, you know, I could just say, screw it because it was, you know, just time. I had my sock business, which was making me money. But I said, no, this is the whole reason why I started this. I need to double down and just kind of come in and hit it even harder. And that's what I did. So then I started making YouTube videos more aggressive, like not aggressive, but making more YouTube videos, making more Instagram posts because I had this stubbornness, which is you're going to try to stop me.

7:04I'm going to do more of that thing. And so that's exactly what I did. I started making more content and I'm thankful that I did because now my YouTube channel has really grown. My Instagram has grown since then, but it's in those tough situations. What are you going to do? Are you going to get up and cry and then give up or are you going to actually keep fighting back. And the hurdles don't get easier. They actually get bigger and bigger because as you make more money, the mistakes get more expensive. Like when minority mindset started to grow, I then realized that, okay, I have a opportunity here to either spend my time building the sock business, which was profitable or minority mindset, which is not profitable, but it's fun.

7:55and I decided, okay, I'm not going to do the sock business because I don't have a real passion for it. Even though that's making money, I'd rather do minority mindset. So I started putting more attention towards minority mindset, but I wanted to really build a business. And in my mind, a business is something that doesn't necessarily need my face in order to operate. So the YouTube channel was never my business. I knew that from the get-go. And so my first idea was I'm going to turn minority mindset into this website, kind of like a nerd wallet, where you can go to learn financial stuff on the website.

8:29We're going to build a blog. We're going to have all these articles, and we're going to monetize through ads and whatever. But I just didn't have time or much interest. I'm just not really, didn't know much about blogs, nor did I care, but I had money. So I had brought on one of the top blog consultants in the world. We brought a number of free events, writers, brought a number writers and just managers of the blog. And I dumped about half a million dollars into the blog, just building out the website and creating content and doing all this. And we were making no money. So two years of time and$500 ,000 of money later, I realized, yeah, this is not going to work.

9:10And so I had to turn it off. And you got to imagine, that's not easy to always lose half a million dollars, no matter how much money you have. And so I then had to pivot again. And that was when, you know, really started to focus more on what I do now, which is Briefs Media, which is my financial media company, where we have a number of products from a free news that are called Market Briefs to investor research products like Briefs Pro. But it's really, ultimately, you're going to screw up, you're going to make mistakes, and you're going to get screwed over. What do you do then? Are you going to give up or are you going to keep fighting?

9:49And it's tough because sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's financial, sometimes it's mental, but you just got to keep getting back up. And that's one of the most difficult parts. And I think one of the biggest benefits or things that I had was when I started, I was very stubborn. And in my mind, nothing was going to stop me because I didn't see any other possibility but to succeed. And I had a really dumb, like just dumb, like belief that I'm going to do this. I don't know how or what I was going to do, but I'm just going to do it. And I'm just going to do whatever it takes. And I was fortunate that it worked.

10:24But you know, you just kind of have to like, believe, even when nobody else does, even when things go wrong, and just keep fighting. Yeah, I want to ask you, you mentioned like, you know, you're passionate for this, the other things making money here. How do you balance as an entrepreneur doing something that you're passionate about, but also doing something that will generate money? Like, how do you balance that fine line? I mean, how do you evaluate that? Yeah, you know, that passion is interesting because yes, I am very passionate about helping people better with money, which is our mission, which helps a lot.

10:54But what ends up happening is as you grow, every business has the same stuff. Like you got to understand marketing, you got to understand sales, you got to understand operations, you got to understand hiring, you got to understand product management. All those things are going to happen whether you're selling socks or whether you're publishing financial media. And so the passion is definitely something, but it's not everything. I think what's more important for me is, are you morally aligned with whatever it is that you're doing? And that was why it took me a long time to kind of figure out what is exactly something that I want to be proud of and want to do.

11:32Because the entertainment company was just not something that I wanted to be associated with. But Briefs Media is. I'm proud of what we're doing. We want this to be a household name. That's what we're working towards. And I'm proud of the products that we put out. We're proud of what we have and we're not going to hide. That's exactly what we do. We want to be able to represent that. So I think you have to just be passionate about whatever it is that you're doing and be aligned morally. That way you can stand behind whatever you're doing. I want to speak to like the financial aspect of it as well here.

12:07I mean, like what's one mindset you think entrepreneurs have that like really holds them back to succeed when it comes to like financial wealth? You know, it goes back to the same thing that I just said a minute ago. I think it's really just either why me or try me. You know, some people go through this whole like, oh, why did this happen to me? Why is it not working for me. Why is it? Or try me. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to spend money on ads and I'm going to lose and then I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to buy a course, get screwed over, but I'm still going to figure it out.

12:38I'm going to spend 20 hours watching YouTube videos, learning how to do something, but I'm going to figure it out. You got to figure it out. Every single thing that you're going to do in business is going to be a learning curve. Unless you have rich parents that have already done it, that can guide you through it. If you don't have that, the first time you hire somebody, you're going to go through a learning curve. How do you hire somebody? What is the accounting process? How do you fire somebody? Because you realize you hired the wrong person. Then you're going to hire a few more crappy people and then you're going to realize, okay, what type of people do you want to hire?

13:10What does it mean to hire a good person? When it goes to marketing, you're going to screw up. You're going to have horrible social media campaigns. You're going to have horrible advertising campaigns. You're going to spend and waste a lot of money. Then what? You're going to get screwed over by horrible marketers and then you're going to say, well, now what? And you got to keep trying. You're going to try building products. And some of the products are going to suck. They're going to get bad reviews. And you're going to realize, wow, I should have never created this product. But that's how you learn.

13:34Then you work to create better products. You get better feedback. You learn what do customers want. You learn how to really build a product that has value. That's how you get better, right? So it's every part of the business is going to go through its own learning curve. As you grow, you're going to have more curves, curves that you have to go over, which is like, okay, now your business is making cash. What do you do with that cash? What is cash flow management? Let's say now you really grow and now your business is making a million dollars a year of profit. Now what? Did you take all that million dollars and go out and buy a nice Lamborghini and buy a big house?

14:07Or do you take the million dollars and reinvest it back into the company? Take all million dollars and reinvest it? What do you do? And these are the questions that you're going to have to go through and there's no right answer, but you're going to make mistakes. Maybe you reinvested too much money. Maybe you took out too much money and the next year you have a bad year and I don't have cash to pay your bills. Now what? And so, you know, you're going to go through those mistakes. You got to be willing to learn. You're like really hitting on. So I've been like a full-time entrepreneur now for like 15 months and everything you like just said right there, like resonates with me like so much because it's like figuring out cashflow management, figuring out how to hire people correctly.

14:41How do you have a good marketing campaign? How do you sell effectively? I mean, all is like truly like learning as you go when it comes to entrepreneurship. And unless you, like you said, unless you have rich parents, but it really is learning as you go. I've been there. Everybody who you see that is successful as an entrepreneur, they've been there, they've made their fair share of mistakes. You just got to be willing to keep learning. I'd be curious, is there any way though to speed up that learning process or is it truly just trial and error? Do you reflect on the day and be like, okay, I made this mistake, here's what I would do next time.

15:13I'd love to hear what your learning process is from learning from mistakes. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely ways to shorten the curve. I mean, you can learn from people that have done it, take people's advice, or actually doing what you want to do. But also be innovative. I mean, read the book Blue Ocean Strategy, which I think is very important for every entrepreneur. We could talk about this for hours, but number one, having a to-do list. This is so important. When you screw up, reflect on it. Write what went wrong, what went right. A, B, test things. try things, let data drive decisions, and then keep working towards wherever you want to go.

15:54I mean, ultimately, you have to know what is your goal. And this can seem so simple, right? Well, what is the goal? I want to make money. Okay, well, let's get more defined. I want to make a million dollars a year. Okay, you want to make a million dollars a year? Well, how do you actually get to a million dollars a year? Okay, I need to sell 10 ,000 of whatever product. Okay, you want to sell 10 ,000 products. How are you going to sell 10 ,000 products? Well, I need, let's call let a million people to go onto the sales page. Okay, how are you going to get a million people to go onto the sales page?

16:18Well, that means you're going to need 10 million people to see the sales page. Why are you going to get 10 million people to see the sales page? Right, you just, you reverse engineer it, but you have to get focused then and then improve every step of the way if that's what you're doing or, you know, just knowing what are you working towards. I think that is a really good advice is have that end goal in mind. And once that end goal is in mind, reverse engineer it. That is some of my favorite advice I've actually received as an entrepreneur. And it helps so much because it's like, okay, if we need a book, whatever, 10 meetings and we know our conversion rates, whatever, 30%, like, you know, how many meetings you need to book to actually get there.

16:50So yeah, it's really good stuff. And I want to talk about funding as well. Not everyone that starts a business off time, a lot of people that started a company don't come up from wealthy parents. So for someone starting a business with limited capital, like what are some creative funding methods would you recommend for them to get started? Find some cash. I mean, and be creative. I mean, there's a endless amount of creativity in the world. So I'll give you an example. When I was building my sock company, it was a water-resistant athletic sock. And in order to build this, I needed to work with a manufacturer.

17:25I didn't want to work with somebody in China. So I worked with somebody in North Carolina. And that meant we had to build a ton of prototypes through a textile that could repel water because I wanted it to be an athletic sock that could also repel water. Well, that costs money. And then I needed the textiles. I needed the yarn. Not just that. I need a special yarn with a special coating on it that could also repel water, which meant I needed to make a deal with the textile people that provide the yarn and the people that can coat the yarn. And I have little to no money to make this happen. So how do you actually go about doing this?

17:56Well, I was essentially calling people again and again and again and again and again until eventually either people got fed up or somebody was dumb enough to say, all right, yeah, we can do this kind of test phase at virtually no cost because we know that you're going to provide orders in the future. I don't know if I can provide orders in the future, but yeah, okay, let's do that. Again, when you're young, you just kind of make calls. Just go. You just figure it out. And so I made a deal with the yarn people, the textile, like the coding people and the manufacturer to essentially do a lot of legwork for me for less than$1 ,000 or$2 ,000 to build prototypes, to actually start doing this, maybe even less.

18:36And then you can use crowdfunding to go out and pre-sell your product. I pre-sold the product because manufacturing is expensive to run big manufacturing orders. And so I did my marketing off of Instagram. And by Instagram, I don't mean running ads on Instagram. I mean by creating content on Instagram and by just partnering with a bunch of small Instagram accounts and having us share each other's stuff and kind of building this big launch and telling people, hey, you could pre-order these socks and get a discount. And then just making it clear like, hey, you're not going to get the socks for a number of months.

19:13You're pre-ordering them. That way you can be the first person that gets them. You're getting them at a discount. Then I took that cash, bought the order from the manufacturer after going through all these trial and error to build the product. Now, I got my first run. I got the first order. Then you ship it all out. And now you kind of get started. You got to be creative. You got to find ways to hustle. When I was hosting parties, it was the same thing. How do you get people to come to a party when you don't have money to spend on advertising and marketing and have professional stuff, right? You're a young kid.

19:43Well, I made a deal with popular people on different campuses in the Southeast Michigan area and said, hey, you have a lot of friends on Facebook. You look popular. I'm going to give you free VIP access into my party, all you have to do is share it with your friends. How much does VIP access cost me? Nothing. You just get to come in for free. I'm not charging you cover. Plus, I'd buy a lanyard for each person. That way you look special. It costs me like maybe three bucks a person. But if you get to look cool because you get to skip the line, you might invite five or 10 or 15 people. Each of those five, 10, 15, 20 people are going to pay 10 bucks each.

20:16You cost nothing to get in. And then what I would do is I would message people on Facebook because Facebook used to tell you everyone's birthdays that were in December or March or whatever. I'd say, hey, it's March. We're doing a special birthday celebration for all March people. We would love for you to come in and celebrate your birthday for free. We're going to give you a special shout out. Well, how much does it cost for me to shout you out for your birthday? Nothing. I just got to give a list to the DJ to say, happy birthday, Ryan. You come in for free. Doesn't cost me anything. Nobody's going to want to celebrate their birthday alone.

20:47You're going to bring five or 10 or 20 of your friends. Each one of your friends are going to pay money. So it's being being creative. How do you think out of the box, be innovative, to come up with ways to do things without spending a ton of money? A lot of people get caught up in this trap that I need all this money to get started. No, you don't. You need creativity. You got to be willing to think and you got to be willing to work. If you don't have the money, you got to put in the additional effort. And even when you have the money, too much money becomes a disease because that's what screwed me over when we were doing the blog is I had the money and I figured, all right, I'm just going to hire smart people who I thought were smart.

21:19And then it just burned all that money. So, You got to be willing to put in that work. Yeah, that's actually my next question I wanted to ask here is like, what are some of those common financial mistakes you see new entrepreneurs make? I would love to hear that from you. I feel like you could definitely talk about this for hours. So I'd love to hear this. Everybody makes mistakes. I'm not saying I'm special. I've made a ton of mistakes. Oh, for sure, yeah. More mistakes than anybody. But I guess just getting complacent is the biggest thing is you got to stay hungry. You got to stay willing to work and do the things that people are not willing to do.

21:50That's, I think, one of the most difficult things is people, if you're an entrepreneur, it's not a popularity contest. You want to have something that actually is good, a good product that actually makes money. And that means you got to have a good team. So if somebody is not performing, you got to fire that person. You got to hire the people that are actually good at what they do and that are good at the company. Don't hire stupid people. You don't want to hire an average person. And then if somebody is not good, let them go. You got to make sure you have a good product. If it's not good, you got to fix it.

22:21It's up to you. Yeah, you can have somebody else hired to do that, but you got to go and take the charge. Take responsibility. There's the whole array of things. It just depends on kind of where the scale is, but I made every mistake. Everything that I'm saying, I'm telling you from experience because I've hired dumb people. You know what the funny thing is? I can't blame them because it was me that made the hiring decision. So it was me that made the dumb decision. And then it was me that made the dumb decision to realize that this is not a good fit. And it's not bad for them. it's bad for everyone.