Embark on a myth-busting journey with us as we reveal the unexpected truths behind launching a successful new venture. Forget the glossy business cards and fancy office spaces; it's the relentless pursuit of an idea and the hustle to make it a reality that truly define the entrepreneurial spirit. Through a series of personal anecdotes and hard-earned wisdom, we illustrate why getting bogged down in corporate formalities can be a distraction and how the magic really happens when you focus on creating value and finding your market fit. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, prepare to have your perspective shifted and your passion reignited.
As we delve further, the conversation turns to the vital importance of early adopters and the bravery required to introduce a Minimum Viable Product to the world. Embracing agile methodologies, we share stories of early-stage product evolution and the pivotal role of customer feedback in refining a vision. By celebrating content that truly resonates over sleek production, we uncover the real connection that draws an audience in. You'll walk away from this discussion with a newfound appreciation for the substance over the superficial, and a clear understanding that polished perfection often trails behind success, not the other way around. Join us for a reflective look at the real challenges and triumphs of entrepreneurship, where the true reward is found in the journey, not just the destination.
Embark on a myth-busting journey with us as we reveal the unexpected truths behind launching a successful new venture. Forget the glossy business cards and fancy office spaces; it's the relentless pursuit of an idea and the hustle to make it a reality that truly define the entrepreneurial spirit. Through a series of personal anecdotes and hard-earned wisdom, we illustrate why getting bogged down in corporate formalities can be a distraction and how the magic really happens when you focus on creating value and finding your market fit. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, prepare to have your perspective shifted and your passion reignited.
As we delve further, the conversation turns to the vital importance of early adopters and the bravery required to introduce a Minimum Viable Product to the world. Embracing agile methodologies, we share stories of early-stage product evolution and the pivotal role of customer feedback in refining a vision. By celebrating content that truly resonates over sleek production, we uncover the real connection that draws an audience in. You'll walk away from this discussion with a newfound appreciation for the substance over the superficial, and a clear understanding that polished perfection often trails behind success, not the other way around. Join us for a reflective look at the real challenges and triumphs of entrepreneurship, where the true reward is found in the journey, not just the destination.
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Speaker 1:
I actually needed to start because I don't know, if you remember right. So we came off university and we had this business module that we did so well in, and I remember there was one particular lecture. This guy come. The guy comes in and is like you know, all you need to start a business is an email address and 50 pounds, because that's how much it costs to register the business. Yeah, there's a matter of fact. That information was wrong, because it's 12 pounds. I think it's not even 50 pounds, it's actually a warning sign.
Speaker 1:
Everything that came after was all about setting up a business, but almost setting it up in such a way that you become a corporate entity. Yeah, not a business whereby you are a startup, where you child thing, you trial products, you test with the market, you do all the foundations to figure out if you got a good product or not. It was more around how do you become a this corporate entity and and and I think everything that that was covered in the in the course was really, was really interesting. Right, because they talked about shares. They talked about this thing called the was it the benches that? It sounds like the Harry Potter character, the things that come around, but it was kind of useless in terms of actually starting a company and needing the knowledge to get started.
Speaker 2:
I kept that it was trying to like, force a perspective like all you need is an email address and then you pay this amount and you've got a business, and it's like, but firstly, I don't feel like I have a business. I feel like I've now made an email address on having to pay for Do you know how much we overthink? But it's true, it's like that's just on paper, I guess, and without turning anything into a profit, without making something from it. You just really do have some paperwork and some money now coming out, so you've got expenses but no income.
Speaker 1:
That's correct and, to be fair, like you know, along my journey now I realized that some people that want to start a business they will start a business with at gmailcom. I've seen one which was like at Virgin Media who uses a Virgin Media email account. I've got no idea, but you know some folks do the extremes, yeah for sure. But that perspective that we were imparted in terms of this is what you need, this is what you need to register and then what you need to do is, like you know, think about how many shares each shareholder will have and thinking about the structure.
Speaker 1:
That it's all very nice knowledge to have in case you become a director one day hypothetically, but in the present moment of starting a business, very, very, very useless. But also, I think it opened up the highway to doing more useless things, because we started going to networking events and events put together by I think was Barclays that was holding this kind of like day workshop whereby they spoke about how to open up a bank account, how to set up a business, having a business plan and importance of having a business plan, and I think it got us spinning in like this little circle with a unicycle whereby we were going around picking up all those must do things for a new business and kind of lost sight of what we were really trying to do.
Speaker 2:
It's funny because I think at that point we had a product but we then got carried away in like all the activities to make that product part of a company. And I think the key word is we was trying to make a company. It wasn't a start-up, it wasn't like, no, we have to make the full company, we need to register the company, we need to have some address, we have to have the meeting rooms, we have to like all these additional factors to make sure the company is a company. And that in itself for us at that time was like very much slowing us down right. It like really took the wind out because, just, okay, first we need photos and we need a business plan and we need to make sure we've got the name and we need to register it and we need to pay something. If we're not paying anything, do we even have the company? No, we need a company. And is there a okay? Who's the director? Where the board of directors?
Speaker 1:
Don't forget, we need business cards.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, oh my God, business cards love to come up. You know what I'd say? Those companies are great at selling themselves because they're like, hey, you need a business card and you need it to be very, very swapped. So we'll make sure it's like very standout is because we're going to be handing them out to who, I don't know, but it'll come up. What happened to them all? Because I'm pretty sure I never gave them all out. I don't even know.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah they probably ended up with some sort of pile which is called the bin, and then they ended up with Incinerated Summer.
Speaker 2:
Well, if you keep changing company names, then they end up being useless and, yeah, you get worried. And also, in this day and age, you can have like QR ones. You don't even need to spend time, but also you probably don't need time Like people can find you on LinkedIn and stuff why it mattered so much to make sure and I think that's a big part of that keeping up appearance and piece, following on from what we discussed last week right when it was like, if you feel kind of like out of the space, that you need to have all these things behind you, all this backing to make sure that you are of kind, like you are in the business, you have your own company, just in case. Just in case anyone asked the question hey, hey, whoa, I've got a business card, so I am legit, I've registered, so it's real. Don't work, shut up. I spend so much money on this office space I don't even need.
Speaker 1:
Which really begs the question. Right, and the essence of this episode what do you actually need to start a business?
Speaker 2:
Nothing Okay, just the idea in the momentum. And oh, maybe customers, maybe like a minimum viable product and that's, that's enough. That's the scary part. It's it can be enough and it doesn't feel like it.
Speaker 1:
And, I think, retrospectively right. Product, very fun to work on, very exciting to get, you know, bogged down into the idea of how perfect this product could be and it's very easy to spend time on it. Customers very scary element, because the customers are the ones that are going to turn around and say to you that's actually not a good idea. You're never going to be able to sell that.
Speaker 1:
That doesn't work for me, and hearing all of those things, or even the fear of ending up hearing those things, makes you want to make the product even better. It's almost like this, uh, this vicious cycle where you go around and you're like, okay, I want to make the product really good, because before I go to the customers to actually get the feedback, I want to make sure that I give them the best chance where, in reality, the less you work on it MVP, like you mentioned, minimum viable product, go to market, get the feedback, go back to the product, make it better and then go back for feedback. But that cycle of getting the feedback and then perfecting the product, so to speak, it's a lot shorter than working on something blended without any sort of inputs from your target market and makes the product better, which also raises the question, and we define who the marketers.
Speaker 2:
Mm-hmm. What's our definition of done is another question as well, because we kept working and adding stuff in, because we didn't like that minimum became maximum viable product. You just want to add so much into it to make sure, like, oh, but we have this. But what if they ask about this? Or we have the answers there and it's like, hey, you have to choose something, you have to choose your boundaries, choose your border, and then let them to tell you, hey, you can have this. And then sometimes it's good, you're like, oh, that was what we were thinking of doing, and then you can spend time. But if you spend time before finding out, you're just wasting time and that's a big difference. And I think we did that a lot. We really tried to make the most. And then even like I know it's fast forward, but way down the line, way too late in down the line, was when it was like maybe we should go and start talking to the customer, let's interview the customers, and like that's not it. You take what you have and if you don't have anything, maybe you should work more. But if you do have something, just take that and say this is it. And then, like you said, that cycle of product feedback. Product feedback is where it's like, where there's progression, and don't get stuck in that cycling cycle too, because that could be endless. We're like so, have you released anything? No, I'm still getting feedback Like, yo, you can have it out and adapt and grow it. It reminds me of it.
Speaker 2:
Nowadays it's like Kanye West and others. They have this opportunity where, because all music is live streamed, they were able to continuously work on their songs. So you hear one version when the album comes out and then, like in two weeks or something, they've changed or edited it, because art is never like fully done. And then you think about, like right, look your own phone, whatever model it is, they keep updating the software, they keep updating the phone, they keep updating everything, because it's never really done. So for them to come out like if they released the iPhone one now would be like what the hell is this? Right, but that's what they needed to start with.
Speaker 2:
And people are talking about the latest release of the Vision Pro and a lot of people are excited, not because of the Vision Pro, but because what it means in terms of what could come next. And that's what we could have done, because people see promise in promising things. So just by having that product out there, they'd be like oh, this is an opportunity for X, y and Z. You get that feedback and you're like, okay, let's start with X and expand that. But we didn't do that. That's why we're here to discuss it, because we were like we need X, y, z and the rest of the alphabet. That kind of cuts you down, I guess, in a way.
Speaker 1:
So I'm going to go. There's two things that you said, right, which made me think of something. I'm going to go on a limb first and say something maybe a little bit controversial. I think part of the reason why we have this mentality of perfecting things is because of the way that we've been brought up, and it's because we are the sort of like the anxious generation of the millennial, having to do everything perfectly and having like really, really high standards. Maybe that's one part of it. The other part, perhaps the education system and how it's set up in terms of trying to make things good before they're delivered. Like in schools, university colleges.
Speaker 1:
You don't have the opportunity of giving something, getting feedback and then perfecting it and then handing it in when it's perfect, right, you just do something. If you're lucky, you might have 50 minutes time with your lecture to get some feedback, but other than that, you're just going to have to deliver the. You know the assignment, whatever it is, and we carry that on onto our corporate career, and you know corporate career. How many times or how many hours have we spent making something look perfect and pretty before handing it over where it should have been, like a functional spreadsheet, like all the colors of the rainbow, and he also makes a breakfast in the morning Like no, I'll have a good spreadsheet. That's one thing. So, from from what you say, that came out. And the second thing that came out is you spoke about Apple, and what's that mask that you put on your face called again.
Speaker 2:
Sorry.
Speaker 1:
Vision Pro, vision Pro Look at that name. I'm sure sometimes on the line I'll probably have one, but for now, like, let's go Vision Pro, as you called it. And it's interesting, right Cause it's out. It's not perfect, but it's out there for early adopters. And those early adopters, they are the, the children of the mind of the Apple engineers, in a way, because they've all mapped out who, the who the product is for. They have niched it to the point where they know that it's gonna be appealing to a specific set of people. But those people are gonna be the ones carrying the name of this product forward and Raving about it, creating videos about it, which is gonna then create, create a hype, and that's how the iPhone was born, in a way. Right, but you appeal to the early adopters and I think that's something quite key that you've said, which definitely we didn't do we try to get to that bell curve to the peak immediately.
Speaker 1:
Forget about the early adopters, forget about the guys. Come again, we're just gonna go to the 90% of the population.
Speaker 2:
Immediately, and that is the. You already know that's a uphill battle, and we're like we'll fight that battle without any feedback from the early adopters or the late Adapters. It's really like just find our way to the top and that really hits. Or it's like we say is super uphill, and I don't know many, if any, companies that managed to do that, like even tick tock was musically and you know, and it was bought out and stuff like Even was it Twitter or something else, and then they cut down to 140 characters, like everything tends to start something else and Appeal to less, but they got something out there, right, they got something out there.
Speaker 2:
And there's a fear in that, though, because there's a fear of criticism, fear of rejection, fearful of Just hearing negative feedback about it. Because you're like, why am I doing this then? And especially when you already have in your hand, in your head, where it could go. So when you're like this could be big, this could do all of these things, why would I not do that? Because if I bring it out and they tell me something that I already know I could do, it just feels like I've. You know, I should have done that already, but that's not necessarily true. You just need to get something that is like we say minimum, viable, and be like hey, is this, this is it? And this is where there's agile and all these methodologies that tells you like iterations and sprints, and just do something For two weeks, get it out there, get it tested, make sure it's usable. Boom there you can find out Okay, that's good, all this needs to be tweaked and you can fix it as it goes, which, um, yeah, we didn't do, and I see other people who don't do it and I see and that's like a recipe for disaster. Of course, if you're, if you're tunnel visioning in and limit in yourself, which is so funny every time, I think that we did it with free people, every, and that's also a cautionary tale like it doesn't matter if you have large groups. You could still be doing this where you just keep running in circles. I keep liking it.
Speaker 2:
To music, because I I always think of my friends who are not even music. To arts, because I think of my friends who, like, did music or do drawings and they are really, really good, but it's not perfect For them, and because they don't think it's perfect, they don't release it. You're like that's amazing. You should put that out there and they're like, nah, it's not, it's not good, and I'm sure that, like your favorite artist, whoever is, does the same thing. But they put something out, anything go. You know what I mean. And when it comes to others, they don't put anything out. Or when it comes to companies, you just don't get it to the point where it becomes product that you're releasing, because you just keep tweaking nothing. And if you tweak nothing, you don't have anything like. What's the point, what's the purpose?
Speaker 1:
So it's interesting to more. Two more things came up for me there. The first one is it's interesting, right, because if you look at the marketplace where a lot of those content creators live, they always strive to build the perfect thing before putting it out there. A lot of the instances is because they fear the trolls or the fear of putting the opinion out there or putting the work out there when it's not perfect. But there is a fundamental issue with that, being that if you don't put your work out there and you don't get the feedback, or you don't put your work out there and you wait for the perfect moment, what will happen is that, yes, you might get a perfect video or the perfect song or the perfect bit of art, but then you're starting from scratch, you're starting from point zero, whereas if you released everything beforehand all the other 50 odd drafts that look like crap at least you really are releasing something and you can show this journey of you getting from crap to the state where you are at the moment.
Speaker 2:
Very true. That actually reminded me of this podcast where we was like there was the pushback, or maybe just from my side where it was like, oh no, but what if people say this, I need to get this back? No, it wasn't, it was the audio right, the crispness of the audio, and I over edited for fear of the feedback that I'd be getting because of the editing.
Speaker 1:
Like how many hours is it?
Speaker 2:
Three hours or something like that I spent three hours per edit, it was like the longest time and get rid of all the errors, get rid of all the silences between them, and then you get, I think, those words you said that you didn't like hearing in it, and so we just break it down, just do as much as we could to like take it down to a state that we were like that's good and we were like then at some point it just hit. No one said that to us and we should wait until we get the feedback before we start.
Speaker 1:
I think it was that back no one's listening.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's even worse. No one's actually listening. It doesn't matter at that point. Why are we overkilling ourselves for it? And especially with the risk versus the rewards. Not even the risk, the amount of time it took to just and it was like is this making me feel better? Not really. It's making me less likely to want to do things. It's getting the time to make sure this gets out in time, and it just becomes a strenuous stress.
Speaker 2:
Selectivity, where it's like oh, actually, what's the minimum? And there's the minimum in terms of, of course, you can outsource stuff to people, but also, what are you happy to do? And so that's where it was like no, we want to enjoy this, we want to release this, and only if it becomes like people are listening. And that's where it was like it's the quality of the content, but also, in any case, it's the products release the product, get the product out there, and then you can hear from it. And if they're not saying, hey, the audio was shit, but they're saying, hey, what are you talking to shit, then it's like, oh, okay, there's something to learn from. But if they started saying that, that's when you can edit it or change it. So for me it was like.
Speaker 2:
From my knowledge and from my experience of listening to podcasts and stuff, I've never been like man that is so crisp, I want to keep listening. I've always been like, what are they talking about? And it only matters if I can't hear what they're talking about, and I'm pretty sure we've made sure that you can, so it doesn't really matter as much. And that takes me back to the Charles Young stage of things, where we were in that same mindset and it's hard to break.
Speaker 2:
Like I'm saying, we did this sort of podcast as well, but it was that, oh no, we have to get it in, we have to do all these details, because that's what is required. It's like taking the arms and the silences out of the product which might be the service we were offering at that time. It needed to be done because no one was buying it, because we hadn't even told him it existed, and so what the fuck is the point? Basically, it was an interesting and hard thing to break out of, but once you do, I think it just makes it more enjoyable, at least for me anyway.
Speaker 1:
I just thought I'd give you a no-core silence. I'll delete it. You're right and I think, like you said, we didn't really learn the lesson until we started probably deep diving into figuring out you know, doing a post-mortem on Charles Young what went wrong and, as a matter of fact, we didn't really figure out the niches until maybe five months ago six months ago, yeah, and you know, it was a great lesson to learn, but also we could have learned it at the time of child's death. Clearly we haven't. We decided to bang our face against the wall of multiple times, but eventually we got there. But when you get to the point where you kind of unlock these knowledge achievements, it makes a huge difference in the way that you think about doing the work and what you end up concentrating on, which is great, because then you end up doing less of the things that you don't enjoy and more of the things that actually bring you pleasure, in a way.
Speaker 2:
Very true and it gives you time back. And I say this in the sense of, even though you might feel like you're doing stuff that is proactive with your time, you're probably wasting it Because you're just doing stuff to do stuff's sake and you're not getting a test. And later on you're like why did I waste so much time doing this? And I know that there's stories and you'll hear and feel like maybe someone validates wow, that's so crisp, that's amazing. You're like I know I should have spent time doing this, but nine times out of ten you probably shouldn't. Like also, did you need that? Then it's probably not necessary.
Speaker 2:
Like, if you think about YouTube and the fact that people can record it on their phones and I saw this thing about this person who sets up the YouTube settings and stuff and they go and they like redo the people's entire setups, but they do it for the ones who are super successful, and the ones who are super successful has a camera on like a box and they're just good at what they do.
Speaker 2:
And then, after years of grinding and just doing it with the most basic setup, is when this person comes out and is like what is this?
Speaker 2:
You've got no cable management. You go and then after that is when they actually get it set up to a standard that you'd expect of a YouTuber. But it's like that's the case where the quality of their content was really good and they were getting it out there and so therefore, the let's say, the factors or the things that would make it seem improved in terms of polished only came after the fact, because it didn't need to be polished, it just needed to be out there and then it found its niche and then that blew itself up. And I think that happens a lot, where people instead try and get the best camera and the best microphone and the best everything else before they were even going out there, and it's like, no, you could do this on 30 free 10 if it had a camera and make it funny enough. And that's what I found to be the case where it's like, yeah, people don't, I guess. No, they limit themselves, and we were part of those.
Speaker 1:
I can think of three podcasts top of my head. That's the diary of a CEO, the game by Alex Hermosi and the psychology of your 20s. Those are three podcasts that one started, I'm pretty sure they were being recorded using a phone Boxes sound, no professional mics, no professional editing, heavy scripting. However, all of those three podcasts that became like huge right, and we're talking about people, a mix of people, right? Some people that were students, some people that were in the gym business, some people that had the money to invest but decided let me actually just record this on a cheap mic or on the phone. The thing is like our average phone maybe okay, the microphone sucks a little bit, but the average phones that we had, they got pretty decent camera. You don't need cameras to actually do any recording unless you're going to be I don't know shooting a movie for Hollywood. You can get away with bare minimum and thinking about what you can get away with and concentrate on the things that matter. I think that's what really is needed to start a business.
Speaker 2:
There's two more podcasts I'd like to add to that, which is Shagged, married, and Noid and my Dad Wrote a Porno, because both of those, I think, were started in like a kitchen. Now, if you think of a kitchen if I do anyway I think of all the echo and all the sound that must come with being in a kitchen, and then I think of the fact that they've gone, gone as a massive audience and they're super big now and it's just like, oh wow, like you don't need to be professional, off the jump, off the rip, because the quality of your content is just so, so huge or so, so like reaching or to a niche. Again, even when there are things that are massive, it's hitting a niche. And then, of course, there's the I'd say, the bounce off swear of the people here about it because of those niches, and so, when it comes to it, and the talking on the phone when you said about the quality of your phone is what is really good, there's a lot of people and I used to be confused about this on TikTok or like doing street interviews, where they keep using the microphone that comes with their headphones. They just talk into that and that's enough, because I'm watching it constantly, continuously, not even the camera content, but just the audio content. I'm like that was good enough for me and they just use that, use it as a mic. They'll remove a phone to someone as the microphone and maybe there's post editing required or not, but still that's enough. You think, oh, I need to buy six microphones or I need the best one, or there's that sure one that everyone has booming down which is like the top quality one, but that's only after once. People. That's like post your minimum viable product that you've tested and made sure it's good.
Speaker 2:
And some people don't like the change. To be very honest, like I think there's what's his name? Mkbhd, who's a big YouTuber for tech and he showed how he records in like 8K, some stupid amount, but then he has to have compressed the quality down to post on YouTube. So he loves recording to the highest and then he has to just reduce it. So post on YouTube because one. That's why, except for two, it's like sometimes your videos can be too crisp, sometimes it can look a bit too much Like what is this?
Speaker 2:
It's so much like tailored for my vision. It's like now we came here for authenticity and authenticity doesn't hit the uncanny value. That is usually something that just seems some kind of off, and I think that's where it is. That's where it's supposed to be. And I think, especially when you're starting out, I get it. It's like fake it till you make it.
Speaker 2:
So some people want to seem like, hey, we've been doing this for a while, and that's where there's this plethora of podcasts where people are pretending to interview someone or pretending to give a speech, where they've clearly made it up and made that scene or whatever. But I think that's where it's supposed to be. That's still putting our product. So they made, they made sure they have this material. They just put it out and keep going and if, whereas, if they did that from their room and just made it like two corners, that would be enough. You don't need to have the whole studio. You don't have to have the microphone. For instance, this could just be a well, I know you can't see it, but it could just be the phone by itself and you just pretend you're talking into that way. You're talking into your phone instead of a microphone.
Speaker 1:
And isn't that like a guy on Instagram that uses a banana start of a microphone?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, there's one guy who has one hand on a thing where he uses this and puts it on his stump so he pretends he's talking into a microphone but it's actually stuck instead. But yeah, there are people who use bananas, there's people who use like umbrellas or stuff, and it just put it towards him and like, how are they? But I think it's the, I think it's key, I think it's the difference. But it all should just give like confidence to not overthink. I think that's the biggest thing, right, If you overthink, you can slow yourself down to a stop and you should think enough, but then let your customers guide. You is my, what I take away.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely Minimum, viable product and get that feedback from the market. And this brings us to the end of the episode. As always, I've been one of your hosts, valerio Tomasso.
Speaker 2:
And I'm the co-host, Mark Jason.
Speaker 1:
I thought you were thinking about your name. For a while I've been getting called mobile names this week, but yeah. And, as always, till next time, adios.
