SFR 298: My FIRST 17 Product Failures...

I thought I'd do something a little bit different and share all of my failures. 

 

It took me 17 tries to make this game work…And after going back and recounting, it's actually 33.

 

THE OBSTACLE IS THE WAY

 

I recently recounted through the timeline of all of the business and product attempts I've made... 

 

Here's a recap of my first 17 tries

 

 I've always been interested in business. I don't know why, but it's just something that I've loved - it's kind of a passion of mine. 

 

There's a lot of things I could dive deeply into and get passionate about. But for some reason, sales, selling and working with my hands, I've just always loved that. 

 

When I was growing up, my dad had me be the yard manager. 

 

I was... (I always say, "I was the oldest of six..." 😂) I am the oldest of six kids and so, I was bestowed the role of yard manager. 

 

I was in charge of all of the hiring and firing of my siblings.

 

 I had to go and create contracts; I didn't know how to do that. So I went and I wrote a contract. 

 

My dad was guiding, but not doing…

 

 He was like, "Go look it up ‘What's a contract?’ on Google." 

 

So, I wrote the contract: "You will agree to weed... " 

 

I had to go hire my siblings and make a proposal to my dad of how much money I thought it would cost for us, his children, to run the business, which I thought was very clever.

 

I had to write a proposal, "Dad, I think we can do it for $30 a week," or something like that. 

 

Then he had me go interview my siblings, as cheesy as that might sound, it was one of the greatest gifts ever. 

 

I think I was like 14, 15, 16, 17; like right in that range…

 

 And I had to go interview my siblings and actually have them sign contracts to…

 

• “Weed this part of the yard.”

 

• “Trim and weed whack the backyard during these times.”

 

•  “Be the one that mows these areas.”

 

Does that make sense? 

 

It was really, really cool because it taught me a lot about just the way business flows, and how to run it. 

 

What's cool is that after I interviewed them and they signed their contract, my siblings would go do their thing and then my dad wouldn't pay me until I invoiced him. 

 

I didn't know what an invoice was. 

 

I thought that was the weirdest, dumbest word on the planet. 

 

I was like, "What is an invoice? That's stupid."

 

And so, I had to learn what an invoice was, go write one and hand it to my Dad. 

 

… it was like, net 30 terms, like a normal business. 

 

My Dad would pay me and then I'd turn around and payout to my siblings.

 

I'd keep 10 bucks for myself, just for setting up the structure.

 

A lot of my siblings were younger than me; there's a 17-year difference between me and the youngest, so the youngest wasn't even around when this happened…

 

It was a really, really powerful because if they didn't do their part, I had to go in and fix that stuff. 

 

… it was really cool. 

 

I took the same principles and my brother and I, would go to Walgreens and buy these $2.50 laser pointer pens, and then we'd take my mom's labeler and label it for 18 bucks and go sell these laser pointer pens.

 

 We're making hundreds of dollars a day as high school students until we got in trouble and the administration almost expelled us. 

 

We had to do a bunch of community service for being entrepreneurial. Anyway, another topic 😂 … it was fascinating!

 

We grew up on the back nine of a public golf course. It wasn't a super nice golf course, but there was still a golf course. 

 

So being kids, we'd hop the fence, dive into the ponds, grab all the golf balls, clean 'em up and sell 'em back to the golfers. 

 

We did a lot of stuff like that. 

 

I've never actually shared with you how it all happened and I thought it'd be kinda cool to just, "Hey, storytime," share with you ALL the failures. 

 

I thought it was 17 failures, but it's actually 33. 

 

It was like 17 until I found the internet, and then when I found the internet, then it was like another 16,17 tries…

 

So, I thought it'd be kinda cool to share with you.

 

I was on an interview recently and someone was like, "A few people have asked, Steven, if some of your stories are true?" 

 

Yeah, they're true. 

 

And that's why I'm so passionate about what I do. 

 

(I gotta be careful with the language I use here)

 

I'm not pansy-ing around; this has been an active pursuit of mine for the majority of my life now, and that's one of the reasons it's done well. 

 

I always laugh when someone's like, "I tried it once, it didn't work." 

 

"Oh, you tried it once? Did you try it 33 times?" 

 

And just so you know, when I say, "I tried that,"  I'm not saying, "I read a book and dabbled." 

 

I walked down Main Street trying to sell people, okay? 

 

I didn't count something as a try until I actually was actually trying it.

 

I mean I was actually trying to... 

 

• Sell

 

• Make the transactions

Reading a book and dabbling, hat's not trying. You gotta pony up a little bit and actually do the thing.

 

So anyway, that was in my teenage years…

 

TRY #1: LASER PENS & YARD BIZ

 

What was cool about that though is I started learning about marketing at that age, because I learned how to write flyers. 

 

I would look at flyers, we'd print 'em out, chop 'em up and then my brother and I would just go run down our streets peppering all the doors.

 

We drummed a lot of yard business that way when we did our a yard business thing. 

 

So anyway, I love working with my hands. 

 

Crap, I forgot about others…

 

So, first one's on there, I'll say yard biz/pens 'cause I almost got kicked out for that but t...