The Sweaty Startup

When it comes to entrepreneurship, big or small business ownership, you hear the same advice all the time: Do what you say you are going to do, and you will succeed as a business owner. It sounds so easy, but the real problem is that most of us are terrible at managing expectations. It's bad business advice to just do what you said you'd do regardless of the evolving circumstances. Find out in this episode on what to do instead!

The painful truth is that not everyone is cut out to be a business owner. Another hard pill to swallow is that people cling to ideas, and concepts they think will get them ahead. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but my fear through all of this is that people who are listening to the show 10 years from now, will wake up one day, having started a business, are underpaid, overworked, and have a business that's not worth very much--that they just gave themselves a job. That's my fear, because the bottom line is that owning a business is tough. Roughly 95% of business owners fall into the rhythm of owning a business that they're involved in, where they work and get paid. Sounds easy. That's because they're not entrepreneurs. They own a job. Or, to put it frankly, that job owns them--they are the property of their business. Being a business owner is often glorified while we shame W2 employees. However, a lot of business owners are working 70 or more hours a week. They hardly ever see or know their children. Many haven't made it to a family dinner the last four nights in a row. Many are divorced, unhappy, alcoholics, or have some other addiction. All this is sadly a big problem with entrepreneurship--not knowing how to have a balanced work-life relationship. So how do you achieve success? Better yet, how do you achieve happiness? If you have a job, how do you avoid being one of those people that complain about their work-life balance, their crappy bosses, and what they're doing? How do you avoid that? Well, you delegate. Every business owner will lean on their best employees to get the job done. They'll hand more clients and problems over to their best producers and problem-solvers, and most employees will just trudge along and accept it all. But, the next thing you know is the employee is working 80 hours a week for 5 years straight, making good money for their company, but they likely are not making much money for themselves. Whether it be a business owner or a solid employee, both need to understand the power of delegating--how to assign work to other people within the organization or team and know when to say that they have too much on their plate. This is why surrounding yourself with solid people is essential when building a business or hiring the right employees for your team because then you can properly delegate and still get the job done. So let me tell you one more time that if your job or business owns you and you have no work balance, it's your fault--you need to know when to say "no" and delegate, managing the expectations of your customers, your boss, and your coworkers. You always hear about the successes of running a business. But the truth is, being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. You have to make hard decisions. You need to figure out where you're most comfortable, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and build on and around them. You need to figure out if you want to get paid building a career working for somebody else, possibly doing what you love, or if you want to start a business and see if you have what it takes.

Nick / Dan / Max discuss businesses they love.

Things are changing fast in my world! I have hired 8 folks from the Philippines using https://www.supportshepherd.com/. I launched a new podcast today called The Nick Huber Show. Apple podcasts: https://apple.co/3r9O5BW Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2Ta5IoC Show notes: https://sweatystartup.com/the-nick-huber-show/ Also a real estate community: https://sweatystartup.com/rec/

Nick / Dan / Max discuss business ideas and how they would launch them.

Nick and Max go over their 10 favorite business books and what they like about each.

John Warrillow comes on the show to discuss the things you can do now to make your business more valuable and maximize the return if you ever sell. Sponsor: getjobber.com/sweaty Learn more about John: builttosell.com/sweaty

What businesses are you competing against? How good are they? Well, in the service sector, it isn't much. Nick gives you an example.

Nick, Dan and Max discuss business ideas and how you can start them.

An update on Bolt Storage, my self storage / real estate private equity company: In 2018 the self-storage arm grew as Bolt Storage purchased a facility at 53 Pinckney Road in Ithaca and added it to the operations at 1401. 2019 was a big year as Bolt acquired three properties in Erie County PA, a property in West Mifflin PA (Pittsburgh), and a facility in Lansing NY. In January of 2021 the student storage division (Storage Squad) was sold and the self-storage facilities were rebranded under the Bolt Storage name. By late 2020 and into early 2021 Bolt Storage was hitting on all cylinders, and with new financial partners on board, Bolt Storage began to grow quickly. Gloversville and Newfield were acquired in the fall of 2020, and in early 2021 Shippenville, East Liverpool, Troy, Horseheads, Elmira and Southport were added to the operation. As of May 2021, Bolt Storage owns and operates 20 facilities, 4,154 units and 536,300 rentable square feet of self storage in Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania. The media arm is also growing and Nick hopes to hire a manager for the Sweaty Startup. The team is also growing fast. Nick has now hired 4 filipinos using supportshepherd.com - which he highly recommends. The team is now up to 13 employees.

A lot of fields are numbers games. Sales, venture capital, startups, dating. It's about taking a lot of shots. Try to get the batting average as high as you can, but take a lot of at-bats and something is bound to work out. But once you get the funnel whittled down and you're about to take serious action... My golden rule: Quality > quantity. In real estate, one good deal can change your life. Like this one. We purchased that facility in October 2019 with $100k down and it will generate $40k in FREE CASH FLOW in 2021. Damn. One bad deal can set you WAY back. Ask anyone who levered up and bought a lot of (non cash flowing) real estate in 2007. Many of them lost everything. There is nothing wrong with staying SMALL. Because guess what a big old real estate private equity company with $500MM under management has to do? They have to keep on doing deals just to do them. A great deal doesn't move the needle for any one person. A bad deal doesn't wreck the firm. They just have to do deals no matter what. You have an advantage. If you stay small and nimble, one good deal can change your life. And you can stop doing deals if there are no good ones to be had. Small business is the same way. A giant company with $50MM in overhead needs VOLUME. They have to move X amount of product to break even and anything above that is butter. But a small company, like my brother's lawn care company, can do less work at a higher price point. He can make $150k a year working 30 hours a week 32 weeks a year and spend 20 weeks in the FL keys fishing. That's because he has made the decision to stay small. To win less bids at a higher price. To only work with a certain TYPE of customer who values quality and speed over price. Going big is great. Hell, I'm about to do it myself. But remember, if you stay small, you get to pick and choose WHAT you do and where you invest your time and money. A nuance: To choose quality you need quantity. You still need to cast a wide net. You still need to make 500 cold calls to find that one self storage facility. You still need 100 customers a month filling out a quote request form on your website to get 30 new (high paying) clients. But once you have the funnel full, be careful where you spend your time and money.

Decisions aren't easy. Make them the right way. Nick also discusses his latest endevours at http://boltstorage.com

Visit sweatystartup.com/hiring to learn more!

An episode where I lay out the mental models to start working smart vs running around putting out fires all day and letting others dictate your schedule. May 5th is the last day to apply for up to $100k in grants through BoostByJobber.com!

There is a difference. One makes you successful and earns you a lot of money - and one ends in frustration and doesn't produce results.

They pick the wrong game.

Hold your loved ones close- family and friends are more important than anything else. Click the link below to get Boost by Jobber. http://bit.ly/Sweaty-Startup-Podcast-Boost

Listen as Nick and Chris talk over real estate and Nick shares some exciting news!

Sign up for Jobber's event here: https://getjobber.com/pdday2021?utm_source=influencer_sweatystartup&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=jobber_pd_day&utm_content=register

Nick was recently on a Creator Lab podcast with Bilal Zaidi and discussed many topics ranging from income taxes, real estate, health and well-being of entrepreneurs, among others.

If you're planning to make real estate investing a part of your long term strategy - this is the course for you. Get $500 off the price for today only by using the code "YOUTUBE" at checkout: https://nickhuber.podia.com/realestate If you'd like to get a feel for the format, here are two mini-courses you can take for free: Valuing real estate: https://nickhuber.podia.com/noicap Leverage, cashflow and risk: https://nickhuber.podia.com/debtcashflow Onward and upward! Nick PS: If you don't have the money or you want to use this course for educational purposes, email me ([email protected]) to learn more about our scholarship program!

Nick recently had a Q&A session on real estate, investments, and sweaty startups. Listen to a few of the questions here!

Nick and Jim discuss online yoga instruction and how it could be successful.

Listen as Nick talks with Keith Keppner on starting a boxing gym and become the best version of yourself. Follow me on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/sweatystartup LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sweatystartup

In this episode from last year, listen to Nick talk to Adam Sparrow about how to launch a successful web development firm.

Nick talks with Adam Sparrow about how to start your website and all the tools you need for a successful web presence.

Its hard to stay positive even when things are going overwhelmingly well.

Entrepreneurship is a roller coaster.

The final update, taking a loss, and moving forward.

This isn't for everyone. The last week has been mentally, emotionally and physically taxing.

Headed to DC for a big day of pickups tomorrow. We'll see what happens.

We're in limbo as we wait to see if the schools hire us to do the work.

Email [email protected] if you have any thoughts or ideas!

More customers and more stress. Wondering if we're going to pay the bills. [email protected]

Email nick@sweatystartup if you have any resources or would like to get involved.

Morning of March 12.

Desperation time.

If you want to get involved email [email protected].

In today's episode, we're throwing it back to a little over a year ago to listen to Paul Jarvis talk about the growth and scale of a company. His book, Company of One, is out now! Go check it out.