Hi Everyone,

Today I am delighted to present an interview with a remarkable Entrepreneur – Dan McComb.

Dan is one of the co-founders of Biznik.com

Biznik.com is a website I only discovered recently and I have to say I am very impressed. In a very short time, Dan and his co-founder Lara Feltin have built a remarkable community of entrepreneurs and small businesses dedicated to helping each other succeed. What brought Dan and Biznik.com to my attention was the recent Biznik National Entrepreneur study sponsored by iStockphoto

Some incredible stats and information have come out of this survey – such as:

– Nearly 33% of people said they “wanted to do something they enjoy”
– Nearly 60 % said that “personal interests and values were the main
drivers behind their entrepreneurial pursuits”
– Another 25% cited the fact that they did not want to work for someone
else
– And, while only 60% of the respondents said they were satisfied with
the performance of their business, 91% claim they are satisfied with their
decision to work for themselves

This is an amazing interview (conducted by my Father – Barry Dunlop) and we have both a Podcast (above) and a Transcription below. Dan comes out with some real gems of information — one in particular that got my attention was:

Collaboration beats Competition

Read / Listen to the interview to discover more and as always I look forward to your comments.

Very Best Wishes

Michael

TRANSCRIPTION:

Dan McComb Interview

Barry Dunlop: Folks, this Barry Dunlop at Retireat21.com. I’m very fortunate to have a very special guest on the line today, a gentleman by the name of Dan McComb. Dan McComb is from a wonderful website I’ve just become familiar with recently called Biznik.com. Now let me spell that to you, that’s B-I-Z-N-I-K.com. Biznik.com is a community for entrepreneurs and small businesses, dedicating to helping each other succeed. I’d actually probably call it a social network but we’re going to be speaking to Dan in a moment and he’s going to enlighten us a whole lot more about Biznik and what it is. Are you on the line there, Dan?

Dan McComb: Hi, Barry.

Barry: Good, good to have you, Dan. We really appreciate you coming on board. We know you have a very, very busy time at the present. One reason being actually you seem to be all over the internet at present because of the Biznik National Entrepreneur study sponsored by iStockphoto. It’s a survey to determine the primary concerns and motivations of US entrepreneurs.

Normally I’d start off by talking about Biznik but this survey is fascinating. In fact, the more I look at it, the more fascinated I become with it. So, first of all, tell us how you got involved with iStockphoto.com, how the survey came about and then we can maybe talk about some of the surprising results and things that came out of it.

Dan: Absolutely, yeah, well you know I was so fascinated with entrepreneurship and why people are willing to leave a comfortable job and strike off into the unknown and start something despite the challenges associated with it and so one of the questions we asked entrepreneurs was, “What is your biggest challenge, what are you facing, you know, what are the hardships?”. And the first thing, the really surprising finding of the survey was that the number one thing that people report as the biggest challenge was that it’s the reduced income associated with starting a business. I suppose that actually shouldn’t be surprising because, you know, when you jump off, quit a day job and start your own business, you know, often you can expect not to make as much money at least initially and there’s certainly more people with their hand out, you need to hire web designers, you need to get a graphic designer to build you a logo or a website, whatever, all those things, right? Two other things came up. The other one was isolation; people feel isolated and then the other one is they’re working really long hours. So, these are the three biggest challenges entrepreneurs face but to back up and specifically address your question, I kind of got ahead of myself here, iStockphoto and myself and Biznik, we actually found out about each other through Bruce Livingstone who is the founder of Istock who got started up in Calgary, Alberta which is actually where I used to live when I was a kid.

Barry: I’m familiar with it. It’s a great place. I’ve been there last month.

Dan: Oh yes, cold place but great place. In any case, I started making a film about entrepreneurship last April and this film, we had interviewed about 270 people to find out, you know, more about why they do what they do despite the challenges. And one of the people I interviewed for the film was none other than Bruce Livingstone and so he had an extraordinary story that actually did make it into the film. The film is in post production right now. And that’s how we connected. That’s how we decided, you know, this is great, we’re both kind of doing the things and we should try to find a way to work together and that’s what happened. We jointly authored this survey along with a professor at the School of Business here in Washington Sate, University of Washington.

Barry: That’s wonderful. I do know there are one or two surprising outcomes about the survey as well. Do you want to take about those in particular because, I mean. Actually I think I will actually just say something. That reduced income at the beginning is something, I think, that is the obvious thing but I find that a lot of young entrepreneurs are not really aware that that’s going to happen and I think the other thing they’re not aware of is that there’s going to be a lot more people with their hands out expecting you to pay them for things.

Dan: It’s really true, yeah.

Barry: It’s really true.

Dan: And it’s interesting, you know, it’s probably not the most surprising thing, right? Because when you think about it, when you take those risks it’s not surprising that that would happen but what is surprising for me in the results of the survey was getting to the motivation of why people start businesses. Many surveys have shown that the number one reason why people start a business is nothing more complicated than this: they simply don’t want to work for someone else. Now, we expected that that would be what we would find in our survey too. It’s a very consistent finding in many surveys. However, that’s not what we found. The number one reason that people told us why they start their business is because they want to do something that they enjoy. Now, that’s interesting, right? So, it’s not like, “I want to make a lot of money”, “I want to change and revolutionize an industry”, “I want to become famous” or “I don’t want to work for someone else”. It’s “I want to do something I enjoy”, “I want to love what I do”, “I want to be happy”. So, you know, that’s interesting. Actually, the number two thing in our survey, in fact, was “I don’t want to work for someone else”, and it was a close second. It was 33% to 27%. But nevertheless we really thought that was striking and it actually supports a finding that the Gallup Polling organization found very recently. In fact, they released the results of their survey about two weeks before we released ours. And what they found for the first time was across all professions in the United States including such categories as doctors and attorneys and, you know, engineers. One of the categories they listed was entrepreneurs and people who are running their own business and they asked them a bunch of questions about job satisfaction and guess who came out number one as the happiest.

Barry: Entrepreneurs?

Dan: Entrepreneurs!

Barry: Amazing.

Dan: Entrepreneurs. They’re happier than any other category of professional and that is despite the challenges, right? Despite those challenges that I outlined at the beginning that you’re going to be making less money, you’re going to be working longer hours and there’s a lot of uncertainty and risk that comes with it.

Barry: This is all fascinating stuff, Dan. Actually, I’m going to encourage everybody. When we publish this interview online, we’re going to include a link to the survey. If you’re the scientific type, it’s obviously going to be very interesting for you. If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s going to be very interesting to you. There’s so much there, which actually for me as an entrepreneur reading it was just nice to know that somebody was paying attention to us and it was also nice to know that actually it represented us all very well. If I can come back now to Biznik, if I may, Dan, as I said in the beginning, it’s an amazing website. I know it’s been around actually I discovered the other day, it’s been around a little bit longer than I anticipated. It’s been around something like four years now. So, possibly first of all, could you give us a little bit of background on how it got started, what was the thinking behind it starting? I mean, am I fair to call it a social network? It’s sort of a different kind of social network because there’s obviously a bit of meeting up and so on and so forth. So, I’d love you to elaborate on that, Dan, please.

Dan: Absolutely, yeah. Well four years ago my wife and I were both self employed; she as a photographer, me as web developer and we were looking to grow our businesses and we looked around at the options for networking here in Seattle and we were disappointed with what we found and so necessity being the mother of invention as it is often for entrepreneurs we decided to roll our own and just invite a bunch of our friends and see what we could start. It didn’t even start out as a business idea. It really just started out as solving our own problem and so we got together with some people. I built a website in my spare time. Literally, over a weekend I used some code on a different project I’d been working as the foundation and got it up and running and here we are four years later. About 40,000 members mainly active in the northwest around the Seattle area because of the fact that we emphasize face to face connections. And so it is a social network but it’s a little different than the kinds you’ve heard of like Facebook or Twitter in that there’s a very strong face to face component in what we do.

Barry: And I think face to face is still pretty cool and pretty good actually. I’m very confident Dan it’s going to make a comeback despite Twitter. I think I also read something like you’re in a 140 different countries, something like that. Is that right or did I read that wrong?

Dan: No, it’s correct. We’re in 140 countries but the reality is that, you know, there’s 4 people in Malaysia and, you know, 20 in China or whatever. It’s a power curve that really has a long tail with not much activity even though it sounds great. The real activity is happening in English speaking countries and certainly the United States is by far the largest.

Barry: And you mentioned earlier about solving problems. Actually, I think I saw it on the website or maybe it was you or somewhere I saw the best ideas come from solving one’s problems or solving problems and that’s what entrepreneurship is almost to some degree, isn’t it?

Dan: I think it is and that’s one of the reasons why it’s so important to meet other entrepreneurs because it’s often in conversations that you have with other people who are facing the same challenges and the same opportunities as you are that you can really discover possibilities and opportunities. And sometimes it isn’t even about finding new opportunities and exploiting them. It’s really about just the support that comes from having the comradery and feeling like you’re part of something, that you’re not just going it alone. And that’s been really a powerful thing and it’s really one of the things that people tell us why they really like being part of Biznik is really the community piece.

Barry: I mean, no, it’s quite clear just looking at the website how important this is and the thing that got me in particular was sort of this localized community as well which was obviously a very, I mean, I’ve been a lifelong entrepreneur but if I had my time again the one thing I would have done sooner would’ve been got into mastermind groups or mentoring groups with fellow entrepreneurs. They didn’t have to be in the same industry, completely unrelated industries just because there’s support in doing that. And what Biznik is doing is a phenomenal example of making that much easier for people to do. One other thing which I like about website which really got me and is you make a statement which is “collaboration beats competition”. I mean, it’s a very competitive world of business out there so you’re making a great, great statement, there.

One which I happen to personally agree with but which I’d love you to elaborate on a bit is:

Collaboration beats Competition

Dan: Well I think we have a very competitive world; certainly a media landscape that emphasizes competition because, you know, I think we’re hard-wired as human beings to really key on when there’s conflict, you know. So we’re very interested in who’s winning the search engine war, is it Google or is it Microsoft or is it Yahoo? You know, these are compelling because anytime there is stakes where there can be winners and losers it really gets our attention. We’re just born that way, it seems. But the reality though is that when it comes to entrepreneurship and starting a business, if you approach a business which that kind of a mind set you really are setting yourself up for a really big challenge. I mean, if you’re Microsoft you can certainly take a very competitive stance against the rest of the world because you’ve got the resources but when you’re small and you’re a one person company or just a very small team you have much more to gain by collaborating with even people who you might otherwise think of as competitors to get ahead. In fact, Microsoft is really an example of this on a really epic scale. When you think about how Microsoft was competing with Apple Computer in the beginning, Apple really took a go at it alone stance and, you know, Apple they’re extraordinary, their products are amazing and they actually are rare in the case of large businesses that successful that actually can go it alone because they’re that smart, however, they only control a small percentage of the market.

Microsoft has upwards of 90% of the market even today and that I think is a result of Microsoft’s much greater emphasis on partnering with other firms, existing firms to get ahead.

Barry: Perfectly put, Dan, perfectly put. Obviously, at Biznik how long was Biznik in existence before you sort of became like…I assume it’s more or less your full-time position at the moment is working on Biznik. When did you become full-time on Biznik?

Dan: It took us about, let’s see, close to two years, I think, 18 months before we were able to make the leap to full-time away from our other existing client work. And that’s something that’s really good to point out to people, especially young entrepreneurs who are eager, just in early stages who are starting a business or thinking of taking the leap. And that is, you know, don’t quit your day job too soon, you know. It’s tempting, I think, to think that you have to leap with both feet and devote all of your attention or the worse thing, I think, would be find funding for what you’re doing, you know, get someone to give you a bunch of money and then go ahead and start working on your idea. Now, there are types of businesses where that, you know, that works for example pharmaceutical companies that take years and years and years of development before they can ship a product. But, I think, certainly many, many businesses today are the kind of business that you can figure out yourself and you can get started on yourself and you can actually start the most important thing which is connecting with customers yourself. And that’s really important, I think, because as entrepreneurs we like being in charge and we like the idea that we get to create a product that’s really an extension of ourselves and an expression of ourselves on some level. And when you, if you’re worried about how you’re going to pay the rent next month and you’re really struggling, it’s tempting to start making bad choices that can get you into a situation down the road where really you just created a job for yourself and what’s the point of that.

Barry: Absolutely, I mean, that’s the one remarkable thing is a number of people who go into business, or as I often say, they buy a job, you know, it’s not a particularly good idea. Everything you’re saying here, Dan, perfectly resonates and I know it will resonate with our audience. What would you say is some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned personally and as a business with Biznik as it’s grown because it’s obviously come a long way now? I mean, like if you were to start again what might you do differently for example?

Dan: That’s a great question. There are so many things I would do differently if I could start over again. Here’s a good one: I’m not sure how many people this affects but you know they say you should never start a business with your spouse or with a domestic partner and Lara Feltin, the co-founder of Biznik.com, and I are married to each other and, you know, it worked great for two years. We actually loved working together. It was fantastic, we worked shoulder to shoulder, you know, shoveling coal all day long making the business, breathing life into it and that was awesome but by year three we started to disagree and have a lot of, you know, not seeing eye to eye. And by year four it became absolutely untenable. So what I would say is…actually just to give you some background I am now the editor of Biznik and of course the co-founder but Lara is the CEO. So, we actually kind of sat down one day and said, you know, “We need to split this up somehow so that there’s one person in charge and not two” because, you know, co-founders, I think ultimately, you know, every business kind of needs one person ultimately responsible. So I would say it maybe worked in the beginning, but know when to adjust course and know when to make it work.

Barry: Dan, that is an awesome share. I really appreciate that because it takes courage first of all to mention it because everybody who is sort of, you know, even people who aren’t actually married or living together or whatever, you know, co-founders will have issues that they’re going to have to come against from time to time. The good thing here of course is that you were able to sit down and work out a way around it. And it’s something actually which in the heady days of getting started if you like, it often over neglected if you like but down the line when the business is somewhat successful, it’s something that certainly has to be addressed so there’s a great share there really appreciate it. Have you had to hire many people? How is that going for you in the hiring process or is it still quite a small organization?

Dan: It’s very small. We have had a lot of hires though and, I think, that would be something that would get back to your previous question about making mistakes and what would you do over. You know, I do think that hiring is one of the most important things that you as an entrepreneur must do and you must do it well. If you don’t hire well, the future success of your business is put in jeopardy. The right person can make or break your business. It’s literally that simple. We’ve made the mistake, I think, early on of, you know, everybody has friends who you think are amazing people and they do something, you know, that you need, you know, they work for a marketing company or something and you think “hey, I could just hire you”. And it’s really tempting because it allows you to not have to go through a big interview process, it can be extensive and time-consuming and take you away from what you’re really working on. But what I would say, my advise there would be take the hiring absolutely seriously and don’t take the easy way out because inevitably what you’ll end up with is someone who is not your friend at the end of the process and was never really the right person for the job in the first place. And then you have to go do the hard work anyway.

Barry: Once again, Dan, I think a lot of us have been there. Was it you that I think recently I was speaking to you, you mentioned a book called Talent Is Overrated?

Dan: That’s right, yeah that was fantastic book and I highly recommend it to any of you who are interested in how you nurture and develop talent inside your own business. It’s called Talent Is Overrated, the name escapes me of the author but if you Google it, you’ll find it.

Barry: I have a birthday coming up shortly so it’s going on my Amazon wish list so I’m looking forward to that. Now, what’s next, what’s on the horizon for Biznik? I mean, where do you see in the business in say, I don’t know, let’s say three years or five years from now? Where do you believe you’re headed if you like? What’s the emphasis going to be like in say five years from now?

Dan: Well it’s interesting because when we started Biznik we really had stars in our eyes and we really had this idea that we could be the next big thing on the internet and, you know, that we would be, you know, the Facebook of entrepreneurship and small business. Well it didn’t happen that way and, you know, I think it’s actually, it was good and valuable experience to learn that most businesses do not experience explosive growth and that’s okay, it’s perfectly okay and it’s still a solid business so whatever business you may be starting as the listeners out there. You know, most businesses are grown one customer at a time, one relationship at a time and that’s how we’ve kind of evolved into what we’re doing. So, I think in the future, we’re going to see more steady growth and that’s really what’s been working out for us is that the curve on the charts when you look at how much growth we’re experiencing, it’s not, we never hit the J curve, you know, where it just grows exponentially but it’s been steady growth and I think that we’ll see more of that and that’s certainly our goal to grow as fast as we can but do it organically, you know. And instead of kind of reaching out and having to raise a bunch of money and lose control of the company, we’ve just decided to take it one step at a time and that’s what we’ll do in the future. I think you’ll see us focusing on English speaking countries, the United States for now and that we’re thrilled to as many members and certainly anyone in the world including especially England is welcome to sign up and use this site and all the tools are available for you.

Barry: Tremendous. I mean, I’m the same as you, Dan. You have a great future, no question about it. It’s an amazing website and it has so much to offer and will have more to offer. And I think it’s one of those things, once an entrepreneur finds it they’ll mention it to another entrepreneur so it’s quite amazing. I’d like to go back quite a long way, maybe not that long ago but, I mean, I often find when I speak to entrepreneurs that it’s always interesting to find out what entrepreneurs did for their first business. And it is, I get the most interesting replies and I also with respect get some of the most boring replies because some of them are very predictable but it’s a question I do like to ask all entrepreneurs. So maybe you’d share with us what you’re first business was or the first time you were working for yourself and what did you learn from that first time you went into business for yourself?

Dan: Great question. Well I used to be a journalist, a photojournalist actually and I worked for newspapers and covered a lot of news and I eventually ran into a problem with that and the problem was that I didn’t really own my own work so sooner or later, about four years after working professionally and one day my boss called me into his office and told me to take down some pictures I had published on my website and I said, “Well those are my pictures”. He’s like, “Do your homework”. So I did my homework and realized they weren’t my pictures, they belonged to my employer and I simply was working there. And I realized I could spend my whole career doing that and have nothing to show for it so that was really what kicked off onto the entrepreneurial path and so my first business was freelance photography. I thought, ”Screw you. Why should I work for you? I’ll just freelance photographer, that’ll be awesome”. Well it didn’t quite work. It took me about 18 months to fail at my first business and that was because I really had no clue about how to run a business, you know, I mean, I was a freelance photographer, I could take great pictures but marketing them and building a name for myself and getting people to pay me my day rate was a whole other matter. But I learned a lot in the process and then I was able to think, “Alright, well, let’s try a different business”. And that’s how I got started in web development and I learned I was able to make a relatively, modestly successful business and acquire the skills that led to starting Biznik.

Barry: Oh, wonderful! Obviously I mean, you mentioned after 18 months your business had to cease or didn’t go on. So you obviously had your fair share like all of us of coping with setbacks and negative experiences. Do you have any sort of strategies or anything you want to share about that would help people who come across those sort of situations?

Dan: Yeah, you know, the one thing that I often tell people is don’t be afraid to fail but try to fail quickly so that you can learn in time to recover and go to work the next day on moving your project forward. You know, you will make mistakes there’s no doubt about it. We all do it but you can’t second guess yourself while you’re in the middle of it so just look at the options, make a decision, go forward, do the best you can with what you experience. But then here’s the big kicker and that is: in order to learn from your mistakes you really have to be an observer of what’s going on.

I think it’s very tempting to just kind of just keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result which I think was Einstein’s definition of insanity.

Barry: Yes!

Dan: And so it really is important to take an action and then to step back and say, “What happened there? Did that achieve what I was trying to achieve? Is that result going to be enough next time or is there something adjust about my performance or how we approach this that could give us a different result, one that takes us in the direction we want to go?”

Barry: That’s a great share once again, Dan. Really appreciate it. I’ve got two final questions which I don’t know maybe they’ll be long answers, maybe they’ll be short answers. I think you know that the audience of Retireat21.com as you might imagine is a relatively young audience though I have to say lots and lots and lots of older entrepreneurs also visit the site. Young entrepreneurs, is there anything based on your experience, if a young entrepreneur came to you and said, “I’m going into business for the first time for myself” and you could share some words of wisdom with them, what might you share?

Dan: Here’s the thing I would share more than anything else: don’t equate success with getting funded. So many young entrepreneurs, for them it’s just like, “Oh my God, we got a $100,000 in funding. We’re landed!” You know, and that’s not the case. If you get funding, basically what that means is now somebody else gets to tell you what to do. I’m not sure that that’s what you really want, you know, is that really what you want? You know, I would say bootstrap, if you can find a way to bootstrap your business your going to be so much further ahead in the game and you’re going to have so much more fun doing it. So really look hard and long before decide whether you really need to get somebody else to give you money to do what you need to do. Now, the average business in the United States is started with $20,000 of a founder’s own savings and personal borrowing. So it’s not atypical to have a situation where you get $10,000 out of your own savings and maybe $10,000 out of, you know, you borrow from your family or you use a credit card. We actually put our first server on a credit card, which I don’t recommend. If you can get it a different way that’s better but I recommend trying to maintain control 100% yourself just as much as you possibly can. You’re going to be so much further ahead.

Barry: That’s fantastic and bootstrap equals fund. I’m not sure I’ve heard it that way before, Dan, but it does make sense to me I promise you. Finally, what might be the best advice you’ve ever received personally? Can you remember any particular sort of big Ah Hah moment in your life when you thought, “Wow, that’s great”? Do you want to share some of those or one of them?

Dan: Yeah! Well this one actually comes from the film that I’m making right now. It’s called Shine and it’s a thirty-minute documentary about entrepreneurship and we interviewed everyone from a toothless cowboy poet to a guy who sold his business for $500 million. The guy who sold his business for $500 million told me something when I was interviewing him that has really stuck with me and that is this: it’s tempting when you’re an entrepreneur when you start out to really get heavily invested in your company if you only have one. So if you’re starting one business, and obviously most people that’s what start out with, oh my God it’s so much work to do one why would you do more than one? But this guy what he told me was always have more than one business going at a time and the reason he said was because it allows him to be more objective in making decisions about those companies. He was never fully invested in one and so he was never blinded to the reality of what’s actually going on in that market and he could always sort of step back and make more even handed and less emotional decisions. I thought that was really excellent advice and I’ve actually followed that myself and now I’m making films in addition to being editor of Biznik. I have an income making films and I think that’s the good

Barry: That’s again a very powerful share and the film is called Shine. You’ll obviously keep us informed about the release of it of course, Dan.

Dan: For sure, yeah.

Barry: Let us have a trailer or something and we’ll obviously be very, I mean, it sounds like must watch to me.

Dan: You can go to https://biznik.com/shine and there are some trailers there right now and it’ll be probably six to nine months before, because we’re taking it on a festival circuit and it takes time for all that to play out.

Barry: Wonderful, okay. Dan, it’s been a real honor to have you on the call today. You have shared so much and you’ve done it with such a big heart and that to me is always the sign of great entrepreneurs. In fact, entrepreneurs I find are real sharers. I really appreciate it. Have a wonderful day and we look forward to speaking to you again soon. Really appreciate the call. Thank you very, very much.

SURVEY LINK: Biznik National Entrepreneur study sponsored by iStockphoto

BONUS: The Latest Shine Trailer

SHINE Official Trailer 4 from Dan McComb on Vimeo.

Hi Everyone

Today I have an interview with a remarkable Young Entrepreneur – Chuck Gordon, the CEO of SpareFoot – a venture-funded company that he started during his senior year at UCLA about one year ago. Chuck is just 22.

SpareFoot.com is like an Expedia for self storage. With more than 100,000 listings nationwide, SpareFoot has the largest inventory of storage options on the Web, making it a destination for consumers who don’t want to visit web site after web site or make a bunch of phone calls to find the best deal near them.

There is lots of great Takeaways here from Chuck — just one that I liked is:

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to fail quickly. If you think you know what’s going to work in any aspect of your startup, you are wrong

And another great quote that Chuck reminded us of is a quote from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, (about starting a company) who said:

Entrepreneurship is throwing yourself off a cliff, and building a plane on the way down

Thank you Chuck — very best wishes from everyone here at RetireAt21.com for the future success of SpareFoot.com

Enjoy the interview — and as always I look forward to your comments

Michael

Chuck Gordon Interview

Background:

First off – can we have a little background information on you – Where you live? How old you are? What motivates you? What inspires you?

I currently live in Austin, TX and I am 22 years old. I graduated from UCLA in March, packed my bags and moved to Texas when a great opportunity for SpareFoot presented itself. I’m motivated by many things, some of which include creating an awesome product that saves people time and money, building a company where everyone is excited to go into work everyday and of course, generating great returns for my team, my investors and myself.

Other Questions:

1) You are founder of sparefoot.com – tell us how the company formed, you mentioned you were in college at the time? What made you go into this niche?

People often wonder how I got into the self storage industry, assuming that I must have been grandfathered-in. But, the original idea for SpareFoot was very different than it is today.

When we started back in 2008, SpareFoot was strictly a person to person marketplace for storage. People who had extra space in their garage, bedroom or backyard could rent it out to others who wanted to save money on storage. I came up with the idea when I was getting ready to study abroad in Singapore during my junior year at UCLA. I needed to find a place to keep all of my furniture for the entire year, and traditional self storage was going to cost thousands of dollars.

Needless to say, this was beyond my budget. I needed an alternative, so I distributed my stuff to a friend’s attic in Bakersfield, an apartment in Los Angeles and a garage in San Diego. In the process, I realized people could make and save money by doing just this. I teamed up with fellow UCLA students, Mario Feghali and Anna Andersen, as well as Anna’s older brother, Thor Andersen, to create a website facilitating person to person storage.

After launching in late 2008, we got some great traction, but we realized there was an even bigger opportunity in the storage industry itself. We expanded the marketplace and now offer traditional self storage units in addition to extra space in people’s homes.

2) Sparefoot.com has been described as Expedia for self storage. Could you elaborate on this?

Much like Expedia, SpareFoot gives consumers a true comparison shopping experience. SpareFoot is the only place you can book a self storage unit the same way you book an airplane ticket or hotel room on Expedia. Instead of visiting web site after web site and making phone call after phone call to compare and find the best deal on storage, SpareFoot offers customers an easy way to find the space they need from a single website in less than 5 minutes.

3) Can you share some of the biggest lessons you have learned personally and as a business as sparefoot.com has grown? If you were to start again, what might you do differently?

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to fail quickly. If you think you know what’s going to work in any aspect of your startup, you are wrong. You have to try everything, iterate quickly and eventually you will figure out something that actually makes your company some money. We are still doing this everyday at SpareFoot.

4) What’s next for sparefoot.com? Where do you see the business in say 5 years time?

We are in the process of tripling our tech team so that we can execute even faster. In 5 years, SpareFoot will be the go-to destination for booking self storage units, saving millions of customers thousands of dollars and helping storage facilities fill their vacant units. We’ll probably be doing a few other things by then, but you will have to keep checking on us to find out.

5) Do you have any recommended strategies for getting customers who buy once to come back and use your service again – other than of course good service?

Getting return customers is a major challenge for SpareFoot because most people lease a self storage unit only once or twice in their lifetime. However, after making that buying decision, people stay in their storage unit for 13 months on average. We’ve even heard of cases where people rent for 30 years! Our challenge is to stay in front of the customer for the duration of their storage experience rather than getting them to book storage units multiple times.

That being said, I do believe breeding return customers requires a few critical elements. You need a great customer experience from start to finish. If you want your customers to come back, they need to like you. Deliver real value, prove that you care about your customer’s needs and treat them like real people rather than data points on a revenue graph.

6) Does social networking play any roll in your business? If so what?

Social networks and personal connections have far more influence on consumers than your marketing messages ever will – unless your business knows how to harness them,” co-author of Trust Agents Chris Brogan said. We use Facebook and Twitter on a regular basis and drive a fair amount of traffic to our site. Although these people don’t always convert to storage customers, it’s great for building awareness, keeping our friends and fans updated and even getting press. Our social media presence also gives people the sense that we are real people rather than a faceless company. We have developed good relationships with storage operators through Twitter, some of whom actually signed up after finding us there.

7) Do you have any suggestions for coping with set-backs, negative experiences?

My favorite quote about starting a company is from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who said, “Entrepreneurship is throwing yourself off a cliff, and building a plane on the way down.” This is SO true. You have to roll with the punches, and expect to get punched. SpareFoot has definitely been a roller coaster ride, and it will continue to be that way until the day we get acquired (and probably after).

8: How do you keep your business focus – Do you have any suggestions for entrepreneurs who are experiencing challenging times?

Often times it’s hard to keep focused, but you have to prioritize the business above all else if you want it to work. Nothing about starting a business is easy, but you have to accept that and do what needs to be done.

9) Is there anyone that you look up to and model yourself on? (You can name more than one person)

We had the opportunity to participate in the Capital Factory startup incubator/accelerator program this summer, which gave us the opportunity to work one-on-one with 20 successful entrepreneurs (they’ve all started and sold at least one company). It’s pretty hard to name specific people that I look up to from this group, but you can find most of my role models on the Capital Factory mentor list.

10) Do you have any favourite business related or web design related books that you can recommend to other entrepreneurs?

I just started reading The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank, and so far it is fantastic. I would also recommend You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar by David Sandler and How Would You Move Mount Fuji? by William Poundstone.

11) What is the best advice you have ever been given?

Fail quickly.

12) As someone who has achieved success so young, what advice would you give to a Young Entrepreneur starting their first business today?

We’ve been successful in making it this far and raising Series A funding from Silverton Partners and Maples Investments, but in the end, it’s not true success until you exit. That being said, you need to surround yourself with brilliant people to move in the direction of success. This has been the case with the SpareFoot team from day one; you know you’ve done something right when everyone else at the conference table is smarter than you.

I also believe that big egos can hurt entrepreneurs. Yes, confidence is important, but understanding that you are young and don’t always have the right answer is equally as important. Surround yourself with people who’ve done it before and let them help you make decisions.

Another exciting Young Entrepreneur interview, this time with Steve Shapiro (26), founder and CEO of Digsby.com

A few facts about Steve:

1) After an entrepreneurship class in his last year of college at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), Steve had a business plan sitting in his lap and the confidence that he could pull it off. And so after a round of seed funding, he started work on Digsby – which is a desktop application that helps people manage all of their IM, email, and social network accounts from easy-to-use interface.

2) Digsby.com has grown from less than 100,000 users to over 1,000,000 in just over a year. Digsby.com now have over a million users managing over 4 million IM, email, and social networking accounts. Digsby.com has received coverage in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and are frequently featured in blog posts in several top 100 blogs including Mashable, Techcrunch and CNET.

3) Most importantly Steve has been able to monetize an IM application without showing ads in the actual program like other major players (AIM, Yahoo, Live Messenger). Digsby.com have an innovative and unique opt-in research module that allows users to contribute their spare CPU cycles for research. This is similar to non-profit projects like Help Conquer Cancer, The Clean Energy Project or FightAIDS@Home. Along with non-profit projects, it does have commercial applications as well.

My Big Takeaway from this interview:

“The biggest lesson has been that things always take longer than you think they will and there will always be unforeseen road blocks”

Wow Steve — I can certainly relate to that one

Enjoy the interview – let me have your comments and feedback

To Our Success

Michael

Steve Shapiro Interview

1) Hi Steve, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview.

You are founder of Digsby.com- can you tell us a bit about how the company formed and what made you go into this niche?

Digsby started as a school project for an Entrepreneurship class I took while doing my MBA at RIT. The goal was to build a product which helps people save time by making it easier to manage your IM, email, and social network accounts. After the semester was over, I closed a seed round of financing with two angel investors and hired the team. The entire team is RIT grads and our office is in the campus incubator.

2) Digsby has grown from less than 100,000 users to over 1,000,000 in just over a year, could you give the readers a bit of insight into how you managed that?

The product is not naturally viral – you get no benefit from inviting your friends like you do when you get them to join Facebook or Skype. In our eyes, that makes the growth even more impressive. We now have over 1.5 million users manging more than 4 million accounts and exchanging over 25 million IMs every day. I think the reason for the growth is that Digsby provides these people with real utility. As a result, our users have been spreading the word just because they like the product. We’ll keep pushing to make it even better!

3) Can you share some of the biggest lessons you have learned personally and as a business as digsby.com has grown? If you were to start again, what might you do differently?

I don’t think we would do anything differently. It’s hard to say what effect even the smallest change has on an outcome and we are happy with the outcome thus far. The biggest lesson has been that things always take longer than you think they will and there will always be unforeseen road blocks.

4) What next for digsby.com? Where do you see the business in say 5 years time?

Next on our list is adding group chat and launching for Mac/Linux. We have over 400k people on our mailing list (http://www.digsby.com/signup/maclinux/?os=mac) awaiting the mac release. That’s a lot of potential users and potential evangelists we are leaving at the table.

As for 5 years from now, it is hard to say. We help people manage their online communication, whatever channel that may be. I bet 5 years ago no one could have predicted the rise of Twitter. Similarly, who knows what will happen with Google Wave. It may go nowhere or it may become our most requested protocol. We just need to keep our ear to the ground so we can understand the trends early and ride each wave (no pun intended) as it happens to simplify people’s lives.

5) Do you have any recommended strategies for getting customers who use your service once and come back and use your service again – other than of course good results?

Keep making the product better – that’s all there is to it. When you uninstall we ask you why and we read every response we get. It helps us focus our development efforts. I read tons of tweets of people saying that they tried Digsby, didn’t like it, and are now trying it again with much better results. We’ve come a long way since our launch last year in terms of functionality, usability, performance, and reliability.

6) How long did it take to develop Digsby.com’s technology?

It took two years to develop the initial alpha – 3.5 years to get it to where it is today.

7) Do you have any suggestions for coping with set-backs, negative experiences?

Don’t give up – the essay by Paul Graham entitled “How Not To Die” has always been inspirational and I couldn’t put it in better words.

8: Is there anyone that you look up to and model yourself on? (You can name more than one person)

There are lots of great entrepreneurs out there and I try to learn from all of their experiences. As for who I try to model myself on, I think Steve Jobs would be at the top of that list.

9) Do you have any favourite business related or web design related books that you can recommend to other entrepreneurs?

Crossing the Chasm was a great book about how to take technology products into the mass market.

10) What is the best advice you have ever been given?

You can accomplish anything you set your mind to (courtesy of immigrant parents)

11) As someone who has achieved success at a relatively young age, what advice would you give to a Young Entrepreneur starting their first business today?

Do it while you are young – before you have a mortgage, and house payments, and kids, and other things that prevent you from dedicating yourself fully to the success of your startup.

12) What do you like best about the Internet?

That it is endlessly evolving.

13) What do you like least about the Internet?

404, 500, 501, 502, and 503

14) Have you any plans (personal or business) that you can share with us about your future plans / goals / lifetime goals?

At some point it would be nice to end up living in the same city as my wife again. She is off in England doing her PhD right now

15) Digsby.com is based a lot on the boom of social networking – do you feel this is a niche that is going to continue to grow?

I don’t think it matters. I think the Internet will always be used as a communication tool. More importantly, no single medium will ever kill all the others. There are times when an email is the appropriate medium (long letter). There are times when Facebook is most appropriate (share photos). There are times when IM is most appropriate (synchronous conversation). As a result, people will always need to manage multiple accounts and if you can make that process easier then your product has value to the end user.

Checkout the Paul Graham Essay “How Not To Die” here

Hi Folks

Another Gary Vaynerchuk Young Entrepreneur Video for you.

This is from my visit to New York in September. I really love Gary’s message – very inspiring.

To Quote Gary:

“Entrepreneurs get knocked down because were taking chances. Were taking risks. But we love the game, dont we? Just keep loving the game.”

“Dont listen to your parents, or your teachers, or anybody else besides yourself. If youre entrepreneurial enough to be watching this man, to be part of this community, or listening, that already means that you have something different”

Highly Recommended – Gary’s new book: Crush It

You can watch the complete Gary Vaynerchuk Interview and read a transcript over at my other website: IncomeDiary.com

To Our Success

Michael

Hi Everyone,

Today we have an interview with and amazing, high pedigree Young Entrepreneur – Zac Brandenberg

Zac (aged 32) is the Co-Founder & CEO of Hydra, the largest and fastest growing affiliate advertising network (110 million last year).

As I look over Zac’s replies, one point in particular stands out:

“It’s better to be profitable today, than perfect tomorrow”

In the past I have subscribed to the thought that ‘good enough is good enough’ but as I read Zac’s replies I appreciate that “It’s better to be profitable today, than perfect tomorrow” says what I am really trying to say, much better or to take it a step further as Zac also says in the interview: ‘Perfection is generally unrealistic and can be paralyzing”

Zac Brandenberg is already a seasoned Internet entrepreneur with hands-on experience developing and leading online-based ventures.

Some of his accomplishments include:

* Co-Founder & CEO of Hydra Networks
* Founder GreatUSAflags (launched the official “Iraqi Most Wanted” playing cards, grossing $10 million in just six weeks)
* Launched OpinionSurveys, an online consumer panel with more than 10 million participants for The Dohring Company, the nation’s largest provider of custom automotive research
* Consulted the interactive kids’ entertainment website Neopets, Inc. which sold to Viacom in 2006
* Investor and Board member of Teleparent Educational Systems, a provider of notification services to educational institutions
* Investor and a Board member for Meteor Games, LLC, an online, multi-player gaming studio
* Former investor in Dogswell, LLC, which subsequently received an investment from TSG

Enjoy the interview – As always, I look forward to your comments.

Best Success

Michael

Zac Brandenberg Interview:


Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you founded Hydra (hydranetwork.com):

I am currently 32, grew up in New Jersey, and have spent the last 14 years in Los Angeles where I went to college. Previous to founding Hydra in 2003, I ran an online research and advertising business, then started several ecommerce websites (selling patriotic products, holiday gifts, pet products, and more) while a partner at a boutique performance advertising business. I started Hydra to combine multiple Internet businesses under one roof to take advantage of the synergies between them. We did email marketing, database management, e-commerce, lead generation and ran a CPA (cost-per-action) ad network. Given our timing in the market, the ad network experienced such explosive growth that it overshadowed the other operations. So we dropped everything else and focused our efforts on that, although in the last year or so, we have been re-diversifying to provide greater reach and service capabilities to our clients.
 
2)Hydra generates millions of customers or customer leads for advertisers every month through campaigns distributed through banners, social media, email and search marketing. Could you elaborate on how you use social media?

Different marketers want to access different components of social media. We provide reach by advertising in social display and text-display hybrid spaces (think Facebook), as well as placing advertising in social media applications, such as casual games.Taking it one step further, we also run marketing campaigns that use fan sites/pages, twitter, blogging, and communitiesto build a custom social network for our Clients.These tend to be more interactive between the marketer and the consumer, and less of a unilateral manner of communicating with consumers.

3) Can you share some of the biggest lessons you have learned personally and as a business as Hydra has grown? If you were to start again, what might you do differently?

My experience has proven the need for speed, not just in entering new markets and pursuing strategies, but in cutting your losses. It’s important to execute quickly, especially in the Internet space. And don’t wait to achieve perfection before you make your move. Perfection is generally unrealistic and can be paralyzing.

4) What’s next for Hydra? Where do you see the business in say 5 years time?

I see performance-based CPA (cost-per-action) advertising becoming a mainstream strategy for major brands, not just to acquire sales and leads for direct response campaigns, but also to drive engagements for brand campaigns. The trend has already begun and we are evolving our operations to help lead and accelerate the process. Ongoing investments to build our creative and optimization capabilities, direct distribution, web operations and more will result in a Hydra that’s much closer to a full-service online agency than just a pure ad network.

5) Do you have any recommended strategies for getting customers who use your service once and come back and use your service again – other than of course good results? 
  


First off, as the CEO of a results-based ad network, I wouldn’t downplay the importance of delivering “good results.” That’s how we make money for our clients and get paid. But beyond that, we strive to provide a positive customer experience that delivers highly responsive, personalized attention and demonstrates to our clients how important they are to us. We achieve it by hiring great people and instilling in them our mission of service and performance.

6) Do you have any suggestions for coping with set-backs, negative experiences? 

It has been said before because it’s true. Every set-back is a learning experience. Reflect on what brought you to the situation, so you can fix the current problem and take measures to prevent it from occurring in the future.

7) How do you keep your business focus – Do you have any suggestions for entrepreneurs who are experiencing challenging times?

I’m not really big on affirmations or ethereal concepts; I am much more about setting targets and continuing to try until they are reached. Focus in business is like anything else – know what you want and go after it.

8: Do you have any favorite business related or web design related books that you can recommend to other entrepreneurs?

We’re big fans at Hydra of “Good to Great” by Jim Collins; we have given copies to all our staff. Personally, my favorite recent read was “West of Eden” by Frank Rose. It’s a fascinating tale about Apple, which is an amazing company.

9) What is the best advice you have ever been given?

The 5P’s – Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

10) As someone who has achieved success at a relatively young age, what advice would you give to a Young Entrepreneur starting their first business today? 


It’s better to be profitable today, than perfect tomorrow.

11) What do you like best about the Internet?
Unlimited information.

12) What do you like least about the Internet?

In many ways, it has doomed privacy (going back to my unlimited information comment).

Thank you Zac for an amazing interview and insight into how you think about business. It is very inspiring.

About Hydra

Since 2003, Hydra has been delivering customers for advertisers including well-known household brands, online service providers, and hundreds of consumer product and service companies. A leading online advertising network where advertisers pay only for new customers, Hydra generates millions of customers or customer leads for advertisers every month through effective results-based campaigns distributed through banners, social media, email and search marketing. Learn more at www.hydranetwork.com .

Hi Folks

Another Gary Vaynerchuk Video from our recent Meet-up in New York

This time Gary Discusses Video Blogging and Customer Care. No question about it – Gary cares about his customers and his followers – and it shows!

To Quote Gary:

As big as I am and listen, I’m going to be big ass but as big ass as I’m going to be, I’m going to be and sometimes people think Im a big ass, too. But as big as I’m going to be, I’m never, ever going to forget where I came from, and that’s a very big differentiator. The reason Im winning is because I care more than my competitors”

Gary Vaynerchuk Talks about Video Blogging and Customer Care

Highly Recommended – Gary’s new book: Crush It

You can watch the complete Gary Vaynerchuk Interview and read a transcript over at my other website: IncomeDiary.com

To Our Success

Michael

PS: Do you have any hot Young Entrepreneurs that you suggest I interview? Individuals doing well online or offline? I would love to hear about them and interview them. Please CONTACT ME here

Back in September I had the pleasure of being in New York and getting to meet Gary Vaynerchuk and interview him about his new book:Crush It

Gary is a Super Guy, full of PASSION and ENERGY and he has this remarkable ability it appears to almost make an Instant Connection with you (or at least that is how it felt to me)

The Interview took place at the offices of Vayner Media – It was wonderful to get a look behind the scenes of that business – a really great bunch of FUN people, Happy in their work for sure.

Below is a short extract from the interview. Gary makes no bones about it:

If you want to build a real business, it takes years, and years, and years, and it takes lots of passion and lots of hard work

Gary Vaynerchuk, There Are NO 4 Hour Work Weeks

You can watch the complete Gary Vaynerchuk Interview and read a transcript over at my other website: IncomeDiary.com

To Our Success

Michael

PS: Do you have any hot Young Entrepreneurs that you suggest I interview? Individuals doing well online or offline? I would love to hear about them and interview them. Please CONTACT ME here

Hi Everyone

Today I have a short interview (Transcript and video) of one of my favorite Young Entrepreneurs – someone who is now generating a substantial 7 Figure Income – Mike Geary of TruthAboutAbs.com

Mike also owns http://www.busymanfitness.com and has authored the internationally best-selling ebook, The Truth about Six Pack Abs. Currently, The Truth about Six Pack Abs is the #1 ranked Abdominals ebook in the world (as ranked by clickbank.com) — now having sold close to 500000 copies in several languages.

Mike is perhaps the best example I know of an Internet Lifestyle entrepreneur – he really does live life on his terms and as Mike says:

That is one of the best things of this lifestyle, you’re doing something you love and you can do it from anywhere in the world

Enjoy the video — I look forward to your feedback.

To Our Success

Michael

PS: Do you have any hot Young Entrepreneurs that you suggest I interview? Individuals doing well online or offline? I would love to hear about them and interview them. Please CONTACT ME here

Click Here For Another Mike Geary Video

TRANSCRIPT:

Interviewed By Barry Dunlop and Zach Johnson

Barry Dunlop: My other guest this morning, in the gondola as we rise above the Rockies, is Mr. Mike Geary. Mike runs a world famous website called The Truth About Abs. How many books have you sold?

Mike Geary: I think we are up to almost a half million between English, Spanish, German, and French versions.

Barry: You have a French version now as well?

Mike: That was just a couple of weeks ago, yeah.

Barry: Wow! How have you done with the Spanish and German versions?

Mike: Spanish and German have done really well. Actually, surprisingly German has done the best even though it’s a smaller market than Spanish.

Barry: Mike, don’t be alarmed with me saying this but you actually have a slightly Germanic look to you, maybe that’s it.

[laughter]

Barry: Mike, what top tip would you give to anybody who is an information marketer, or anybody who’s in the fitness industry, or anybody who just wants to make a living online? What would you say is the first step? What is your big one?

Mike: I would say the biggest thing is to do something that you love. For me, I love fitness and nutrition. It’s one of the most important things that I have based my life around, and I love sharing that with people.

I think that comes out in my writing. My subscribers, they want to live healthier lives, they want to get in shape and they want to learn how to eat right. There are a lot of unique things I can share with them and I love doing it. And if you love what you do, it’s not a job. I look forward to every day, waking up, working from my laptop anywhere in the world.

Right now, obviously we are traveling in Banff, Canada.

Barry: It’s a little foggy and there is some snow and it is only the second or third of October.

Zach Johnson: And you don’t get that in San Diego.

Barry: You don’t get it in Sussex, England, either.

[laughter]

Barry: Actually one thing which I really, really admire, in fact everybody admires about you, Mike, in fact actually some of us are actually quite jealous of it, the Internet lifestyle thing. We were on the way, driving up in the Carroll Peter Mountains today and Zack was saying, “Does this guy ever go to work?” Because you’re always traveling.

Tell us some of the places you’ve been traveling to recently and where you’re planning to go. All thanks to the Internet lifestyle, by the way.

Mike: This year I drove dune buggies in the Baja Peninsula of Mexico with Barry here, and with Jessie James and a bunch of other amazing business owners. I was in Iceland scuba diving, caving, snowmobiling on glaciers, doing things like that.

Right now we are here in Banff, Canada. I’m going to Key West Florida in a few weeks. I have trips planned to British Columbia this winter to do some helix skiing. I have trips in January on a cruise in the Caribbean, and Bahamas a few weeks after that. Really you can just work anywhere.

Even when I’m on these vacations I try and get an hour of work done a day.

Barry: At least, that’s obviously a big stretch for you. I’m sure your audience appreciates it, Mike.

Mike: That is one of the best things of this lifestyle, you’re doing something you love and you can do it from anywhere in the world.

Barry: I think that’s the key. And obviously you are very, very mad about fitness and living a good healthy lifestyle. If somebody has something that they’re really passionate about, you’re saying basically that’s what the subject should be, that should be what they talk about. Is that what they should be doing?

Mike: I’m not saying they should overlook market research and make sure there is a demand for what you want to sell. But I can tell you don’t sell something just because you think there’s money in it. Go after what you’re really interested in.

That can be really small niches for a lot of people, like fly fishing, or things like that that maybe you are just really just passionate about. For example, I was talking to someone the other day who was really into herbal things. She had incredible knowledge on herbs and their uses, and that is things that most people don’t know.

She could just start a business by just putting her contact online and putting AdSense ads on it. And then figure out where she wants to go from there, if she wants to make a product to sell, an information product.

Barry: The key is just to get started.

Mike: Get started and go after something you’re really passionate about, you really like and just grow it from there. See where it can go.

This interview took place aboard the Banff Gondola and features Mike Geary, Barry Dunlop and Zach Johnson as they ride through the Canadian Rockies with some of the best views of Banff National Park Alberta Canada.

Michael Geary is the owner of TruthAboutAbs.com & http://www.busymanfitness.com and has authored the internationally best-selling ebook, The Truth about Six Pack Abs. Currently, The Truth about Six Pack Abs is the #1 ranked Abdominals ebook in the world (as ranked by clickbank.com)

Bob Proctor, T. Harv Eker, Mark Victor Hansen, Les Brown and Randy Gage Mentor Young Entrepreneurs

Hi Everyone

As a generalization I try to avoid promoting too many products / courses to people here at RetireAt21 — but I heard from my friend Louis Lautman about the YES movie and I just knew I had to give Levis and his movie a PLUG.

You know one of the most exciting things in the world right now is the way us Young Entrepreneurs have become more ‘mainstream’ — treated as equals in the Entrepreneurial World. Movies like the YES movie is one of the reasons for this I am sure.

Thank you Louis – it is my pleasure to help.

Here is the Email I got from Louis:

Hi Michael,

It’s Louis Lautman. I wanted to give your readers a reason why they must check out the “Yes” movie and pick up a copy.

For the “Yes” movie, I interviewed the world’s most successful young self-made multi-millionaire, who is an entrepreneur expert. Kids, who in their teenage years and young twenties, have built multi-million dollar companies using accelerated strategies for wealth creation. These are strategies for people who have been in business for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, they never even know. That’s why these kids have been able to produce millions of dollars in a matter of a year or two or three and are building their business.

So if you’re an entrepreneur, if you want to be an entrepreneur, if you want to take your business and your life to the next level, you must pick up a copy of the “Yes” movie at www.theyesmovie.com . My name is Louis Lautman. I’m the executive producer of the movie and I’m also the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Society, which is a global community of young entrepreneurs. We provide training resources and networking opportunities for young entrepreneurs and we show them how to turn their passion into a business.

We have found that since people have been watching the movie, they have been watching the movie three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, some ten times and more because the information is that great. Not only is it an exciting and entertaining movie, it’s really like The Secret on steroids meets MTV. It’s very fast-paced, flashy scenes, great music, quick edits, which is exciting. But we maintain business integrity principals all throughout the film. It’s inspiring. It’s empowering, and it’s going to get you to take new action. It’s going to get you thinking and it’s going to get you to take your business to a whole other level at an accelerated rate.

We interviewed, not only today’s youngest self-made millionaires and entrepreneur experts. People like Bob Proctor, T. Harv Eker, Mark Victor Hansen, Les Brown, Randy Gage, Marshall Silvers, Brad Sugars, you name them. We’ve got the best of the best of the best in the world who are teaching entrepreneurship today. So you want check out the “Yes” movie, which is all about creating a business and doing it at an accelerated rate. Learning key strategies in business growth from other people who are doing it.

Check out www.theyesmovie.com and then you want to join the Young Entrepreneur Society. It’s a free global community at www.youngentrepreneursociety.com.

I hope to see you in person at one of our live events and be sure to tell me that you heard about the “Yes” movie on Michael Dunlop’s site. We’ll see you soon, take care.

The Young Entrepreneur Society – HD Official Movie Trailer

Hi Everyone,

OK, this is a little bit last minute but I have just had word from Yanik Silver and Maverick Business Adventures about a unique opportunity to join Yanik Silver, Mike Filsaime, Mike Hill, Mike Koenigs, Perry Belcher, Ryan Deiss and the members of Maverick Business Adventures at their next Young Entrepreneur workshop on USTREAM tomorrow — Saturday 3rd October 2009

Maverick Business Adventures are broadcasting their next Young Entrepreneur session live from San Francisco, California, USA via UstreamTV.com from 9AM PST – 11AM PST TOMORROW on Oct. 3rd and invite you to watch and learn.

To watch all you need to do is go to:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/maverick-entrepreneur-success-coaching-from-millionaires at 9AM PST – 11AM PST TOMORROW Oct. 3rd

That is 12 Noon East Coast Time and 5pm UK time

++++++++ Maverick Business Adventure Members: Yanik Silver, Joe Barton, Mike Hill, Mike Filsaime +++++++++

Enjoy Free Coaching, Mentoring and Advice with Maverick Business Adventures Millionaire Members and Yanik Silver. Join live some of the internet marketing top gurus, Yanik Silver, Mike Filsaime, Mike Hill, Mike Koenigs, Perry Belcher, Ryan Deiss and other top gun entrepreneurs give advice and coaching to future entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay area.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/maverick-entrepreneur-success-coaching-from-millionaires

Maverick Business Adventures
“The Ultimate Entrepreneur’s Experience”

East Coast: 240-744-0165
Northern CA: 707-824-2904
———————————————–

http://www.MaverickBusinessAdventures.com

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