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EP657: Justin Wood – How To Scale Your Start Up To Seven Figures In Three Years Or Less
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“You know what? Every founder up here who has got this exponential growth that you think happens overnight,’ he said to me, ‘each one of those has eight years of zero, but they never f***ing gave up.”
Success in business isn’t about having the flashiest idea; it’s about solving a real, pressing problem. Too many startups focus on a vision of scale before they’ve even validated their core offering. The most successful founders are those who hyper-focus on a single problem, test their solution relentlessly, and avoid the trap of building something nobody actually needs. Without solving a genuine problem, a business is just a hobby with overhead.
Justin Wood knows this better than most. As a serial entrepreneur and agency owner, he’s spent years helping founders avoid the all-too-common pitfalls of tech startups. His approach? Learn from failure, mitigate risk, and ensure entrepreneurs don’t bet their entire financial future on unproven concepts.
Justin Wood is the founder of Produktiv, an agency dedicated to helping startups and businesses refine their strategies and scale effectively. With a background in digital publishing, tech startups, and corporate innovation, Justin specializes in product development, brand positioning, and performance marketing. His expertise has helped countless entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of startup growth while avoiding costly missteps.
Expert action steps:
1. Validate Your Idea Before Building
2. Hyper-Focus on a Real Problem
3. Market Your Solution, Not Just Build It
Learn more & connect:
• Produktiv Agency – https://produktiv.agency
Also mentioned:
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Sushi Kaji Restaurant – https://sushikaji.com
• Boards of Canada (Music Mentioned: “David and Cowboy”) – https://boardsofcanada.com
Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
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Transcript
The Appeal and Risks of Startups
00:00:02
Speaker
Everybody wants to have their own startup. Everybody likes the idea of being their own boss. And I think the startup world specifically is where lots of people find themselves. How can I ah learn from the people that have failed and learn from the people that have succeeded? If there's a way I can mitigate the risk for these people and put them on the right path, then that's where I want to be. Before you go build the house, build the schematics for the house.
00:00:30
Speaker
And that's that's what my agency does.
Podcast Introduction with Nikki Ballou and Justin Wood
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice.
00:00:54
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by ecircleacademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:04
Speaker
So we have a very special edition of the Thought Leader Revolution podcast. We're actually doing this in person in the studios of my podcast producer, Chris Rod.
Justin Wood's Journey from English Major to Entrepreneur
00:01:14
Speaker
I have with me today, Justin Wood.
00:01:17
Speaker
Welcome, Justin. Good to have you here, brother. Good to be here. So you and I are becoming fast friends. um And I am very grateful for that.
00:01:27
Speaker
But my audience doesn't know who you are. So why don't we start by you sharing your backstory with us? How'd you get to be the great Justin Wood? The great Justin Wood ah is always improving, but I would say that I'm an agency owner and a serial entrepreneur.
00:01:42
Speaker
um Hands in a lot of things right now, which is a little bit scary, a little bit fun. I always tend to get involved with things that are fun to me. If I don't have it, then I leave. But... ah I started my career as an English major who really liked publishing on the internet. So I started my thesis and I i published it on a blog in the Web 2.0 world, which everyone was like, what? You're not going to print ah print your thesis on a piece of paper? I said, no, I want to do it as a blog.
00:02:15
Speaker
And since then, I've ah had my career in digital publishing and tech, where I've worked with startups, tech entrepreneurs, founders from, you know, the scrappy Toronto tech startups scene, all the way to doing that tech, that scrappy um tech entrepreneur stuff in large corporations like Sun Life, Google, um yeah, just doing innovative tech stuff and telling tech stories and building brands around the startup space what I've been doing.
00:02:47
Speaker
You know, what you do in the startup world is fun and cool because you're a really creative man. You like to find ways to help people that have innovative ideas win. Why is that important to you?
00:03:04
Speaker
I mean, every everybody wants to have their own startup. um Everybody likes the idea of being their own boss and their own entrepreneur. And I think the startup world specifically is where lots of people find themselves. well And when I started my agency, i I had a lot of these people that were...
00:03:25
Speaker
coming to me with their ideas. Oh, I want to have an app that does this or um ah digital business that does this. And the the reality is, is that most of these tech startups fail.
00:03:38
Speaker
Most of them fail. 99% of them fail, right?
Learning from Failures and Mitigating Risks in Startups
00:03:43
Speaker
So when I started my agency, my goal was to make sure that As many people was to help as many people succeed in that as as possible.
00:03:55
Speaker
Right. So it was how can I ah learn from the people that have failed and and learn from the people that have succeeded? And how can I? um Yeah, it just came out of a ah way of wanting to make sure that people don't risk everything and and lose a house or something like that, right? Because tech, it can seem like, oh running an online business, there's no overhead.
00:04:23
Speaker
Right. But when you start building a piece of technology and investing in it and building ah ah a remote team or or something, I've had people come into my office crying that they have to sell their house.
00:04:34
Speaker
and And I thought to myself, if there's a way that I can mitigate the risk for these people and put them on the right path, then that's where I want to be. And that's what my agency has been helping people do is helping them.
00:04:48
Speaker
um Learn, fail fast, but but do it without going all in and risking everything and and building stuff that, you know, sometimes nobody wants.
00:05:00
Speaker
You know, Justin, that's very powerful and very beautiful. Growing up, I had the most incredible father. My father had a regal name, Napoleon, Napoleon Ballou. And he would tell me, son, life is about people.
00:05:17
Speaker
not about money or numbers. And I go, okay, dad. I was a kid, right? Like eight, nine years old. And then he'd say, even business, son, is about people, not money or numbers.
00:05:29
Speaker
And I got confused, right? I'm eight, nine years old. I'm dad, what are you talking about? Without money, there's no business. And he said, that's true, son, but without people, there's no need for money. Because what is business? Business is a process of solving problems for people for a profit. Like imagine this, right? I got this little Venn diagram over here, right?
00:05:47
Speaker
So this one's problems. This is people. And this is the profit. And we're all three intersect. That's the purpose of business.
00:05:59
Speaker
Think about it. That's all it is. So you have to start about... You got to be thinking about that's a human being. That's a person. That's someone's mother, someone's father, someone's brother, someone's sister.
00:06:10
Speaker
It's a hero to somebody. You know, they got hopes, they got dreams, they got fears. Do you want to be part of crushing their dreams or do you want to be part of realizing their dreams? That's the question you got to ask yourself as a human being on this planet.
00:06:25
Speaker
Who are you? Are you a dream stealer or are you a dream enabler? Right? And Justin, man, why love you, man, why you're such a good dude, why I want to help you build a nine-figure exit for yourself is because you're a good dude and you're a dream enabler.
00:06:46
Speaker
That's your brand as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. Right? And I'd love for you to expand on what I just said for a moment. Yeah, I think ah one of my good friends who's an entrepreneur, his name's Frank, he he says about entrepreneurs is we're problem solvers, right? Nobody got rich from like thinking of how much money. Well, I'm sure there's tons of people who have, but I mean, the the majority of entrepreneurs and people that have...
00:07:14
Speaker
startups that have been successful, they all start with a fundamental solving problem solving thing. They see either themselves or somewhere in their market, there's a fundamental problem that people are so sick of of going through day to day and they just come up with a solution for that. Right.
00:07:34
Speaker
And the the startups that I find that fail, they just don't have a problem to solve. Right? Like, ah i've I've had large corporations say, hey, we're going to create this thing, and it's going to drive this much revenue, and they get so caught up in that.
00:07:51
Speaker
And they go and they spend millions of dollars on these, but what these, these financial models of what something could be, without actually talking to a customer. without without like Without actually asking somebody if they want that thing.
00:08:05
Speaker
So um it's 100%. It sounds like it's an idea, but when it comes down to it,
00:08:16
Speaker
if you're not solving a problem for somebody, then don't build a solution. Don't build a solution to to something that doesn't need to be solved, right? Yeah. Yeah. But listen, you
The Importance of Solving Real Problems in Startups
00:08:27
Speaker
know what? i'm I'm just going to say this to Chris, or my podcast producer.
00:08:31
Speaker
Chris, the name of this episode is going to be Startups That Fail Don't Have a Problem to Solve. Yeah. Startups That Fail Don't Have a Problem to Solve. And at the end of the day, if you don't,
00:08:43
Speaker
solve a problem, you don't have a business. No. Period. Full stop. End the story. You may have a nice idea. It could be a hobby, but it's not a business.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, and i think the startups and the founders that I have seen go from that you know zero to nine figures, what is very consistent in them is what I call this, they're hyper-focused on that problem. and And I'll give you one example. um One startup I work with, they're called ah Contact Monkey, right?
00:09:20
Speaker
Whatever, it's an email tracking software. And I remember going into to Scott, the founder's office, and he said to me, as long as I can get somebody to track an email, I know I've got them.
00:09:35
Speaker
So what he would do is people would sign up for his his software and he would personally call everyone. Hey, did you track that email? Hey, did you track your first email? he would He would go and he would offer them a coffee. So we we would set up a an email drip that, hey,
00:09:51
Speaker
I'll buy you coffee if I show you how to track an email. And when you focus on that one problem, and and he knew that if he got them to track their first email, he would have a customer for life because he he solved that very simple problem with them.
00:10:08
Speaker
And I see that as the consistent story in the founders that are successful. They are the ones that they're laser focused on that simple problem. And they solve that first before they go and build you know huge features and data sets and reports tables. And this is going to be, this is how this is going to scale. it they They have to start with a simple problem and solve it for people.
00:10:35
Speaker
Because if if you're not concise in that, you're going to get lost in the shuffle and you're going to lose your focus. Yeah, interesting, very powerful thing that you just said.
Marketing Strategies for Business Growth
00:10:45
Speaker
Inside my business, right, I work with business owners, with founders. A lot of my clients are like coaches, consultants, and, you know, one, two-man bands, but a lot of them are founders like you as well.
00:10:56
Speaker
And what is the fundamental problem they have? Well, for the one or two-man band, it's they're invisible, and because of that, they're not getting the the amount of business they should be getting. So they're not making as much money as they want to. That's the fundamental problem. yeah And my solution is...
00:11:10
Speaker
Let's make you visible you get more business. And for founders, it's a little bit more of a nuanced answer, right? They're not exactly invisible, but they're not as visible as they need to be to the size of market that they want to be visible to, right?
00:11:23
Speaker
So the whole solution is, look, your company's smaller than it should be. Because your brand isn't visible enough. You personally, let's make your brand more visible and bigger and better known and and and authentic and real out there.
00:11:37
Speaker
And that will grow your company. So that's the solution that we offer to people. But if all I did was I came to people and I say, hey, Justin, I think you need a personal brand, man. think it'd be really great if you started making videos.
00:11:48
Speaker
You just go, what the hell is this guy talking about? why Why is he telling me to go make videos? It's not a problem in that fashion, right? And then I was talking to you about this client of mine. And he is a ah ah relationship coach for guys in long-term relationships.
00:12:03
Speaker
And a lot of guys in long-term relationships reach a point where the intimacy isn't what it was when they first got married, right? It's just not. So Buddy said, well, that's a problem. a lot of guys don't like that. So my solution is, let's get your wife as excited to be intimate with you as you are to be intimate with her.
00:12:19
Speaker
And I'll tell you, every guy that listens to that goes, yeah, man, I want that solution. I'm all in. And if you can... properly identify the problem that your client has.
00:12:30
Speaker
Like really, you said hyper-focused, laser-focused. I think the number one job that we all ought to do in business is truly understand the problem that the client has and the consequences of not solving the problem.
00:12:48
Speaker
And then help the client understand those consequences to a very powerful degree. And then if you do that... the client's going to want your solution. And I want your take on that.
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think finding that solution defines what your product is, right? So if it's an email tracking or an event app or a any business in that sense. But I want to like go back to what you're saying a little bit about Like that's, that's half of it.
00:13:19
Speaker
And the hardest, hardest part is solving that problem. You get that problem, but ah you also need to know how to market the fact that, that you have the solution to that problem as well.
00:13:32
Speaker
Right. And one of my favorite stories around this is RDO. Have you ever heard of RDO? Nope. That's what most people will say. But the story of RDO is very unique because what their philosophy was, was that we will make the product so good and we will be so focused on the product that it will sell itself.
00:13:55
Speaker
that That the product solution will be so good that we don't need to do any marketing. So theoretically, it started to work. So it's a sili Silicon Valley startup called Ardeo. Essentially what it was, was a thing called music so streaming online, music streaming online, right?
00:14:13
Speaker
And what's the what's the first thing you think of when you hear music streaming online? Which brand? Streaming online? don't know. Either YouTube or iTunes? Yeah, Spotify, iTunes, right? So RDO was growing at a rapid phase phase with this, we're going to make ah a really good product and it'll just sell itself. So this amazing first digital, like you can log in through a browser and you can listen to your music and it had your whole library and this glassy, beautiful...
00:14:44
Speaker
case, and they were growing exponentially because people would just say it was word of mouth. It was like this product is great. Try it. And they spread exponentially.
00:14:55
Speaker
Meanwhile, over in Europe, there was a ah small company called Spotify that was getting getting started up. And they were doing the same thing. They were competitors, and but they did marketing.
00:15:10
Speaker
So in the music world, there's licensing. So it was a matter of who's going to get the licenses first. But RDO never marketed themselves. And you know what happened?
00:15:22
Speaker
As soon as Spotify got the licenses in North America, RDO could have been the absolute... The domination of of streaming in North America, but they never did marketing. they they were They said to themselves, we don't need a marketing department. That's bullshit. we're gonna we're just The product will sell itself.
00:15:41
Speaker
But you know what? As soon as Spotify had their licenses and they had a marketing team behind them, they crushed RDO. artio actually was crushed so bad they ended up selling to a radio company who just tried to scramble and promote them through radio ads. And yeah, it's one of my favorite case studies in like you can have a good product and you can find product market fit.
00:16:03
Speaker
But if you don't have, um if you don't share that problem solution in ah in a way that can be conveyed to a whole audience, you're going to be crushed by the person that does have marketing, right? Yeah.
00:16:16
Speaker
That's so true. That's so true. You can't just be good at solving problems. You've got to be good at letting the market know that you are good at solving problems. Yeah. And that that is such a macro example of it, right? It's like it's a brilliant example. like They were growing huge, and then they're just like... They're dead.
00:16:34
Speaker
But what I like about it is the is the naive philosophy that they had, that the product's so damn good that it's going to sell itself. And it got them pretty far until it didn't.
00:16:45
Speaker
You know, now imagine someone's listening to this, right? And maybe they have a consultancy and they're thinking to themselves, okay, I'm buying what you're selling here, Justin, but how does this apply to me?
00:16:59
Speaker
Like, I know I'm good at solving x problem for corporations. How do I go about marketing myself without sounding like one of these corporate doofuses and douchebags?
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah. So what's the answer to that? Well, it comes down to that customer problem that you solved in the first place, right? um most Most tech startups, um they they solve that problem, but it's it's thinking about, even on ah on um on a micro level, think of the questions that your product your product is solving and work back from there. So for example, um in SEO and and and digital marketing.
00:17:42
Speaker
Okay, I have an email tracking software, but what are the problems around email tracking that people are having, right? How do I track my software in in Gmail? How do I track my software in Outlook? How do These all, if you take those problems and you expand them out into like how people are are thinking about solving those problems and you align your marketing with those questions that people are asking, that's really the the second the second secret. and
00:18:13
Speaker
And I've never seen a startup actually get off the ground in a meaningful way without tapping into that, without having ah organic search strategy that...
00:18:25
Speaker
Again, you bring it back to that problem. ah that That founder that I worked with before on the email tracking, it was he was hell-bent on answering those problems. So he would go onto Quora, onto forums where people were like, how do I track my email? How do I track my email? And he'd be in those forums saying...
00:18:45
Speaker
hey, you know, there's a lot of things around there, but ah we built a little tool that can solve it for you. If you click ah click on the link here, then you can get a free trial, right? So it's just aligning those questions and helping people, like get giving them the the solution, right?
00:19:02
Speaker
And then you start building a whole content library around things that that help around that solution. And then then you have a big chunk of people who are really aligned with your solution that have the problem. And that's where the two things connect and the money comes in.
00:19:26
Speaker
I can see how that would work for like a software product company. yeah But imagine someone was just a pure consultant, right? They're selling services, not a software product or a software as a service. They're selling like a high ticket, something like five figures, six figures, seven figures.
00:19:42
Speaker
How would that marketing strategy be applied by someone like that specifically? what i What I say to a lot of people in services is think of the questions that you get asked on a daily basis that you're just sick of answering because you answered them so much. So if I'm a lawyer, how many times does a lawyer get asked, how do I do my will?
00:20:03
Speaker
Or if I'm a lawyer, barber, how many people ask me questions about what type of haircut? do I get leads? Yeah, or something like that. ah You want to start with that and just start answering those questions in your content, right? Like take the things that are people will commonly ask you and write an article about it or film a podcast on it. Like one of my one of my favorite examples of that is how I got my first accountant.
00:20:30
Speaker
I said, I went into Google, I said, small business accountant in Toronto that specializes in this. Boom, I get, he he ran a paid ad, but the paid ad wasn't, you know, just click here and fill out a form.
00:20:45
Speaker
The paid ad went to... ah an article about things for small business owners owners to consider. And that in the article, he had a little podcast clip where he said, hey, I'm Andrew.
00:20:57
Speaker
I'm going to tell you about some of the main mistakes that business owners have when they're doing their accounting. And I press play on that button on that button and I am instantly given a voice of somebody, right?
00:21:11
Speaker
I'm not just getting some AI SEO article. I'm also getting a voice of trust and and i'm I'm instantly trusting that person. So again, it goes back to what are those problems that people are asking you day to day?
00:21:25
Speaker
Answer them and put that content content on your website, right? Because that's where you're going to start. And that's where you're going to initially start to build trust with people. Okay.
00:21:36
Speaker
And it can be applied to anything, right? It could be applied to... ah Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. it It totally makes sense. So why do so many people screw this up?
00:21:49
Speaker
Why do they screw it up? ah I would say they get a little lost in chasing trends and chasing. They get more focused on what the tactic is and less about what the content is. So rather than saying taking a step back and saying, what are all the questions that people ask me all the time that I give solutions to?
00:22:14
Speaker
They think, oh, I need to be on TikTok. Okay, well, you can get on TikTok and you you see a lot of people you know, waste a lot of time and money. But if you're not coming to the platform with the value that you bring, then it doesn't matter, right? Like I've worked in tech for 20 years.
00:22:34
Speaker
the The same, the platform's always going to change. At one point it's like, oh, we need to be on Twitter. Oh, we need to be on Facebook. Oh, we need to be on Instagram. But it doesn't matter what platform that you do.
00:22:46
Speaker
um it's It's bringing your fundamental value to an audience and then just adapting it to that platform. So where I see a lot of marketing dollars and go-to-market strategies fail is they focus more on the the platform that they're going into and less into their own value that they're bringing to those platforms.
00:23:08
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense. That makes a ton of sense. So if someone is... not starting a business, but they've had their business for a while and they've had some success, right? So they're there's money coming through the door, but maybe they're hitting a plateau.
00:23:27
Speaker
Maybe they're slowing down in their growth and they're coming to speak to someone like you. What's the first thing you do to diagnose that problem?
Ensuring Scalability Before Marketing Investments
00:23:38
Speaker
I would say um on the service side of things, I see a lot of people thinking about you know productizing their service. right so it's Everybody wants to grow their business. Everyone wants to make more money. Sure thing.
00:23:53
Speaker
but I often find people that I don't even know if they're ready to do that, right? Because it's great. You can turn on advertising. You can you can dump a lot of money in leads. you can You can do all that. But if you don't have the the way to actually deal with that growth, like digital marketing can be very powerful if you do it right.
00:24:13
Speaker
But if you don't have the the backend system to to deal with that, then what's the point of growing to begin with, Right. So what I tend to do is is before i I would say to someone, hey, invest in digital marketing or or invest in your content or invest in an app.
00:24:30
Speaker
What I would is like, can you handle it? Right. So when when these digital funnels get going and are done right,
00:24:41
Speaker
you need to you need to have a productized way of dealing with it, right? What does that mean in English? What that means is that if you're just slapping a lead gen form and you're having to call somebody on the on the phone every time ah a lead comes in, and um I know this because I've broken startups this way, right?
00:25:01
Speaker
We had a startup called Do Your Own Mortgage, and we were way ahead of our times. We built a online mortgage application platform where someone could go in, they would get a there was a killer offer rebate on their mortgage. They could calculate how much they would get on their on their mortgage.
00:25:17
Speaker
And we put it live. We started putting ads to it. But the problem was... It was too successful. We had to build a call center to deal with all the leads.
00:25:28
Speaker
We had to, and it it broke, right? So what you need to do is you need to figure out if you are going to turn on these channels, can I can i have a system where people come in, the leads are qualified because you don't want to be running around Wasting time. Wasting time and money on calling people that aren't qualified. So you need onboarding flows and systems that do that self-service.
00:25:54
Speaker
And you need a way to um engage people after they've become customers too, right? so um And that's what I call like a productized service, right? So you need to have packages, pricing, and ways that you can scale that up, right? Tell me some stories of clients.
00:26:13
Speaker
ahha Stories of clients. um Let's see. You want the good ones or the bad ones? Both. um I think some great ah client stories are obviously ah contact monkeys. Really cool. Started with ah um Scott was guy in his office, his dad's insurance office built this tool. um I actually ran into him in a conference the other day and he said to me,
00:26:42
Speaker
We're looking at all these SaaS founders. And this is the thing is with with software as a service, everyone's getting up there. curve, J curve, J curve. Here's they're growing at exponential. This is the 10x venture capital world.
00:26:59
Speaker
And Scott pulls me aside. i just happened to randomly sit beside him. I didn't even know he was at this thing. and I sit beside and I look over and I see this head of hair that only Scott has. and go, Scott, how's it going? He goes, Justin, I'm doing good.
00:27:11
Speaker
And he said, you know what? I'm going to put, I want to show you something. And he pulls me aside. He pulls out a spreadsheet. He goes, okay, here's my J curve. Yeah. We, the company's grown like this.
00:27:22
Speaker
yep He's like, this is, this, this is where, you where you started helping me out was around here, 2018. And he said, you know what? What you don't see on this graph is the eight years before where there was this, right?
00:27:37
Speaker
And he said, you know what, every founder up here who has got this exponential growth that you think happens overnight, he said to me, each one of those has eight years of zero, but they never fucking gave up.
00:27:51
Speaker
And to me, that was like, especially in the tech and startup world, people get excited about that. they They see these overnight successes of like, great, I raised $50 million dollars or, but it's not, none of that is overnight success. It's, um, it's, it's a lot of failing. It's ah it's years and years of failing and testing and learning to get to that.
00:28:17
Speaker
And you got to be in it for the long run. um If you want that level of growth, it's it's totally cool to to bootstrap things and build a ah smaller company with
The Myth of Overnight Success and Sustainable Growth
00:28:29
Speaker
that. But we all we all aspire to that that J curve, that things doubling overnight.
00:28:36
Speaker
But it can be a nightmare if you don't have if you haven't done the the work to make sure that you can get that. right So I think that's a ah great you know a story of success, but also what's involved in that success.
00:28:50
Speaker
good story i like it i like it so justin you and i off camera before we had lunch we were talking about um the importance of thought leadership for a founder of a of a company and how that can really help them supercharge not just their personal growth but the growth of their business. And we talked about folks like Elon Musk, whose brand is bigger than any one of his companies, right? And all of his companies benefit from his brand. So when it's said that Elon Musk is getting involved in X company, that company is instantly more attractive to customers, to potential employees, and to investors. That's a fact.
00:29:32
Speaker
And it's his thought leader brand that's done that. I want to hear from you, what are your thoughts around thought leadership for tech company founders and other, frankly, company founders?
00:29:45
Speaker
Why do you think it matters and how do you think they need to go about thinking it through and how to implement it? Well, it's kind of that story that I told you before, right? um Especially in the tech world, it's painted as some get rich quick overnight thing.
00:30:00
Speaker
um Which isn't true. Which is is is totally not true. um you know maybe Maybe some people have ah have a hit every now and then if they're they're good at being sneaky with investors.
00:30:14
Speaker
But like just because you raised money doesn't mean you're success. You could go out and raise $50 million, dollars but you could burn it overnight, right? good um Why I think it's important um in this space is to demystify that, is is to um to let people that do have a dream to, if they've went out and they've found, they've said, you know what, i'm I see a problem somewhere in the world and I build a solution to fix it.
00:30:48
Speaker
um It's possible. It's totally possible, but it's not going to happen overnight. Right. So I think what founders need is they need, um, they need to understand the building.
00:31:02
Speaker
there's There's a gap between the Elon Musk who, and the, um, the successful $10 million dollars tech startup. So I think,
00:31:13
Speaker
It's important that more more people who have built good, sustainable tech companies talk out and not just the the big overnight successes, um because that will guide the next generation of of startup owners to to understand what it really takes and what and change the view of what success really means. It's it's it's not always, I raised 10 million bucks. ah Sometimes it's,
00:31:40
Speaker
I have a $2 million dollars online business that gives me the lifestyle that I want, that ah that gives me fulfillment in my life and is and is profitable with one or two people. That's that's amazing. And i'm starting you're starting to see that a lot more. You're starting to see people not not going out and chasing money, bootstrapping and building really good online businesses, app apps and all that stuff. And...
00:32:04
Speaker
And I think that's an amazing path of entrepreneur entrepreneurship. so Absolutely. So what do you think thought leadership can help these guys do? Why should they want to build their brand and get known independent from whatever their specific dream is?
00:32:22
Speaker
Well, they need to they need to be a champion for their customers, right? they need to If they've went out and solved a problem, they need to um tell people that there's a solution out there, right? So, again, it goes back to the RDO example. if If you built a ah solution and nobody knows that you built it, then you're not what's the point of building it, right? So, um I think... you think it puts a face...
00:32:47
Speaker
humanizes the solution almost by them building their brand? Do you think that's important? All tech, so many tech companies right now are leading with what what they call um like founder-led tactics, right? So- It's no longer like I'm going to slap a logo on on this tech company and and be the Instagram. it's I see a lot of these good mid-market profitable tech companies that they're founder-led.
00:33:13
Speaker
So the founder is out there telling the story about what's what's messed up in the industry and how and they position their there's software as the solution to that. Right. um And it and it works all it works really well because it allows them to... um Humanizes it. Yeah, it humanizes it. And and when somebody is telling you about the problem that you have and then they're just like, oh, by the way, my tool solves it. um It's an easy sell for lots of people, right?
00:33:41
Speaker
And it's really fundamental in those early stages of growth with your company, right? Yeah.
00:33:50
Speaker
come up with your next crazy side hustle. No, I have enough. I have enough, please. No, I love doing that stuff. You and i not not immediately, but you and i will partner up. We'll build this into something to get to all the founders and we'll turn it into a productized thing.
00:34:08
Speaker
Because this, my man, i think they all need it. They all benefit from it. like I'm looking at this and I go, how many how many founders can I work with in a year? Man, if you gave me 50, I'd be busy.
00:34:20
Speaker
I'd be really busy with 50, right? Yeah. With 50,000, I couldn't do it. I couldn't remotely do it. Like, not even remotely, right? But there are 50,000 people who need this, who need some version of this. Can this be productized?
00:34:35
Speaker
I don't know, but I'm thinking a big chunk of it can be, right? A big chunk of it. You can teach a big chunk of it. You said this, right? The FAQs of what are they the questions people ask me. So so and when they get together, we well, how do I nail my message? Okay, I could probably answer that. I mean, you'd need a little bit of interaction with people, but we could probably...
00:34:56
Speaker
self-lead them and answering that through some sort of like online recorded program. Okay, so we get the message right. The second thing is, well, how do I how do i um how do i get my how do i be good on camera?
00:35:10
Speaker
can we create an ai camera Is that possible? Like, do we need to have a live guy or can you have an AI camera coach? I'm just thinking, right? I'm thinking out loud here, right? The the amount of ai ideas that are out there, um as long as it's useful. I'm waiting. But is that not a useful thing? Like an AI camera coach, like our buddy that's going to do this thing in yeah in in April, right? Yeah.
00:35:34
Speaker
Could we take all of his all of his like expertise and somehow turn that into an AI? I think, I don't know. I'm happy to take any of your pitches that you have. Right, but- but but whether Whether you'll like my feedback? Listen, yeah feedback or not, but I'm just thinking to myself, okay, that it strikes me that there's a bunch of guys who are founders who are going to need that camera coaching because most of them going to suck on on on air, right? They're going to go, um, and like, and all that other bullshit that they shouldn't be doing.
00:35:58
Speaker
What you find when you when you work in the startup world is there's always whatever idea that you've come up with, somebody else has come up with it too. But it's it's it that doesn't necessarily mean that you don't do that do that idea.
00:36:15
Speaker
You always just have to be the best person at it. And it comes back to that that email tracking. Can I be the best person that tracks an email? Can I be the best the best thing that does this?
00:36:26
Speaker
And, um, people, and yeah, you get that. but People need this. I don't know how big a universe it is. It's more than a hundred, probably less than a hundred million. I'd say probably people getting into the tech startup world on an annual basis, 50, a hundred thousand.
00:36:45
Speaker
There is, there is so much opportunity with content, no matter, no matter what platform. I like to find a way to help these guys at scale because I cannot work with more than 50, hundred guys at once. I can't. yeah I'd love to. Well, you need a system to process it, right? you you need ah You need a way that people can come in, self-serve, give you what they need, and then you output something into some kind of self-service dashboard that they can manage those things yourself. And then you have a software company. It's worth thinking about. It's worth thinking about because as you were talking here, that's what I was thinking about. Wait minute. I mean, a lot of people need this. For sure, a lot of people need this.
00:37:20
Speaker
Prototype it. Can I work with everybody? yeah Prototype it. that's what that's That's what my agency does. i proud what i said That's what I'm saying. People come to me with a million ideas. I say, you know what?
00:37:31
Speaker
Don't build it. Whatever you do, don't go and build it. Prototype it first before you go build the house. Build the the schematics for the house. And that's that's what my agency does. we we've had i This is why I said i got you next i got you I got your next side hustle idea, brother. You know what? As long as there's a prototype for it, ah that's that's what you do. You prototype it and then you get in front of people and you say, hey, could this help you?
00:37:55
Speaker
Yes or no? And then you you pivot and you keep working on it from there. All right. Yeah. So, Justin, um somebody wants to have a conversation with you, get to know how you can help them think through some of these issues.
00:38:13
Speaker
What's the best way? Yeah, just ah productive is is my agency. I got a great team and and essentially- You have an unusual spelling for productive, right? Oh yeah, P-R-O-D-U-K-T-I-V dot agency is our is our website. yeah ah Really what we want to do is just- So do people just go to the website? Is there like a book a call function there or anything like that? Yeah, first thing we do is we do an audit, see if it makes sense to work with us.
00:38:41
Speaker
We're not like a Audit slash call. Okay, that's good. Yeah, see if… ah And usually we look at any any successful digital product, any startup that I work with has four key pillars. Your brand, your product, which is your experience.
00:38:56
Speaker
your performance and your content. We do a four point kind of inspection, like taking your car into the garage and then we give executive summary on how we can build that to scale.
00:39:07
Speaker
So brand, product, performance, and content. And content, yeah. So those are the four, every startup that I work with, I've formed. What do you call this? I call it like a strategy sprint.
00:39:19
Speaker
So it's like. You need better name than that. That's not good name. I don't like to use audit because we actually give you ah a 15-page executive summary of of of what your product strategy should be. Okay, we're going to call this the productive advantage.
00:39:33
Speaker
Sure. Productive methodology. like it better. Yeah, the productive advantage, TM. I like that a lot better than strategy sprint. Yeah. But these four, this is unique. You got you gotta TM this. You got to create them. I'm giving you some coaching here. like You got to do that.
00:39:49
Speaker
You're not going to call this a strategy sprint anymore. You're going to say, would you like the productive advantage? That's what you're going to tell people. That's what you're going to give them to the people like these kinds of names. They don't like strategy sprint and all that bullshit. So let's create that. I think this is gonna be really great. All right.
00:40:01
Speaker
So I'm going to ask you some off-the-wall questions though as we look to land the plane on the episode. So what's what's your favorite book that you've ever read and why?
00:40:13
Speaker
Favorite book? ah It would have to be Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I love Vonnegut, man. That dude is a genius. Why? It's just absolutely absurd. um I don't really like...
00:40:30
Speaker
I remember when he died, i was in university when he died and i remember just being like sad. I was like, yeah i felt it. I felt like a connection with this person through his books, but I'm genius writer. Slaughterhouse five is just an an, absurd, absurd slip between war dreams and otherworldly. And it just took me to a place that I've never been to when writing a book. So love that book.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great book. I love it. and And you can read it in a day. It's just it's so you just slip right through it. What's your favorite song of all time and why? Favorite song of all time is... Favorite song of all time?
00:41:10
Speaker
ah It's really obscure. That's okay. it's Day Van Cowboy by um Boards of Canada. I would don't know that song. It's just like an ambient techno song that I would just play at my funeral.
00:41:24
Speaker
It is just like... So who's who's the who's the band? Uh, boards of Canada. Boards of Canada. I've never heard of them. I want to this out. They're Scottish, uh, techno band. All right.
00:41:35
Speaker
What's the best restaurant you've ever been to and why? Best restaurant I've ever been to? Yeah. I like Sushi Kaji in Etobicoke.
00:41:46
Speaker
It's a and Japanese... It's only open a couple days of the week because he flies on all the fish in from Tokyo. It's in a little strip mall. Shut up.
00:41:57
Speaker
Yeah. From Tokyo? Yeah. he He has a buyer in the Tokyo fish market, and he... um ships it in so he's only open wednesday till saturday i believe and it was right beside my house and the chef is from a prefecture that i used to live in in japan so like he lived in japan yeah i used to live in like rural japan and drive a pickup truck um yeah what'd you do there just taught english How cool is that? Screw around.
00:42:26
Speaker
um But, yeah, so, like, he just, ah I leave that place. i usually go on my birthday, and I leave, like, rubbing my belly because I feel so happy. Okay.
00:42:38
Speaker
I want to go to dinner with you now. I've got to get i got to get dispensation from my bodybuilding coach to go there, but I like to go there. I mean, it sounds amazing. Oh, you can go sashimi all the way. i know, I'm not allowed to eat fish right now because it's higher fat than either chicken or fish. that's it's the We'll get him to do steamed chicken breasts. I'm going to ask him.
00:42:56
Speaker
I'm going to tell him, Amr, buddy, you got to let me know when I can cheat. Like I need a cheat day because I'm going to this restaurant. I got to check it out. And and I'll call you. go listen, my cheat day's coming up. Can we make this work? Let's make it happen.
00:43:08
Speaker
Sushi Kaji. hope it's still around, but ah it's like a Toronto establishment. so Sushi Kaji. Okay. K-A-J-I? Yep. Yeah. All right. Cool, cool, cool. Okay.
00:43:19
Speaker
What's the best piece of advice you ever got? Hmm. Best piece of advice I ever got. I think it's, it's just back to what we said. Um, as entrepreneurs, we solve people like you solve people's problems. You're a problem solver for people.
00:43:39
Speaker
And that's something that no matter if I didn't have the, the clients or accounts that I have or, Employees that are amazing that helped me out if if if I just kept to that fundamental i could be on the street and I could start over again, right? So identify like identify people's problems and help them out.
00:44:04
Speaker
That's really That's why we're put on this planet to be honest. That's beautiful. And last of these offbeat questions. um How did you win your wife's heart?
00:44:16
Speaker
Oh, how did I win my wife's I think um when we were in Montreal one time when we first started dating, um There was somebody who was stuck in the snow, as you usually are.
00:44:29
Speaker
And I remember i I ran across to just push this guy out of the snow. And i think that's where she was like, you know what? That's you as a person. Like, you don't you don't care.
00:44:42
Speaker
if you don't know this person, you will dive into other people's problems to like help them out. And, um I think, I think that's what she has the the most difficult time with me, but also why she loves me the most.
00:44:56
Speaker
Amen, man. That's fantastic. I love it. So, brother, we um end off every episode by asking you as our guest expert to give what I call your top three expert action steps. This is like bullet points of your advice to my listener.
00:45:14
Speaker
that you really want them to know to improve their situation, what would you say? Number one is is don't be afraid to fail. um Working with startup founders and and people in business that really take a lot of risks, I see a lot of amazing ideas just don't happen because people are afraid what will happen if they do fail. so Number one is don't be afraid to fail.
00:45:39
Speaker
Number two is when you do fail, get back up and and and try again. And then because again, you're going to fail multiple times. so usually the person who ends up with the bag, with the money, is the guy who just got punched in the face 100 times and just...
00:45:59
Speaker
cut up got Got back up 101. ah But also number number three is like know when to pivot and move as well, right? Know when no one to, you know, if something does fail, know when to move into something else, right? Don't get don't get too...
00:46:22
Speaker
too caught up in your ideals where you lose sight of reality. Those are really good. There's a clip from the movie Rocky Balboa where Rocky is talking to his son.
00:46:37
Speaker
Have you seen that clip? It's been a while for Rocky. Basically it goes, so Rocky is talking to his son and said, like ah this world is a mean and nasty place.
00:46:50
Speaker
Or life, life, he said, this is is is is a mean and nasty, and it'll beat you to the ground if you let it. He said, um um it's gonna knock you down.
00:47:03
Speaker
Eight times. But how winning is done is you keep getting back up and keep moving forward, keep moving forward. And he said, sot don't make excuses that you're not having what you want because this person, that that that person, that person. He said, cowards do that and that ain't you.
00:47:23
Speaker
And he said, ah son, I love you no matter what, but if there's something out there that you want, you go out there and you, and it doesn't matter how many failures or obstacles. And what you said, just kind of summarize that. I remember I was watching that a few days ago. it always pumps me up to hear that. Like, yeah, fucking get up, make it happen. It's these universal things, right? ah That that we we watch them in the movies and we aspire to them. But the second that we step into our day-to-day lives, we give ourselves a million million excuses why we can't do something.
00:47:54
Speaker
um yeah So, yeah, just watch Rocky again. Rocky Balboa. Yeah, maybe watch it every night before you go to bed as a reminder. Yeah. 100%, man. This has been a real fun conversation. I really enjoyed Thanks for coming, brother. Yeah, thanks.
00:48:11
Speaker
Thanks for having me. You bet.
00:48:15
Speaker
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