In this episode, I'll talk about my startup blues and the 3 things that I'm doing to get through the start up phase of business as fast as I can.

Hi there and welcome to episode number 13. Unlucky for some, lucky for me. It used to be my go to number when I used to play IFL Football here in Australia. Now when I'm wearing that jersey, I will jump up and all I did, I loved it and it's a lucky number for me. So let's pull the luck into this conversation.

Hope you are doing well. I'm doing so good. My injury is clear enough and so I should be able to get back in the training ASAP 'cuz I'm a grumpy person when I don't train.

So today as you know, if you've been listening to the episode one all the way through here I talked about the concept of the business that I'm launching. And I'm going through the start up, scale up and then the sell up phase of the business which is called the Add10.

Now I'm in the start up phase at the moment where I haven't taken it to the market. And what I'm doing is going for the build. And I'm building the processes, building the product, and I'm taking it to the market very very soon.

So in a start up phase, let's take the two main phases where you identify a problem in a market and then you come up with a solution.

So the problem for me as small business owners that are going through the start up phase and I'm looking to scale their business and I want strategy and execution. They want ideas, so that's the coaching program and I wanna know what they can do to grow their business.

'Cuz they may have established the business, established the product, established the footprint. Maybe they're starting the brand, have a customer based. Maybe put on a couple of people and all of a sudden they're going "Oh my God! This is hot".

How do I get through this? How do I employ people? How do I manage people? How do I scale the marketing? How do I get more customers to the business? How do I handle my financials? So that's what my add10coaching's about.

And the other part is, yes, I've learned all that but I want someone to execute some of the strategies.

So the key strategies like Lead Generation, Adwords, SEO, Facebook Advertising, Instagram Advertising, Content Marketing, LinkedIn generation as well and some services that I've got to help them fast track their business growth and to bring leads consistently and sales consistently to their business.

So that's my solution. So I've got my solution and I know it works 'coz that's what I've been in before but haven't commercialised the service part and I haven't done a leverage coaching but I did it one on one.

So these are the 2 processes or 2 business models that I had to build which is different to what I used to do. And frankly, I am not really enjoying it. It's kind of fun building it but the returns haven't come yet 'coz I'm still in build mode and it's really annoying.

So the next phase is to have your product and have your product out to the market so the market takes it on and goes "This is awesome. I'm gonna pay money for it". And that money is gonna make you, as the business owner, a profit.

And then once you've got that you got good traction, the market loves your product, you're gonna good price point where you're making some dollars, you're making some profit and then it's about scaling it.

And that's usually where I come in to with my work as a coach. So they go through this build up phase and that is painful. I don't like it. I like the scale, I like having the process in place and then scaling it up that's so much fun 'coz that's what I'm good at, that's my talent.

So the build up phase, although I’m kind of probably good at this, I just don't like it. I bet there's a lot of people that's better than me at that. And one of which is called Mitchell Harper.

So if you want to get on to, if you're a startupper and you wanna know about startup get on to Mitchell Harper from BigCommerce. Previously BigCommerce. He's going out into a new venture of his own. Check him out. He's got some awesome stuff to do. It's a big shout out to Mitchell. You're legend, buddy.

So what I mean right now is the build up phase. So I'm hiding this part, not hiding it but just annoying the crap out of me. Why? Because in a growth curve, and if you're going through this episode it's called a slow burn.

Slow burn is where you've got money here, you've got time here and you're just progressing and you're building out your business process and you're not making any money from it.

And then once you got that product market fit works and if you're clever enough, you can scale it and then you can get your returns from here. So that's your money, that's your time, you're going along this time phase. So this time phase, is a bit that sucks.

I don't like it and the typical launch for ____ that is ____ by results loves it, doesn't like it either. I love the growth phase.

So I have these 3 things that I've been doing to shorten that time frame. I wanna show it with you so you can do it to your business whether you've got a new start up or you've got a new product launch or a new service launch or you are going to new territories. So how do you shorten this time period? I'll give you 3 ways.

Number 1, ask. Ask people that have done what it is that you wanna do to help you shorten that. So you go, "Hey! I'm doing this. What do I need to do to shorten this? Who do I need to contact? What resources do I need here?" "Hey! I need some money here." Or whatever it might be.

You get on some contacts you might know or you can get online and find some and ask them what it is. That's a great little strategy.

Steve Jobs. Just watch a video of Steve Jobs. Check it out online. You'll find it on there where he asked someone. He gave this tip. Ask, you'll be surprised of what people will give you and some people will give you gold nuggets.

For him he rang up, I think it was Parker. You know, like Hugh Parker or maybe Hugh or Parker. And he rang up him when he was 12 years old and Mr. Parker or Hugh gave him what he was after and then gave him a job.

And then obviously, Steve went on to create history in the IT market after working for that. So ask that's a 12 year old Steve Jobs did and you can too.

So number 2 is hustle. This is Gary Vaynerchuck special. So Vaynerchuck is all about hustling. So that's hustle of yourself, hustle your team, and get things done as fast as you can.

So whether that's doing big hours or whether that's employing people externally to bring them in or internally, bringing some stuff to get things done ASAP. That's hustle.

So number 3 is go to market with a minimum valuable product. So what's that? An MVP, minimum valuable product. That is where you go to market with a product that's good enough - good enough to get attraction. When you believe it's good enough, it doesn't have to be perfect.

Perfect is up here, great's here, good enough and then it's okay and then it's terrible. So you want to try and get into market with something that you are prepared to put out there as a bait or a beta test where you go to market and say, "Hi! I've got an idea. This is what I've got. I'd love for you to try it to see what you think."

What you do is you give it to them. Now it could be for free or it could be for a fee. And then what you do is you work with the market and then to iterate that product so it becomes better.

And then it gets to a point where it's a lot better. People will pay you more money, you can make your money from that particular product and that's when you can scale. So here you go. Ask, and the second one is hustle and the third one is minimum valuable product.

There's a book out there. It's called The Lean Startup, check out that or you can just Google minimum valuable product or Lean Startup and you get some tips and what it's that you need to do that.

That's what I've been doing to fast track the development of this business so I can start to scale 'coz it's exciting bit for me.

So there you go. If you like that, if you know some startuppers or if you know anyone out there that would love this episode.

I'd love for you to share, comment, tag as many people in as you can to spread the word about of this program or this show, this episode and all of the other ones that I've done previous to that.

I'd love for you to share the love. So anyway, that's it. This is episode number 13. I will talk to you in episode 14. You take care and will talk soon. Bye.