Plan Your Start Podcast

About Plan Your Start Podcast

Dedicated to aspiring and new entrepreneurs everywhere...

Publisher

planyourstart

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Jul 2020

Latest episode

30 Jan 2021

Latest episodes

28 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   30 Jan 2021

   RJ Garbowicz: Once You Learn to Survive With Nothing, You Can Bet Everything

   How do you go from growing up so poor there was sometimes no power or food in your home, to self-made millionaire in your twenties, to losing it all and then climbing back to build a product that now ranks as one of the top 6,000 websites in the world? Well that’s the rise, fall, and then rise story of RJ Garbowicz. Hear how he built a Social CRM platform that just crossed over 6M members and has a business model that gives 50% of revenues back to the users - hundreds of thousands of dollars paid out already. Now he’s pretty sure he can create 1 million millionaires on the platform. SPONSOR: SecureStartup (https://securestartup.com) - Securely and efficiently manage all of the documents between founders and investors. Opening: Allen and RJ discuss how long Allen has been following RJ’s platform webtalk and the exponential growth over the past few years, despite Goliath competitors in the space. 1:34 RJ explains his journey of getting webtalk to 6 million users and his 600k personal followers. 3:30 Allen talks about the comparison to LinkedIn and other social media platforms and RJ explains how webtalk takes those concepts much further (i.e. how about some basic CRM and contact management functionality); and rewards users for engagement. 5:00 RJ breaks down LinkedIn’s approach and business model and where that platform falls short. 9:20 Allen talks about a key incentive to using webtalk, the “sharing the pie” model. 10:20 How webtalk created massive growth utilizing a reward and revenue sharing system for engagement. 16:10 What is RJ’s message to entrepreneurs? It’s a long, hard road. 17:10 Opening Question: How determined and deranged must an entrepreneur be for success? What is the entrepreneur disease? 18:05 RJ says that entrepreneurs sometimes reach the end of their journey when they are too exhausted and need to exit. The bigger your goal, the more difficult. “How bad do you want it?” 19:25 RJ lists a plethora of negatives to being a startup founder when seeking different levels of success. Allen and RJ discuss how your decision to strive for achievement can affect your social life and those around you. 23:17 RJ talks about his history with entrepreneurship and when he knew he was an entrepreneur - it started in grade school! 24:42 Allen and RJ discuss the obsession that is making money while RJ talks about his struggle as a child growing up with very little. 26:00 RJ talks about his first established business in high school. He started a lawn care service through which he hired a couple of his friends to work for him. 26:40 The problems he experienced by being young and having expendable cash, were lots of dangerous vices. He attended military school shortly thereafter to help get his life back on track. 29:10 RJ lost his privileges to drive before he was even old enough to drive because he bought a car for cash at the age of 15! 30:20 Allen lists all of the jobs RJ worked over the years, and RJ learned he could do everything that the companies did and make more money. He harnessed his entrepreneurial spirit and grew ANOTHER business. 33:15 Allen referred to his previous interview with Steve MacDonald, and how some owners sell out too early and short-change both themselves and their investors. His suggestion is to strongly consider hanging on a little bit longer. 34:20 RJ took his check for selling his company and some time away in order to figure out what his next steps were. He learned through years of entrepreneurship, that the Internet and tech was the way of the future. 35:35 Started an online real estate business in 2005, where he was met with rapid growth but short lived success. 37:20 RJ tells how he survived his loss. “Do what you gotta do. I grew up so poor all I had to eat some days were condiments. I can survive this.” 39:10 RJ says “Once you realize you can survive with nothing. You are willing to bet everything” 41:00 He lea

2. 

   30 Jan 2021

   Christina Dills: The Essential Power of Mindset and Positive Energy for Startup Founders

   In these challenging times, we need to hear from entrepreneurs like Christina Dills. After rapidly rising the ranks at Microsoft from intern to Channel Development Manager for all Latin America. Christina was a rising corporate star - but something was missing. She felt unfulfilled and that there had to be more to life, contribution, and work. So she began her research, made a plan, and Quit to Start. Hear how she did it and how she now prioritizes the mind and spirit in her daily routine as a startup founder with intention, gratitude, and exercise - resisting negative thoughts and negative energy. A daily work and life strategy to strongly consider in these times - and all times. SPONSOR: SecureStartup (https://securestartup.com) - Securely and efficiently manage all of the documents between founders and investors. Opening: “Life is Beautiful” written on the office wall behind Christina. She explains her belief that words have energy. 1:47 Discussion on gratitude and how it is the best cure for negative thoughts. Christina explains how energy frequency ties into living at your best. 3:45 Setting your intentions and how to manifest them. The best way to to predict your future is to create it through your thoughts and your intentions every single day. 7:20 Christina gives her recommendations to early entrepreneurs: always set up your day with intention, gratitude, and exercise. 9:00 Allen saw Christina recently pitch her startup. He asks her about the experience and she talks about why pitching is part of the journey and it's good for you. 14:55 Cristina explains how she became less and less fulfilled at her job and why she had to plan her escape. 18:00 Despite the amazing lifestyle and personal finances of her corporate job, she felt that she was missing something bigger in life. 21:28 Christina discusses how she self-funded her startup and then discussion on the downsides of taking investment. 26:40 Believe in yourself, who knows your business better than you? Whose two cents matter to you as a founder? The mentality of others cannot affect your vision. 31:40 Allen explains one concept in his book “you are a threat” and Christina talks about the lesson she learned from telling others about her potential start. Who can you trust? Who can you talk to? 36:50 Keep it quiet until you get momentum. 37:50 Finding the people that compliment you and you can trust. 40:20 Allen talks about confidence and the mindset behind its perception both inside and out. 42:08 Growth in business is the same as growth through exercise. Sometimes it’s painful, but you have to push through in order to grow. 43:30 Christina walks through her childhood and high school years, and the most valuable lesson she ever learned, her grandmother taught her - “education is your ticket”. 49:00 Christina explains that she has always had the entrepreneurial spirit and was always experimenting with startups on the side. 52:00 Your entrepreneurial journey is whatever you want it to be. You don't just magically become an entrepreneur, you grow into it. 54:00 Rising the ranks at Microsoft - she explains her unrelenting drive to learn. 57:00 Christina talks about the stress of life and how to heal yourself in a stressful environment. 1:02:00 Allen and Christina discuss the risks of entrepreneurship and how we weigh it against risk of not making the change or not taking action. 1:05:15 Allen talks about the hidden aloneness and anxiety of entrepreneurship - Christina talks about how she persevered through it. 1:06:40 Taking the leap. Christina talks about the moment she knew she was going to leave and start her company. 1:13:40 Discussion on facing your fears and gaining the escape velocity needed to become an entrepreneur. 1:15:16 Christina discusses detaching the tentacles of the workplace and the removal of comfort to embrace your future. 1:18:00 Christina talks about getting into the abundance mindset. The belief that good things a

3. 

   2 Jan 2021

   Brad Kugler: If You Get Knocked Down, Find a Way Back Up, Never Give Up - And Come Back Stronger

   How does one come back from an epic two decade run of entrepreneurial success - then to watch it slowly evaporate around you as market forces shift? This is the story of Brad Kugler and the building of an eight figure cash flowing business that brought him and his family the life and freedoms every entrepreneur dreams - then the crash, the fight for survival, and the epic comeback. Brad tells his rise-fall-rise story, how he learned more on the way down than on the way up, and how he’s now growing again in triple digits for 3 straight years - and disrupting an $8 billion dollar market. SPONSOR: SecureStartup (https://securestartup.com) - Securely and efficiently manage all of the deal documents between founders and investors. Opening: Allen and Brad talk about how they first met almost 20 years ago when Allen helped Brad create his first e-commerce website & order management platform. 4:10 Brad talks about how his big run started - taking over his dad’s VHS movie media distribution business. It had revenues of $2M with about 10-15 employees - by 2012 Brad had grown it to $25M and about 55 employees. 7:30 Allen and Brad talk about how what he's doing now with direct mail has parallels to what happened to him with the movie media distribution business - but this time he is the disruptor. 9:10 How does Brad's current business Direct Mail 2.0 work? Direct physical marketing mail traditionally has a very low response rate. With Direct Mail 2.0's technology, companies typically see a dramatic 25% to 50% increase in response rates - and with tracking capability they've never had before. 16:40 Brad talks about growing up in the Chicago area and how his great grandfather, an immigrant, started a window cleaning company that expanded to janitorial services over three generations, to his grandfather, and then to his father. 19:10 Brad’s father purchased a movie VHS media distribution business in Florida and by the early nineties, Brad took over the helm. The business did very well for the next 15+ years and Brad, with his brothers, were able to buy out dad. 25:10 He tells the story of when DVDs arrived - Wizard of Oz was the very first movie on DVD. Brad sold 30 copies in 30 seconds on eBay, that was his clear sign to transition to DVD from VHS. 26:25 Brad and his company achieved #1 DVD seller status on Amazon for several years. Brad once had a meeting at Amazon headquarters and Jeff Bezos walked in - one of many meetings to come with Jeff Bezos. 34:05 Allen asks Brad about what it was like making so much money in his thirties - and the incredible personal freedom, toys, and opportunities that came with the success. 41:30 Then a storm started brewing - a flat year in 2012, the first in a decade. Then in 2013 things got worse - the advent of online movie streaming had begun. The business began to free-fall over the next few years, unable to pivot fast enough. 48:25 Brad says he learned way more going down than going up - how to stretch cash flow, navigate legal, problem solve, etc. The company was forced into bankruptcy - but he was able to buy it back on the courthouse steps as a tiny shadow of its former self. 51:30 He stayed determined - he learned bootstrapping at the end of success, not the beginning like normal. He became profitable albeit small, never missed a payroll, never bounced a check. 53:10 The company limped along until he got a call one day from an ex-employee, top salesperson from 20 years prior. Her name was Joy and she now had her own massively successful direct mail print marketing company. 54:55 Joy said she had watched how Brad had fought and persisted in the business despite adversity - she was impressed and offered him to take over a direct mail software technology product she had developed in-house. 57:10 Being in-house with the larger company helped develop new features and feedback - but they needed to develop more freely to meet and capture the outside market. Brad talks about the i

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