How To Start a Business from Scratch

About this video

Dan Martell, introducing himself as a serial entrepreneur, investor and creator of SaaS Academy, teaches how to start a business in five steps. 1) Create it for you: start from passion and domain expertise, solve a problem you have, using a frustrations list or James Altucher’s practice of writing 10 ideas a day. 2) Learn to tell: promote via social media and friends, opening conversations with ‘have you ever had this problem?’ 3) Ask for money: a business starts only when dollars exchange; praise is not validation, illustrated by his kids selling painted rocks door to door for $5, sometimes $10. 4) Call it a project, not a business, to remove pressure — what companies start as is rarely what they end up doing, and he says his first company made about $30,000 before he shut it down and carried the lessons forward. 5) Organize an event as an MVP: pick a speaker people want to learn from, set a date within 90 days on a weeknight around 6 to 8 PM, market it, and charge — even $1 or $5 — including as a virtual summit. He also offers a free PDF distilled from over 1,000 business books he says he has read, covering about 45 top books.

Key takeaways

• Create it for you — start from passion, expertise and your own problem
• Learn to tell — use social media and friends to start conversations
• Ask for money — paid validation counts, praise does not
• Call it a project to reduce pressure; pivots and restarts are normal
• Organize a paid event within 90 days as the entrepreneurship MVP

Episode details: published February 3, 2020 · 11:48 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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