Overcoming Barriers to Starting a Business - Why Haven’t You Started Yet?

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor Podcast, where we work on getting better step by step, professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season that's building better businesses. We are actually Building Better Developers, Develop-a-Nor Podcast, and we are getting into this season. We're just getting started. We're going to start talking about we're going to the business side of the Develop-a-Nor, the entrepreneur side, the second half of that as opposed to the developer. But beforehand, I need to introduce myself. My name is Rob Brodhead. I'm one of the founders of Building Better Developers, Develop-a-Nor, also a founder of RB Consulting, where we are what they call boutique consulting, because what we do is we go in and we help you. We help you understand your business sometimes. I mean, you may understand it, but we do it in a way that is so that you can sort of get in your head, get some of that information out and help craft like that perfect recipe for your business to better leverage technology through simplification, automation, integration, and even innovation. How we're going to do it, whether we're building a team, whether we're finding products, whether we're building products, whether we're just sort of shuffling the chairs on the deck because it will help you be more efficient. Sometimes it's as simple as that. That's what we help you do. And that's what we're here for. We're here to make your investment in technology a better investment, more of an ROI. Good things, bad things. I'm going to go with the, I'm like continuing my series of stuff where it's basically the same thing. So we're working on downsizing and simplifying a lot of stuff. It's that simplification. This is like a big part of my life right now, which is cool because it's like I don't have clutter. I don't have near as much crap to deal with. I have a little extra cash laying around for some of the stuff that we actually sold versus stuff that we just gave away or threw out. So that's, I guess the plus side, the downside is things like I don't have a kitchen table right now because we've already given it away and we're like, we're like going down to zero basically before we rebuild. And that can make it a little bit complicated sometimes to, I don't know, live your normal life with it, your best life or not. So who is the guy that is living his best life as far as we know it? And he's going to correct his other one. It's Michael on the other side. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Thanks, Rob. Hey everyone. My name is Michael Malasch. I'm one of the co-founders of developer NURB building better businesses. I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we help small to mid-sized businesses, clinicians, basically small businesses, help them build software that meets their needs. We do it through test urban development. We do it through basically user stories, identifying what it is that your business needs from the user's perspective. And we make sure that the software delivers. Let's see, good and bad. So not quite as compressed like Rob does it. Bad had a project I'm working on with a couple other teams. A lot of changes got rolled in. Nothing was communicated. I rolled down the code today, went to run my test and nothing worked. Come to find out that we had a whole brand new Docker container we had to stand up. The one we were using no longer used. Our configurations no longer worked. So basically had a full relearn a project. The good side of that is I actually learned quite a cool new features and some additional new Docker containers today and how to set them up. So that was kind of fun. But beyond that, it was kind of one of those manic moments. It's like, why the hell is nothing working? Those are never fun. But what is fun is our topic for today. Or maybe it is. I think actually I think it is because it's one of those things maybe as a serial entrepreneur. It's one of those things that I like to tackle on a regular basis. We're going to talk about your barriers to starting your business. This is sort of the you could also think of this as like why haven't you already started your business kind of a topic this time. Now I will sort of step back first and say one of the biggest things that struggle that stops businesses from being successful is that they never start. When you go if you go to MBA programs, part of going through your MBA is that you write a business plan. And one of the things that they talk about is that the reason that most of those business plans don't succeed is they never actually started. Is that they did the whole business plan and then that was it. Then they were done. They didn't actually try to execute on it. So for you, it may be that you don't have a business plan yet. That may be the first step is that you need to actually think about it, plan through it. Like what does this look like? What are the products and the services or how am I going to generate money? How am I going to pay people that need to be paid and get paid by people that need to pay me? All of those important pieces. It may be something along the lines of like I just don't have the time to do this or I don't have the skills to do this or I don't have the tools right now to do this. There's a lot of I don'ts or there's not here or we can't you know, there's a lot of excuses essentially to kick it down the road. The problem is that if you're just excusing it and kicking down at the road sooner or later and get down the road and you're going to be there again, you're going to be right there and you either get to kick it again or do something with it. What we like to do, which we do all the time, so you've probably figured this out, is we like to find a way to like start working on that today. Preferably yesterday, but hey, today's as good as we can do right now unless you're a doctor who and you've got a TARDIS or something like that. So we are going to focus on like what can we do today? And that's going to be where our challenge is going to end up coming from is figuring out how to get started. But I think we want to start there is like what are like for yourself, what are some of the barriers that you've run into and maybe even a little bit like how did you how did you debarrier them? How did you get around those and move forward when you saw a couple of these? So what are some of the barriers I've run into and how did I how how did I essentially handle them? So at one point, I had a I kind of had two issues. One, it wasn't so much the barrier of starting the business, it was the barrier of planning what the hell I was doing before I started the business and ran with it. So the barrier I ran into is like, hey, I'm a businessman, I'm doing this. And it's like, what the hell am I doing? So one of the barriers I ran into was I didn't know what the hell business was. I had a perceived notion. It's like, yes, I own something. I sell a product. I take money and that's it. You come to find out if you don't go into some of these businesses or starting a business with some type of planning, like Rob mentioned the business plan, you essentially could fail fairly quickly or run into these barriers where you're just overwhelmed by what you don't know. It's like, oh, crap, I didn't know I needed to pay sales tax or, oh, I didn't know I needed to get a state tax ID to be a business to collect taxes. So sometimes the barriers we run into, especially what I've run into almost every time I start a business, it is what do I need to start the business? The barrier I run into that I'm anxious about a lot is what federal, what basically governmental rules are in place that I have to follow in order to establish my business, make money, not get audited and not go to jail for not paying some tax or doing something that I was supposed to do. That was very easy. I just didn't know I needed to do it because unfortunately the government doesn't accept I didn't know as an excuse. They will basically slap you with a nasty fine or throw you in jail. So I think I want to stop there because that's like one of those, it's a perfect because that is like the what's the worst could happen and then like it's right, you could be in jail. Okay. What's worse is they could send jackbooted thugs and they could shoot you and you would be dead. So, okay, we'll take it one more. Usually what's going to happen is, yeah, you may get a fine if you do that. It could be a hefty fine. It could be a scary fine. So you don't want to just go out there and do something that is going to turn you into a criminal or something like that. You don't want to be suddenly at X-con because you didn't follow the right paperwork. The odds of that happening are actually not super high, but that is one of the things is you want to make sure that you've got your ducks in a row. Now I would say that before that, I think is part of it, it's like you really do want to know what your business is going to be. So I think part of that is going to help inform things like, okay, if I'm with my business plan, part of it is, well, what are the licensing fees? Do I have to go get a special license? Like if I wanted to be a plumber, I have to have like a certain, be certified and all this kind of stuff and bonded and all that kind of lots of stuff involved there. If I just want to drive a truck and haul stuff across the country, there's a lot of regulations around that. So one of the things you may look at is a deregulated kind of industry. Somewhere where there's not a lot of regulations where you can step in and not have to worry about as much. But I think that's like a good example right there of the challenges that sometimes we look at it and say, wow, this could be really, really bad. And while Michael's hearing forward with it and he's using that to curb his tendency to just dive right in and instead he's like, okay, I got to make sure I got my ducks in a row. I could end up in jail. Probably not going to happen that way. So instead of the, I guess I'm better to kick this down the road than I ended up in jail in six months is maybe you address this, take it head on and say, all right, how are we going to handle this particular obstacle? Now I cut you off. So I'm going to go jump out. I'm going to like swerve back in and let you pick right back up there. No, I like that because so for me, and we talked about this a couple of seasons ago because I was going through the process of rebranding my company from Milosh Consulting to Envision QA. One of the steps I took to avoid that fear from past experience of I've run into this a few times, these were barriers I had struggled with even on my third, fourth, fifth company is I finally broke down and I looked for resources and you can do this to find resources to help you figure out what it is you need to just start a business, to get started. In my case, I went through my local company called the Co and they ran a program for nine, 10 weeks called Co-starters that essentially walked you through building a business plan, all the different stages of marketing and different things. And by the end, you kind of had a pitch, you kind of had a business plan, you kind of had an idea for what you wanted to do, but you kind of had a roadmap. So you kind of went in with an idea. And even if you had a business plan, you walked out with a more formalized structure of what it is that you want to do. And for barriers, that is a huge barrier to overcome from starting a business. If you're already in the business, yes, you still have some of those barriers, but it's not as bad as that initial push, that initial get started, get it out there. There's always those unknowns. You're just kind of compounded with, oh, I didn't know that. Or, oh, do I need that? Like Rob mentioned, you know, things like licensing, you know, maybe get into a deregulated industry. But even then, if you're a truck driver, you still need to get a Class C license to drive a truck. So there are still things you need to do. So the other barrier, I would say that some of you might run into to kind of work through is if you are getting into something that is other than merchandise. Because merchandise typically is fairly straightforward. You buy wholesale, sell retail or make something and then sell it. But depending upon the industry or the product you're looking to sell, some of the barriers you potentially really run into are legal. And I'm not just talking taxes. You could run into some issues if you're a baker and you bake bread and you want to sell bread, you still have to follow certain FDA rules before you can even sell your bread. So you might have regulations that you don't even know. So as you go through your journey and you run into these barriers or you're looking to start your businesses, some of the suggestions I would have is take your product, Google it and say, hey, what does a baker need to be? Or, you know, if I want to be a baker in, say, the state of Tennessee, what do I need to do? What do I need to register? And you may get a couple of websites that may or may not guide you in the right direction, but that could get you started. The other thing you could do is go talk to a baker, go find someone local in your area that does what you want to do and find out, you know, find someone that's willing to talk to you and have them kind of maybe mentor you a little bit or, hey, can I ask you a few questions on how you got started? That's always a great kind of foot in the door to kind of help you get into the area or the industry that you're trying to do. I think that's also to sort of dovetail off of that is that I think that's really a great way to get through those barriers as well, because now you can if you can find somebody that's done it, then it becomes a little less scary. It's not like I don't know how this would work. Now you're like, oh, this person did it and they don't seem like they're, you know, they're no Albert Einstein or something like that. They're they're a normal person. So, hey, maybe I can do the same. And a lot of times you'll find that that person, if you reach out to somebody that whether it's a sort of a mentor relationship or even if it's just sort of a professional, you know, friendship kind of thing or something like that, those people will invest in you a little bit and say like, hey, how's that going? You can get a little accountability and say, I'm going to start a business of, you know, I'm going to do a bread business on the other side of town. And they say, you know, that's great. I would love to hear how it goes. And they may call you back in a month and say, hey, how's that going? And you're sitting there going, I actually haven't done anything in a month. So you're going to feel a little bit more like compelled to go do something. So I think that's a great, you know, great suggestion to get things going as well. So I have one more. The last barrier, and this is one I struggle and I stumble and Rob knows as well is. You may be excited about your product or your business or whatever it is that you want to do or you are doing just understand you may not be the sole expert in that field. You may not even really know what it is that you're doing. And if someone comes in and tries to help you or guide you or maybe suggest that, hey, maybe that's not quite the right way. Maybe that's going to be harmful. Take a pause, try not to immediately jump in and argue the point. Listen to what people are suggesting. Now they may be giving you false advice, but take a pause, take it in, make sure you understand the problem or understand what it is they're trying to explain to you. And take a moment, maybe write it down or revisit it, but don't dismiss all the criticism or all the advice you get. Sometimes we put up barriers because we try to protect ourselves, not just in our business, but in our lives. And sometimes we can get defensive. And if you get defensive, when you're trying to start out, you may close too many doors and not open up the right ones. I think that's one of the things that will be. Helps you with the barrier approach is getting rid of those barriers. It's like, sometimes you don't have to actually go through it. Sometimes you can go around it. Sometimes that barrier is more in your head than it is anything else. And that doesn't mean that it's completely just baseless, but it does mean that the, the fear factor of it is bigger than it needs to be. So there are things where it's just like, you know, for example, years and years ago, it was one of the things I was like, ah, I don't think I can ever really learn a foreign language. You know, like that's just going to be too complicated. It's too tough. Waste of my time. And I was never like, I was never great at the foreign languages I had to take in school. So I was like, you know, I'm not going to bother. And I was like, well, I'll give it a shot because I just wanted to give it a shot. I was like, you know, I think this will help me. And it didn't take very long before I realized, oh, okay, this is doable. This is something that is, I can succeed at. And even, you know, things that seem overly easy to do, for example, like if you're a developer and you like, oh, hey, I think I'd be great as a consultant. A lot of times we figure like, I coded today. I can code at night. And so some of those things, it's like, you know, those are the kinds of things you're like, well, yeah, this is, this is pretty easy, but the barrier is, you know, it's like, well, I get to the end of the day. I don't know if I want to do any more of that. I'm like, I'm hungry. I want to go play games or I want to like go for a walk. I want to do something other than the work. So sometimes those are going to be your barriers is it's your, your lifestyle. And you need to just think about it. It's like where a lot of times it does come down to like, where do I want to be six months from now or a year from now or five years from now, because maybe it's worth it for me to sacrifice now to have something better in the future that I, you know, be more where I want to be. And so, you know, a great way to do that would be to send us an email at info at development or.com and let us know what is it you would like to see us doing, you know, six months from now or a year from now, what are some of the topics, even six days from now, what are some of the topics that you would like us to talk about? Now, before I dive in or actually before we wrap this one up, I do want to flip back and do sort of a challenge essentially for this one. And I've got a dog barking, so hopefully it's not going to get picked up here. Um, I think the challenge this time around is face that barrier. I think if you have a barrier, if you haven't started your business or if you're, if you're struggling, this goes back to that whole eat the frog. There's something that you know, and you probably already have it in your head as you're thinking about it. It's like, yeah, there's this thing I really don't like to do. I really don't want to do. So the challenge is, is go face that. It was like, how do you remove that barrier? Do you, you know, is it somewhere you need to go hire somebody to go do that for you? Is it something that you need to just like suck it up, buttercup and go do it? Is it something where you need to like spend a little time, maybe you need to step back from it and look at it and say, is there a way that I can get around this? It is not too much time, too much money or some other resource. So I think there's your challenge is like, let's, let's pick a barrier and knock it down, get through it, go around it, remove it, whatever you need to do. Next time around, we are can continue this season as we're looking at building better businesses and just continue to give you some, you know, sort of some challenges, but really just try to get some of these action items so that we can get off our duff and get forward, move forward and get our businesses going so that we can actually be developing doors of some sort or another. That being said, we're going to wrap this one up. So go out there and have yourself a great day, great week, and we will talk to you. Thank you for listening to building better developers, the developer podcast. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts, we are there. And remember just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.