← How to Money
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- [00:00]
Joel
Almost all of us have got old stuff that we should be tossing out. But in old 401k, make sure it keeps working for you. A Fidelity Rollover IRA has no account fees or minimums to open. An easy to follow rollover process makes it simple to get started in under 15 minutes. Plus you'll have access to a rollover specialist.
- [00:19]
Matt
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- [00:37]
Joel
This is Matt and Joel from the how to Money podcast.
- [00:40]
Matt
Indeed. And this spring is a great time to start thinking about travel plans for the summer, figuring out how you're going to pay for that travel as well. And one great way to financially support your travel is is to host your home on Airbnb. It's simple and a great way to make some extra cash.
- [00:57]
Joel
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- [01:13]
Jason Zook
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- [02:02]
Joel
Minimum financial commitment and other terms apply.
- [02:04]
Jason Zook
Offer ends March 31st. See if your company qualifies for this special offer@oracle.com strategic. That's oracle.com strategic.
- [02:12]
Joel
Welcome to how To Money. I'm Joel. I'm Matt and today we're talking about launching an offbeat and sustainable small business with Jason Zook.
- [02:39]
Matt
Yeah Joel. So my goal for this episode is for folks to finish listening and to be completely inspired to start their own little business. In part because, like, I think that unfortunately there can be this aura around starting a quote unquote, official business that just keeps individuals who are creatives, like, these are folks who have great ideas, but it keeps them from pursuing something that is going to light them up in such a way that it is, like, so contagious that it almost can't help but to be a successful venture, a lot of folks gravitate towards, like, oh, yeah, I want to get that mba. That's how I'm going to get ahead. And it might be the best path to take, I think, for a certain subset. But there are a lot of folks out there who might be better served by just going for it and figuring it out along the way. And we're joined today by someone who's basically done that his entire life. Jason Zook is an entrepreneur who takes a very unconventional approach to starting a business. He and his wife currently run Wandering Aimfully, which seeks to help creative entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses that fit with their lifestyle, all while avoiding, you know, the just the burnout that tends to come with that hustle culture. And so to talk about that today is Jason Zook. Jason, thanks for taking the time to speak with us today.
- [03:53]
Jason Zook
Thanks so much for having me. Can't wait to share some stories. And I've got some big inspirational shoes to fill that you set out there, but I will do my best.
- [04:02]
Joel
Oh, man, you've got a lot of stories. Can't wait to delve into some of them. Jason, first question, though. What do you like to splurge on? We know you're being smart, you're thinking ahead, saving for the future, but there's got to be something that you're splurging, spending big money on in the here and now too, right?
- [04:18]
Jason Zook
Yes. I'm going to answer this two parts because I think it deserves two answers. One is a very specific one. I used to have what I would call the Ugg Monk budget. And my friend Jeff Sheldon runs this incredible company called Ugmonk U G M O N K. And I used to just buy pretty much every single thing that he made. And most of his stuff was like, accessories for your desk. He used to do a lot of T shirts, but they were all like, very well crafted, beautiful things. And so at a certain point, like my wife and I would like, we'd review our expenses. She was like, you're literally spending like $40 a month on Uggmonk. Can we Just make it a budgetary item so that, like, we don't have to, like, think about where to put it. Just like you have an ugg monk budget. And so that, I think, is like, my first thing. Like, if anybody has a company they love to support, you want to just make sure that company exists in the world.
- [05:03]
Matt
Love it.
- [05:03]
Jason Zook
Create a budget for it. But what that has evolved in for us because we actually moved to Portugal now. So it's very hard for me to buy things from the U.S. i mean, because I don't want to ship them across the continent if I don't have to. Or the world, if you will, is we just have what we call a life improvement budget. And this is where we just have a certain amount of money every month. And it has kind of gone up since we got out of debt. When we first started, it was $20 a month, and that was the budget. But now it's somewhere closer to like, $200 a month. And like last year, I don't think I used half of it, but we have this money set aside. And like this past year, I bought a KitchenAid mixer, like, for the first time for my baking habits, because I bake like, two batches of cookies a week for our little neighborhood, because I can't eat them all, because I would, you know, die of sugar overdose.
- [05:45]
Matt
But health reasons.
- [05:46]
Jason Zook
Yeah, exactly. But I just found myself, like, you know what? I'm going to treat my. I've been making cookies for probably like 10 years, and I've never had one. I was like, I'll just splurge and buy it. And like, it was really hard to press that buy button. But having that little discretionary budget that we have set aside made it a lot easier. So, yeah, just this little, like, personal life improvement budget or having, like, a specific type of company you like to support. That's always been fun for me.
- [06:06]
Matt
Okay, so how do you discriminate? How do you decide whether or not what you're succumbing to is lifestyle creep, as opposed to what you're calling a life improvement line item on your. On your budget every single month.
- [06:20]
Jason Zook
Yeah, I think the thing, like, we. My wife and I just defined pretty much every year we set, like, our life budget, and that's based on, you know, our business and financial goals that we have. And then, you know, obviously an amount of money that we can spend each year. And. And it, you know, some years it has been a little bit more than others. Like when we first moved here to Portugal, our life improvement budget was, you know, much higher for that first year because we had nothing like we moved here with just two suitcases and two backpacks. And so there were many things that obviously we let go of when we left the states that we needed to buy. So it was spent, it was more spent that year, but it was still within the budget that we set. So I think the budget for each of US was like $200 per month in that first year and we still spent under that. But it's because we set that budget ahead of time where we said we think this is a fair amount for both of us to spend. So for us it doesn't feel like lifestyle creep. Because even if that number Maybe goes up 50 bucks a year or something like that in the monthly budget, it doesn't feel kind of like it is creeping if we're just defining it, but it doesn't feel like so much. So it feels like we're being intentional about that spend. And we know that that spend is doing something that we like doing in our life. And it's not just like buying a consumable thing because it looked cool on an Instagram ad and we felt like we needed to buy it.
- [07:30]
Joel
I love that. Good explanation. We have a lot we want to cover specifically on the small business front with you, Jason. I can't wait to talk about some of the methodology and your approach to starting small businesses. But we've got to start with some of your random and humble beginnings. You might literally, and I think you wrote this in a blog post on your website, you might be the origin of the modern day influencer. I think there's some truth to that. Talk to us. Maybe start with the I wear your shirt campaign that you launched many years ago.
- [08:00]
Jason Zook
This was 2008. I need everybody listening to hear that. 2008, that's 17 years ago. Which woof, that's crazy. I basically had this idea standing in my closet one day. I was looking at a bunch of my T shirts and I was about to put one on. I think it was like a Nike shirt or something. And I was like, wait a second, I'm putting on a shirt that I've paid for that represents this brand and I'm giving them some type of advertising and something stuck in my head. And at the time I had a design business that I was running with a friend and we had clients of ours that were obviously very, very forward thinking because they were asking us like, hey, Twitter is starting to get some traction. Should we be on it? What should we be saying? What should we be doing. I was like, first of all, I don't know why you're asking us. We don't even have Twitter accounts right now. But I guess they thought we were kind of cool at the time. And I started logging into these platforms, and that moment in that closet and being on these platforms really clicked for me of, like, oh, there's gonna be a connection at some point between people and brands. And eventually, through just thinking about this idea for a while, I just thought about that moment in the closet, and I was like, what if I just charged people to wear T shirts? And I'm not gonna go walk around like a mall because who really cares anymore? You're not getting that many eyeballs on you anyway. But the Internet opens you up to this amazing space. And I'm saying this now, explaining this to people who are like, it's 2025.
- [09:17]
Joel
Come on.
- [09:17]
Jason Zook
Like, we. But in 2008, it was novel. It literally blew people's minds. They're like, there's no way, like, no one's going to see you on Twitter. No one's going to look at your Facebook account. But sure enough, like, as I started that project, I set it up where it was a dollar on the first day and then $2 on the second day, $3 on the third day. And I basically sold the entire calendar year at face value of the day, of the year, by the dollar. And this pricing scheme ended up becoming its own little business called Bumpsale. But I sold out that first year in just a couple months, and it was very difficult. Like, I've written about the story, and you can read a lot more if you about it or hear about it. But once it got going, it really picked up a head of steam. And before I knew it, I had worn shirts for 1600 brands. I had worked for five years as a professional paid T shirt wearer, which is ridiculous. But it was hard work. I mean, I was filming a YouTube video every day, editing a live video, or filming a live video show every day. You know, Casey Neistat very famous in the YouTube world for going, you know, doing live video or daily video vlogs for a long time. I did that for 889 days straight before taking a break. And that was. There were terrible videos. Let me just be clear. They're not the quality of Casey Neistat's amazing videos, but I really, I just found something early on in that kind of business idea. And I don't personally like to say that, like, I'm the first social media influencer I think if anybody is, it's probably Ijustine. I think she really would get that crown because that was the person that I looked up to on YouTube at that time. But I was very much the first to really tie brands into people talking about them on a consistent basis.
- [10:50]
Matt
That's a new way of thinking about these different businesses out there and what they're looking after. The eyeballs and the attention, which we hear a lot about now, right? The attention economy that we live in.
- [10:59]
Jason Zook
Exactly.
- [10:59]
Matt
Then you sold your last name and not just once, but twice. Is that right?
- [11:04]
Jason Zook
Yeah, yeah, tell us about that.
- [11:05]
Matt
Because it sounds a bit more like a stunt than an actual business. But you did actually make money by doing this.
- [11:12]
Jason Zook
Yeah, for sure. I grew up, I had three different last names, which was, you know, kind of a bummer Growing up as a kid, your last name is changing and, and that happens to a lot of people. And as I actually found out when I launched this project called by myLast Name.com, i really loved very like straightforward domain names. I wear your shirt by my last name. Like very just like, you know, to the point I found that a lot of people were actually in kind of a similar situation that I was where they kind of got left with a last name they didn't want. And so it was 2012 and I, my mom had been through a divorce and I now had this last name I didn't want anymore. And I was like, well, what do I choose? And I had been doing this I wear your shirt project for a couple of years and in that time I had like a sponsored road trip and my dog got sponsored for like a month and like I'd been doing all these weird sponsored things and I just had this moment. I was sitting with my, my then girlfriend, now wife and a guy who worked with me and we were sitting at a cafe or something and I was like, what if I sold my last name for just like a year? And they were like, oh geez, here we go. Like what, what do you want to do? And I was like, I don't know. Just like, I had this thought of like I could do it as like an ebay style auction, started at $0 and just let people bid for 30 days and just see where it ends up. And in our minds we walked away from that lunch like, great, let's do this. Like, what's the worst that's going to happen? We'll set parameters. It's not going to be anything like bad or salacious. I'm going to let be my Last name. But maybe we'll make, like five or $10,000. Like, that would be amazing. In the first 24 hours, the bidding got up to $33,000.
- [12:35]
Joel
My goodness.
- [12:36]
Jason Zook
And I was shocked and immediately got, like, phone calls from USA Today. There was, like, a bidding war on what program I would show up on to announce my last name when it, like, finished at the end. And so for the first year, it finished with the company headsets.com. and so legally, I changed my name. I literally went to a court and changed my name to Jason Headsets D O T C O M. And I remember the judge looking at me now remind you, it's 2012, so, like, we're still not, like, that far into the, like, weird Internet space. He was just like, are you serious? And I was like, yeah. And he was like, all right, man. And just, like, hit the gavel. And I was like, well, that was kind of funny. And then I did it a second year. I ended up writing a book about my kind of. I reassured Journey. And you know, what? We ended up calling my Creativity for Sale years, which is what the name of the first book was that I wrote. And I had that book fully sponsored. There was a sponsored message in every part of that book. And I sold my last name for a second time, same auction style, to basically be on the front cover of that book. Cause I figured that was a good bit of real estate. So in two years, about $100,000 generated from selling my last name. And now the last name Zook or Zook, however you want to pronounce it, doesn't matter to me, is my great grandfather's last name who was an entrepreneur. And I'm basically, like, trying to carry his name forward.
- [13:46]
Matt
Wow. There you go.
- [13:47]
Joel
Incredible, man. I'm getting guinea pig vibes from you. Are you just, like, willing to sign yourself up for just think of the most outrageous things and give it a go and see if you can make money? Like, I don't know, where does that sort of spark come from to try things out in this fashion?
- [14:05]
Jason Zook
I think, like, I. I grew up and I moved around a lot as a kid, and so I was always experiencing change. And I think that always being the new kid, you kind of have to prove yourself. You have to be able to entertain yourself. You have to be able to kind of stand on your own two feet. Like, you're not going to get, you know, friends right away. You have to kind of, like, figure things out all the time. And I think that really served me well as I started to get into the, like, business phase of my life. I also had a lot of odd jobs when I was growing up. I pumped gas at a gas station. I worked as a produce boy at a grocery store. I worked at a Verizon store. Selling beepers. Tells you how old I am. And all these things, I think, just led me to this idea of, like, there's not one way to do business. There's not one way to do life. There's not one way to do anything. And as I kind of, like, got into the I wear your shirt thing, it really opened up my doors because it proved to me that, like, oh, this is a crazy idea. Like, why would anybody pay this absolute nobody who lived in Florida at the time with no social media following to do this? And then you Fast forward to five years later and 1600 brands and over a million dollars generated for this business. Yeah, like, anybody can do these things. And so, you know, whether it's like, the idea of being a guinea pig or just being someone who's like, I'm so curious about trying to think outside the box and to push whatever box exists to its full edge and then go beyond. I'm not going to do anything weird. Like, I guess this is all weird to people, but, like, to me, they're very, like, considered ideas. They're very thoughtful. None of them are, like, I always got the joke of, like, oh, what are you going to do? Get, like, sponsored tattoos? Now I'm like, no, I'm not an idiot. I don't want to end up with, like, dumb things on my body for my entire life. Like, everything I've done has been very temporary and easy to move on from. And so, yeah, I just look at all these things as, like, incredibly interesting ways to turn different ideas that have always existed on their head slightly and to just think outside the box and kind of look at different problems in different ways and see, can I make money doing this? Is this a fun thing that can also help people and get their businesses seen by other people? Let's try and make that happen.
- [16:04]
Matt
You're obviously not afraid of failure either. And on your website, you document and you detail some of the different projects that you've attempted and how they didn't pan out or how they're even just pipe dreams. But I think what's fascinating about that, like, there's one that you. That you list out at something human or only human or something like that. But you talked about how that just led to so many other opportunities. Like, I guess at that point in Time as a designer, it led to a whole lot of business from a design standpoint. And, like, we were just talking about how, like, there are certain deal makers who are willing to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks and the ability to quickly, like, leave things that don't stick and move on. Do you feel like that that's a big part of how you see launching some of these different businesses is the fact that, well, like, what's the harm of it? And there's a whole lot that we could potentially learn.
- [16:52]
Jason Zook
A hundred percent. I think two. Two mottos kind of come to mind immediately. Which is, number one, what's the worst that's going to happen? Like, okay, I put up a website. I say I want to wear sponsored T shirts. No one buys. No one has interest. Six months later, maybe three months later, maybe one month later, I give up. Cool. Like, who cares? You know? Like, let me move on to my next idea. And I think the other thing that I have really learned over the years is, is you don't get what you don't ask for. And I literally use this in my daily life. Like, this is something like I'll use almost anywhere in all aspects of life. And my wife really hates it sometimes where she's like, don't ask for that thing. Like, you shouldn't ask for that. They told you what the offer was to buy this car or whatever, and I'm like, yeah, but what does it hurt if I just ask for something different? And the worst thing they're gonna do is say no and yes. I get it. It can be uncomfortable, and it can be really difficult. But when it comes to building businesses and, like, chasing down ideas and trying to do things that people haven't. Haven't done before, or even trying to do things people have done before and just doing them differently, yeah, you're gonna run into resistance. You're gonna run into people who don't like what you're doing. They're afraid of what you're doing, especially friends and family. Boy, they are gonna push their fears on you like crazy, and they're gonna tell you everything you're trying to do is a bad idea. Take it from someone who wore sponsored T shirts for a living for five years and sold their last name. But it's not about that to me. To me, it's about going, yeah, but. And I love the Steve Jobs quote, and I'm not going to nail it. But it's like, you look around, and everything around you was created by people just like you, right? And so it's like just accepting this idea that, like, no one else is really that much more special than anybody else. Granted, there are people who are geniuses and, like, building things that you and I can't build. But I think the reality is that the time that we live in right now, the opportunities are endless for trying to chase down your ideas. And the worst thing you can do is stop your own idea from having a chance to even happen by not even giving it a chance, by just saying, like, oh, I don't think this is going to work. Or I've tried it for a week and nothing really went well. I don't have a million dollars in my bank account yet, so I'm going to give up. And that's not really going to get you anywhere in life. And so I think it's about trying to push things forward, embrace that failure, see what happens, and just keep asking questions, keep trying to do things that maybe feel uncomfortable, but, you know, if you do a little bit more than somebody else, you're going to get further than anybody else will.
- [19:07]
Joel
I like that. Yeah. One of the things, too, it seems like, at least as I look around on your website, calm is a word I saw a lot. And that seems to be kind of like what you're striving for in your business now, what you're trying to help others achieve. And this kind of flies in the face of something Matt mentioned in the intro, kind of maybe that early Gary Vaynerchuk vibe of, like, hustle till you drop dead. Why is calm such a core tenet for you guys? And is it just kind of a pushback against that hustle culture that got out of whack for a while?
- [19:39]
Jason Zook
Very quick, funny story, I did not know who Gary Vaynerchuk was in, like, 2010, I think we were both speaking at a conference and I sat down to do my live video show. It was at 3 o'clock every single day. And I was doing it, like, in the kind of like, the off area of the conference. And so I'm on video and I have, like, my, like, setup and my camera and everything and a mic. And Gary walks by and he's like, what are you doing, man? I'm literally talking like, I'm do. I'm live. And he just, like, interrupts. And now anybody who knows Gary is like, of course. I was like, oh, I'm doing this live stream on Ustream. And he was like, oh, I know Ustream. And I was like, oh, okay, cool, man. I was like, waiting for him to leave. He was like, you mind if I hop on? And I was like, I guess, like, who are you? And so he sits down. And I think at the time I had. I had gained a lot of traction on ustream and I was a good partner with them and they would put me on the homepage and so I would get like 20,000 people watching my daily live videos. And he sat down and people were like, oh, my gosh, it's Gary Vaynerchuk. Like, gary, what's up? And I was like, wait, who? Who is this person? Like, that's how I got introduced to him. Like, I was doing a live stream. And so I actually, I was very inspired by Gary because we were very, I think, kindred spirits in the hustle at that time in life. But I very quickly realized, like, that doesn't suit me forever. And also, I'm not Gary Vaynerchuk. I don't have all the resources, I don't have all the energy, I don't have the drive and, like, the goals that he has. And I think that really threw a curveball to me for a few years where I was really striving to match the goals and the things that those types of people wanted that I was kind of surrounded by in some capacity and definitely included in a lot of different, like, articles and things. But that wasn't for me. Like, I didn't want to be a person who hustled all the time. I didn't want to be a person who had to hire a team of 20 people. I just wanted to run businesses that felt calm, that were fun, that solved a problem for people in interesting ways that felt like they were different from anything else. People would sign up for or buy or what have you. And, yeah, my wife and I really started to kind of construct what felt like was a departure from what most people were doing in business, which is like trying to work all these hours to make all this money, to do all this stuff and instead go, well, what if instead we just decide we're going to work probably for more years, but we're going to love what we do. We're going to love the audience we build. We're not going to have a packed schedule that we have to work eight hours a day or five hours a day or four hours a day. We traveled full time in 2022 and we ran two businesses, and I think we probably spent combined 10 hours a week working on those two businesses. And it could have been less. Like, I could have probably outsourced five of Those hours to someone doing customer support emails. But I just like doing them because I love our customers. So, yeah, we've really shifted into this idea of helping creators build calm businesses. And a lot of that is just ignoring a lot of the noise of like, you gotta be posting on Instagram or TikTok 17 times a day so that you can get four more email subscribers. Like, what is the point of these things? As opposed to being like, what are the systems that run your business? Like, what problem does your business actually solve for who? How do you do that? In an interesting way, what marketing channels are you using that you actually like spending time on that you don't hate logging into every day of your life? And I'm not gonna say that starting and running a calm business is easy. It takes years. It took us four years to get our wandering aim flea business to profitability. But that four years spent has now afforded us three years after that and now years beyond where we can run calm businesses that we love and that we are so passionate about running in a way that feels in totally alignment to what we want in life.
- [23:03]
Joel
I love that.
- [23:04]
Matt
That makes so much sense. And it's worth mentioning too, that we're talking about 20 years of you having tried some of these other off the wall sort of ideas. And so like, you, you know, you quickly run through them and it's just like, this dude is anything but calm. But then you kind of, you outline where y'all are now, and I think that's, that's awesome. And you kind of, you're hitting on a key point where early on in the business, I think there is a lot of hustle. You are working a lot harder than maybe you want to. And one of the things you said was that early on you're kind of drawn into that hustle, hustle culture, but you realize that this is not something I want to do forever. How do you help folks to think through where that line of demarcation is as they're thinking, okay, well, we got to get this thing off the ground. Is it once it's, you know, once it starts bringing in profit? Is it when you have systems in place, like, what does that look like for someone to kind of make the decision to say, hey, how do we, how do we make this a little more automated, a little more on cruise control?
- [24:00]
Jason Zook
Number one, I think people have to define what their enough goals are for their business. And I think this is like the number one problem that a lot of business owners miss out on when they first get started is they just have misaligned goals. And so they go, well, of course I want a million dollar business this year. Well, yeah, so does everybody else. But are you willing to put in the time and effort that it takes to build a million dollar business? Because for the majority of people, and not just all the clickbait crap that we see online that tells you that that can happen in like 30 days by spending $1,000 on some course, it takes so much effort. And so I think the reality is for probably all your listeners, I listen to a bunch of episodes of your podcast. I can tell that you guys are thoughtful, you care about your listeners, you're not trying to have get rich quick schemes that don't work. It's about being super honest with your life and what you want and what you're trying to build. So I think for a lot of people when they say I want to build my own business, maybe what they want to actually build is like 500 to $1,000 in like side hustle income that you only have to spend five hours a week on, because that's all the time you have. Like you're a parent, you have a full time job. Like there's just, you don't have the time to build a million dollar business in a year. But what you do is you look at and you go, great. So in my first year, a win would be making $1,000 a month with this business and not spending so much time that I'm feeling like I'm burnt out working on it. Then in the second year, maybe I'm able to double or triple that income through finding out like what marketing channels are working, what audience am I actually attracting, what problem am I solving, that I can amplify that problem to more people and then you kind of grow from there. And this is like the antithetical advice to what everybody's looking for online, which is how can I do it fast? How can AI help me solve all these problems and like get my business going? And listen, I'm all for doing things as fast as possible, but I will tell you from 20 years experience, as you casually mentioned, the faster that you try to work, the more you are going to burn out on what you're doing and the more stress you're going to cause in your life. And it's kind of that classic thing of like, you can go into the gym if you haven't ever worked out before and you can lift all the weights as heavy as possible, but you're going to, your body's gonna feel like absolute crap for like the next week. And then you're gonna not wanna go to the gym for six months. Or you could just go do like five pushups, a couple jumping jacks, go for a walk around your block, feel good about yourself, and then tomorrow, maybe do one or two more of those things, and then the next day do one or two more and you start to build this compounding effect of better habits. And I think the same thing is true for business. It's just people start out with misaligned goals and they don't really define what enough looks like for them when they're getting started.
- [26:26]
Joel
Yeah, that's great stuff, Jason. All right, we got so much more I want to get to with you, including, like, I don't know, how do you come up with a business idea? You've come up with a bunch of them. We'll get to that and more right after this.
- [26:42]
Matt
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- [27:00]
Joel
Whether you're saving for a home, a new car, or your future, their options could help you get there. And certificates are just the beginning. Navy Federal also provides financial advisors to help you manage your investment portfolio, along with online tools to guide your savings plan. With their support, you'll have everything you need to take charge of your finances. So don't wait. The sooner you start building your financial future with Navy Federal savings and investing options, the better off you could be in the long run.
- [27:24]
Matt
Sign up@navy federal.org Navy Federal Credit Union members are the mission. Savings products insured by NCUA Investment products are not insured, not obligations of Navy Federal and may lose value.
- [27:36]
Joel
What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. Will we have another bull market in 2025 or we're going to get a bear market? What about inflation? Will it continue to calm or will higher prices remain sticky? Wouldn't it be cool if someone could invent a crystal ball that would give us some foresight?
- [27:53]
Matt
Well, until then, Joel. Over 41,000 businesses have future proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one fluid platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. When you're closing the books out in days, not weeks, you are spending less time looking backwards and more time on what is next. Our business is really small, but if we needed netsuite, we would be pumped about the time the cost savings that it provides. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars, NetSuite helps you to respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.
- [28:40]
Joel
Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com the guide is free to you at netsuite.com howtomoney that's netsuite.com howtomone and now a word from our sponsors at Betterment when investing your money starts to feel like a second job, Betterment steps in with little work life balance. They're an automated investing and savings app, which means they do the work.
- [29:05]
Matt
Yeah. While they build and manage your portfolio, you build and manage your weekend plans. While they make it easy to invest for what matters, you just get to enjoy what matters. Their automated tools simplify the complex and they put your money to work optimizing day after day and again and again. So go ahead, take your time to rest and recharge. Because while your money doesn't need a work life balance, you do make your.
- [29:28]
Joel
Money hustle with Betterment. Get started@betterment.com that's B E T T E R M e n t.com Investing involves risk performance not guaranteed.
- [29:41]
Matt
We are back from the break speaking with Jason Zook. And Jason, so before the break, you mentioned the misaligned goals a whole lot when it came to, I guess how a lot of folks get off track. So for you. So like we are going to talk about your business and how it is that y'all shepherd along new business entrepreneurs. But what exactly is enough for you? I guess, like what are your personal goals right now? Is it to be able to work a little bit less? You mentioned a couple or a few years ago now, you and your wife traveling a whole lot where you weren't working a ton. What does that look like for you now? What are you trying to achieve?
- [30:16]
Jason Zook
Yeah, I think it's actually helpful to give a little bit of like quick history on this is, you know, when I first started setting goals, it was exactly what I just talked about, which is like I want to make a million dollars per year. Why? You know, because like I've seen other people do that. And when I actually like looked at what it would take to do that. And I tried to do that myself. It just wasn't sustainable for the type of business I was running. So as we started to get better at these goals, it really started to shift into exactly what you're talking about, which is like, well, what do I want my week to look like? What do I want my day to look like? And what money would actually be enough? And what we sat down and did. And this actually only came because that I wear your shirt business ended up actually in debt. And it ended in debt. Cause I tried to scale it too quickly, too fast. Again, I was chasing hustle culture. Gary Vee was influencing me like crazy. And I got to this place, we got to this place, my wife and I, where we said like, we've got to draw a line in the sand. And what does this look like? What do we really need to survive? And so we really started like thinking through this stuff. And after like a year or two, we kind of came up with two formulas. One is what we call the MMM number. Mmm. Monthly minimum. Magic number. And this is just figuring out what your baseline. Baseline expenses are. And I'm sure you guys have talked about this with other people at nauseam, so I'm not going to go too far into it.
- [31:26]
Matt
We call it the bare bones budget.
- [31:27]
Joel
Also the bbb.
- [31:28]
Jason Zook
Fantastic. Bbb.
- [31:30]
Matt
Bbb.
- [31:30]
Jason Zook
Mmm.
- [31:31]
Joel
Yeah.
- [31:31]
Jason Zook
But it so many people don't even know those numbers. And once you have those numbers as a baseline, which is why yours is baseline, is you can figure out, okay, great, I know that now. What would an enough number look like? That's like my next number. That would feel really good, but that's actually kind of achievable. And so for us, what we ended up doing is we sat down and we. We looked at what that number could be and we just, we just thought about it, we just talked about it. We just said, okay, well how much money would we want to spend on rent a month for a house or if we want to buy a house, a mortgage? How much money do we need for food and for stuff? And as we talked about the beginning of this, our. My personal baking expenses, budgets. What are those things? And we got to a number. And this was actually in 2018. We set this number of $33,000 a month. It just kind of felt nice that it was like a weird number. And we wrote about this entire journey. You can actually go read about it@wanderinggamefly.com 330 if any of your listeners want to read about it. It Took us four years to achieve that number. But once we, I think it was three years once we got to that number. By the time we got to it, it didn't feel like we had to move the goalpost. It felt like, oh, we set this number. This number was for us to live a good life and have enough money every month to be able to afford the things we want. Now we don't have to go chasing a bigger number. However, life changes, circumstances, changes. We want to start a family. We have parents who are getting older. We need to start setting money aside so we can take care of them. If that needs to happen, great. So we reassessed that number and we set a new number. And it was based on a lot of new circumstances. But I think the real value is in creating an enough number. You decide for yourself what matters in your life. Because it's so easy to scroll through Instagram or TikTok or whatever and see all these lives of people and who even knows that they're making it all up? But it looks amazing. But it might not be amazing for you. It just looks amazing. And so I think the biggest thing is to really do some self reflection, really sit through and think about, like, what really matter? Like, what do I want? What would make me truly happy? And don't just go with the things that are out in the ether that seem cool on the Internet. Actually really get introspective with yourself on the things that you want. And you might realize, oh, I actually want a lot less than I think I do. I'm just being sent a bunch of messages that I need more when I really don't.
- [33:41]
Joel
Did the artificially impose constraints of your enough plan? Did it ever make you feel like you were doing your business a disservice? Like, oh, man, I really could grow this thing. And maybe it would be more fun to just kind of plow more effort and try to grow it even bigger, even though, yeah, it's enough money. Did that ever feel like, oh, man, I. I wish I could put more into this business. But now it feels like I've kind of told myself no.
- [34:06]
Jason Zook
You know, the only time that ever happened was when I would go to, like, meetups or like little mastermind groups with other entrepreneurs who were making a bunch more money, but then they also had much bigger goals, is I would go, oh, I think I'm shortchanging us. You know, like, we're just trying to make a measly $33,000 a month, which, by the way, not measly. And you know, you're hearing other people talk about, well, you know, they're making $100,000 a month or 200,000 or more than that. And you realize like, you do have those thoughts. But then what we always came back to is, but I don't know what their life looks like and I don't know how much stress they have. I don't know how happy they actually are because it's really easy to show up in this group and like, put on a face. But I know for us, like, we work less than 20 hours a week most of the time, and we're super happy. We have plenty of time for exercise, we have plenty of times for exploring this new country that we live in. And even before moving into a whole different country, we had plenty of time to just chase other ideas and have fun. And you know, when Tears of the Kingdom came out, I had a full schedule open where I could unload 100 hours onto this business. And I know that a lot of people listen to this, they don't have that luxury. But we also didn't have that luxury six years ago either. And we built a plan to create that. And I think that's what so many people miss out on, is they see maybe a one year opportunity is all they have to make a business that can support them. And you just have to zoom the lens out a little bit further. And going back to your question, try to get some of the people out of your view, your immediate view, who are going to be influencing you to make bigger goals than you actually need to make. And to see your goals as not enough when they're plenty enough because they're good enough for you.
- [35:40]
Matt
I think like a big part of it is like you're talking about choosing a weird number that you know, that y'all were shooting for. Like, you're talking about leaning into the weird. You're talking about having a ton of fun as well. And like, what is it about folks who seem to be less tempted or less allured by the fun and the weird and instead they're maybe more intent on going for like the normal. Like, we've got some friends in our lives and they're very like, normal and there's nothing wrong with that. Like, everyone has like different tastes and we're really abnormal. But like, there's. I don't. Like, there's something about the weird that I think can just open other opportunities to you. But do you end up talking with a lot of folks who work with wandering aimfully who, where you're Having a tough time, kind of like breaking through them, thinking through what it is that they should be doing, as opposed to, hey, what do you actually want to do? What sounds fun to you? What is weird, but weird enough to provide some, like, spice in your life?
- [36:36]
Jason Zook
Yeah, I think one of the keywords that you touched on there, and this is like, one of our core values that we have just established for ourselves in life. And business is fun. And I think for a lot of people, they don't really equate business too fun because they don't really have any examples around them immediately where that's even true. And I, and I speak from my own experience. Like, there was no one around me when I was growing up, when I was a teenager, when I was getting into being a young adult who had fun in their work. It's just like everybody had a job. Most people hated that job. Whoever owned their own business, they were constantly stressed out by that business. Like, I didn't have any examples of that looking that way. And it's like I talked about earlier, it's like, okay, but that doesn't mean that's the only way to do it. Like, there. There has to be a better way. And there are always different options that you can chase down. And I think nowadays it's very easy. You can see a lot of these examples. But I think even for most people, like you said, you look around your immediate group, not on social media, but just like your immediate group, there's not a lot of people who are having fun in business or kind of like making their own schedules or doing their own thing in a way that they absolutely love it. And I think a big part of that is, you do have to understand this is going to be different for a lot of people around you to see you being this way, and you just have to be okay with that. And I think the other part of it is just having fun does not mean you can't make money. I think having fun actually really helps make money because so many people are just trying to maximize for, like, conversions and, like, slick sales funnels and these types of things that they don't lend themselves to being very fun or weird or unique. And when you do stuff, they lend.
- [38:02]
Joel
Themselves to trying to trap your customer into paying you back.
- [38:04]
Jason Zook
Exactly, exactly. I hate the phrase so much tripwire. Like, if I could remove a phrase from the online business vernacular, it would be tripwire, because I absolutely loathe it and I like the concept of it. I think the concept of it is fantastic, but I really Hate the phrase I don't want to trip anybody into anything in business, but I do think the part of this that a lot of people get wrong is you see a blueprint from someone online or a video or whatever, and it's very inspiring because the results are exactly what you want, but the steps to take it are like so boring and they're so mundane and they're so not enjoyable. As opposed to going, well, what if I just spend that same amount of time doing something that's like a little bit weird, but that people could find that might be fun and interesting? And either way they're going to be experiments that you don't know if they're going to succeed or not. So why not go for the one where even though someone's telling you it's like a well laid path, it's going to work perfectly, maybe try something different and see does that work for you? Because it might work for you because not a lot of other people are doing that thing that way.
- [38:57]
Joel
You're kind of highlighting the fact too in this conversation that the Internet and social media can work in different ways. We can follow people and kind of become down about our own ability to crush it in the way that they are, but then we can find the people who inspire us in ways that we haven't seen, maybe in just the people who we interact with in daily life. Right. So, you know, I do think finding somebody like you to look up to when it comes to creating a small business that's sustainable and fun, well, if you haven't seen that, maybe growing up and you don't see that in kind of the pursuits that your friends are doing, that's a way in which you can use the Internet and all the amazing stuff out there to harness your, you know, your pursuit of a business that's actually going to work for you instead of following people who are going to make you maybe feel bad about not doing enough for sure.
- [39:51]
Jason Zook
And I think like the algorithms don't push the calm businesses of the world, right? Like they, they really don't. And I think there are actually a couple places before AI that helped with this starter story by a guy named Pat Walls is a really good resource for people to be able to find great case studies of businesses. I will say Pat does skew a little bit more towards higher revenue businesses, but there are, and there were a ton of business stories on that site that I think are super inspiring for people getting started. And it was a place that I would reference all the time for folks who would Find our email newsletter. And they're like, where could I find more businesses? Like Wandering Fleet? And I was like, I don't know. It's really hard. And they exist for sure, but they just don't get the notoriety. Right. Because they're not. It's what I call the gap in entrepreneurship. Like, they're not the. We're just getting started. Here's a crazy idea. Let's talk about it. And they're not the, we sold our company for $80 million, so let's talk about it. It's like everything in the middle where, like, no one really wants to talk about it. But I do think another skill that people can use is leaning on AI tools. And this is where AI tools are actually getting helpful, is you could tell them selfishly, you could be like, hey, I just found out about this business wandering aimfully. And can you find 10 other businesses that are like this, that aren't just trying to, like, make money constantly through dropshipping or whatever? Like, what are some calm businesses or curious businesses that I can find? These tools will actually help you find them now. Like, you couldn't Google this before. You would not get good results. And I think that is actually, we're entering in an age where you can actually discover some of these things which are. Which is really helpful. I think it's really inspiring because it now no longer is just, well, what's the algorithm of whatever app I'm looking at giving me? And that's the best I can get, even if I'm trying to train it on, like, only looking at this type of content. You can now use AI tools to search and to find things that you could really never find before, which I really love. And I think that's like, a huge advantage that we're moving into with some of the changes in these tools.
- [41:38]
Matt
That's pretty cool. Yeah. So those are like what I would call external inspiration.
- [41:42]
Jason Zook
Right.
- [41:42]
Matt
So you're talking about different sites that you can check out. You got the starter story, You've got different tools that we can utilize as well, like AI. When it comes to internally trying to find some inspiration, does it come down to an individual thinking, like, reflecting a little bit and thinking through, okay, what gets me excited, like, what lights me up up. Is it as simple as that to consider launching a business around that 100% I love?
- [42:05]
Jason Zook
There's a Mark Cuban quote that he said forever ago. I think it was 30 years ago, which, oh, my God, so long ago. But he, he was, he said, don't follow your passion Follow your energy. And I really resonated with that because I think we're all passionate about a lot of things, and I think, especially as it relates to, like, starting a business, like, yeah, we're passionate about making money because money makes the world go round. And having money is better than not having money. But I think where you can run into a trap is if you get stuck in the. Like, okay, well, now I gotta figure out, like, all my marketing tactics, and I gotta figure out all these hooks and, like, vertical videos and, like, how to get people to watch them. It's like, is that really something you wanna be doing? Is that something you, like, spring out of bed in the morning and you have energy for? And I really like that. I think if you define for yourself, like, where does energy emanate for you when you're working on your business? Like, where do you really get lit up? And my good buddy Matt D'Avella has a very popular YouTube channel. And I remember he and I chatted. I think he had, like, 20,000 subscribers when I first met him, and I was on his podcast. And I just remember him being so excited to make these, like, documentary YouTube, like, films, and no one was really making them at the time, like he was going to. And I was just like, dude, you got it. You got to go, like, you got to do this. Like, this is amazing. I wasn't the person who convinced him he was already going to do it, but watching him now then have 4 million subscribers on YouTube and he has two Netflix documentaries, and, like, he's just an incredibly talented person. Had he just followed what would have been, like, something that he felt somewhat passionate about as opposed to, like, where a whole of his energy could have gone. I think that was really a big shift that I saw in person in one. One example that was, like, extremely clear. And so I think for a lot of people, it's about trying to define the difference between, like, what am I passionate about? But then, like, what do I really have the energy to, like, sustain and do every single day to help create and grow a business?
- [43:48]
Matt
Very cool.
- [43:49]
Joel
Yeah, I think that's good advice. How can creators, people who want to launch a business, evaluate a business idea before they kind of start working their butts off? Right? Potentially wasting time, money, and energy in the creation of that business? It sounds like, I don't know. Tell me if I'm wrong. Maybe you don't spend too much time on that part of it. You're just like, oh, it lights me up. I got some energy for this let's give it a go.
- [44:11]
Jason Zook
It's funny that you say that, though. Actually. Everything I've ever done has been extremely calculated. It's just the ideas were really dumb and I just. I just executed them with more effort than I think most people would have done. You know, And I think that has just been a thing that I've seen for years is. Consistency is key. So it's like, whatever you're going to do, you've got to be consistent. But to answer your question, so, like, how do you. How do you validate a business idea? How do you know if a business idea is worth pursuing? I think, number one, if you're going to do something weird like an I wear your shirt or like something that's just like so far out there, you're never really going to have a good example of something you can follow a blueprint for. So the only blueprint you have is the one you're going to create. So you just have to be willing. This goes back to the Mark Cuban quote. Like, you've got to have the energy to work on that thing and put time towards that thing, probably more than you would anything else, because it hasn't been done before. It's super unique. And I know people listen to this, are like, well, what hasn't been done before? Well, you probably didn't know that a guy got paid to wear T shirts for a living before listening to this podcast, you know, So I think there's still so many things that be done. I think on the other side of things, if you want the, the easier mode, it's not easy mode is you have to go where people's attention is and you have to go with things that are currently working. So, like, I have a good. We have a wandering aimfully member. His name is Wayne. He's very top of mind because I just had a call with him this morning and he started a business where he does tutorials about Canva on YouTube and he has a Canva course. And we strategically planned this three years ago because Canva was on this huge uptick. And I don't know if anybody remembers what Canva was like four years ago. It was not great, but Canva has turned into something amazing and it's incredible. And so he, Wayne, has basically ridden the wave of the popularity of this app and he loves it and he uses it and he knows so much about it, so he's teaching people on it. So I think a really good lesson for people listening to this is you may have a business idea, but you need to understand, is this a new idea? That's going to be very difficult and it's just going to take more time and effort than you want. That's just going to be the reality. Is it something that already exists where there's already people paying for this thing? Great. Then you already have an audience that's willing to buy something from you. You just now have to create your differentiators. You have to make the things that you do in marketing stand out from everybody else by being different and unique. And then you just have to show up consistently and you have to have realistic goals for what you can do time wise and how much effort you can put in to have that business succeed.
- [46:32]
Matt
So smart man. I love it. Jason We've got a couple more questions that we're going to get to all of that right after this. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. At Navy Federal, their mission is to help members of the military, veterans and their families achieve their financial goals. That's why they offer great savings and investing options like certificates. Certificates come with sky high rates and some even have the flexibility to add money anytime during your term.
- [47:01]
Joel
Whether you're saving for a home, a new car or your future, their options could help you get there. And certificates are just the beginning. Navy Federal also provides financial advisors to help you manage your investment portfolio, along with online tools to guide your savings plan. With their support, you'll have everything you need to take charge of your finances. So don't wait. The sooner you start building your financial future with Navy Federal savings and investing options, the better off you could be in the long run.
- [47:25]
Matt
Sign up@navyfederal.org Navy Federal Credit Union members are the mission savings products insured by ncua. Investment products are not insured, not obligations of Navy Federal and may lose value.
- [47:38]
Joel
What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. Will we have another bull market in 2025 or we're going to get a bear market? What about inflation? Will it continue to calm or will higher prices remain sticky? Wouldn't it be cool if someone could invent a crystal ball that would give us some foresight?
- [47:55]
Matt
Well, until then, Joel over 41,000 businesses have future proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one fluid platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. When you're closing the books out in days, not weeks, you are spending less time looking backwards and more time on what is next. Our business is really small, but if we needed netsuite, we would be pumped about the time, the cost savings that it provides. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars, NetSuite helps you to respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.
- [48:41]
Joel
Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com/how to money. The guide is free to you@netsuite.com howtomoney that's netsuite.com how to money all right, we are back to the break. Still talking with Jason Zook, however you want to pronounce it, about launching the sweet smart small business.
- [49:04]
Matt
How do you pronounce it?
- [49:05]
Jason Zook
Actually I do pronounce it zook, but I will be it is like 99.9%. I do not care. Either way is fine. I think as the Canadians go, it's zook and they will not say it any other way, which I'm totally fine with and I respect that. That's how they want to pronounce it.
- [49:18]
Matt
So that's to make sure we're not offending our guests in the podcast.
- [49:22]
Joel
Ask somebody about how you they pronounce their name is the very end. I think so. Oh yeah, we got that out of.
- [49:27]
Matt
The way while we've just been doing it wrong the entire time.
- [49:29]
Joel
Exactly.
- [49:30]
Jason Zook
No, no, no, it's fine.
- [49:31]
Matt
We do everything correctly here.
- [49:32]
Joel
I'm, I'm curious, Jason, the people you work with typically on watering aimfully, are they trying to pursue their small business as like a full time endeavor? They're trying to quit their day job. For a lot of those folks, is it just this goal of having a side hustle that brings in extra revenue? And how do you help people think through whether or not the business should be they should be working towards making it their full time thing or if hey, just hey, it brings in an extra 500 bucks a month. That's plenty.
- [50:01]
Jason Zook
Yeah, we, when we started out with Wandering Ainflee, we kind of wanted to be the unboring. Group coaching is what we called it for existing business owners to grow their businesses. And the problem with that we found very quickly was well, existing businesses are actually kind of busy and they don't really have time to do a lot of like group coaching stuff. They would prefer to do one on one coaching because they have very specific problems and those Specific problems are really akin to their businesses. And so it's hard to scale that type of business. We didn't want to just trade time for money forever. And so we. We definitely shifted the messaging of the business to help people at different stages. So we definitely still help people who have existing businesses. Tons of resources within monitoring plead that do that. But I think we are kind of best suited for the person who is working a job right now. They want to carve out some side income. They don't want to do the hustle game. And they just want to know, like, what are the business foundations that are working in today's landscape that actually don't involve me just being on like, Instagram for 20 hours a day? And what can that look like for me as a person who wants to figure that out? So a lot of our content is actually, it's very foundational. It's very much like what I've been talking about here. It's like defining your enough number, finding an idea that really resonates with you that you actually want to work on, picking the marketing platforms and the strategy that you actually feel like you have the energy for. Like, don't plan a business where you're going to burn yourself out in three weeks because you have to create all this content that you don't even like creating. And so a lot of what we talk about with people kind of shifts the way that they think wandering aimfully is going to start for them, where it's like, we're going to tell you how to build your first online course, and then 30 days you're going to have a course and a, and a sales funnel and like, all this stuff that a digital products business would have, it's more like, hey, what's your life like right now? Can you actually fit this in? Because funny enough, we have people who join and like, in the first 30 days, they'll send us an email, be like, I'm actually really glad I'm paying for this every month because I'm finding out I don't want a small business. I'm actually finding out I'm better off staying at my job right now and figuring out a way I want to supplement my income through other creative means. But just in you helping me define some of these goals has changed the trajectory of what the rest of this year looked like. And so I think we definitely help a lot of people unearth some things that they haven't thought about, but we definitely have. Like, we've got this onboarding business roadmap which is kind of a behemoth of a product. But we're building a smaller version now because it's kind of grown over the years. But it basically walks you through the step by step of every question you could have about starting what we call digital product businesses, because that's where we exist. Is your online courses, your template shop, like those types of things, memberships, anything like that. And we walk you through just a set of things to do and questions to answer and exercises, you know, doing offer math. People don't really know what that is when you say it, but it's like, hey, if you want to sell an online course for 20 bucks, great, let's do the math. How many customers do you need to meet your goals of that every single month? And someone might be like, oh, I need 100 customers a month because I want to make $2,000 a month. You go, okay, great. How many people are on your email list right now? Oh, I don't have one yet. Okay, cool. How are you going to get 200 customers a month when you don't even have an email list? And then people go, oh, okay, so I need to do some other stuff first. And so it's helping people through a lot of what seems very simple, but you don't know all of the puzzle pieces that exist on the table until kind of someone like us lays them all out for you and you go, oh, okay, so this is a little bit more difficult than I thought. There are more things I need to do. And now I actually at least have a plan to kind of work through it. And I'm a part of a community where there's other people I can chat with and I can feel less alone. And we have this monthly call that we do every single month that kind of brings people together and shows them one thing to work on their business. But then also everyone can kind of hang out and chat. So a little bit of self promotion there. I didn't mean for it to go that way with wandering, but that is, that's the way we think about things because we don't just want to promote. Like, we can get you a business going in 60 days or less. Like, sometimes I'm really happy when people don't have a business because they join monitoring and they find out there's actually a better path for them at staying at their job and, you know, enjoying that and, like, trying to figure that out.
- [53:49]
Matt
No, I like that. I like that there's a certain percentage of your members who end up not launching a business. And they're like, hey, you mind if I just like hang out for the next few months?
- [53:57]
Jason Zook
Exactly, yeah.
- [53:58]
Joel
You guys are just kind of cool, so let's just chill. I'm curious too. Jason. I don't know if I've actually seen you create any content about this, but it seems like we're entering a period where more, more folks are retiring. They're at a certain age, especially United States of America, but across the globe. And maybe they have a business they built up that they are willing to sell and maybe there aren't any buyers knocking down the door. Do you think about or talk about buying other people's businesses and does that ever really make sense for people?
- [54:29]
Jason Zook
Yeah, I mean, funny enough, I think I've built like four or five little software products with co founders over the years and we've sold, I think, four or five of them. I think maybe only one went unsold. And I really think there's a great opportunity. Like if you're, if you're someone who wants to start a business but you don't have any ideas, you're not maybe a creative person, but you do maybe have some money set aside that you could spend, you know, we're talking like I'm saying 20,000 to $100,000 in the business. Maybe it's less, maybe it's a little bit more. I think it's a really fantastic place to start. I think that is a wonderful place, especially if you do a little bit of research, like acquire.com is a place where you can find things, I think. Flippa. I'm not sure if they're still super legit, but a lot of times you can just join business communities as well, like a wandering AIM player or things like it. And again, ask ChatGPT for some examples that are similar. If you don't just want to look at ours, but you could join some communities and find some opportunities where people have existing businesses and clients and customers that they're just looking to move on from and you could kind of scoop that up and start. But yeah, I do think from the other side of it too, like, I don't think enough people value the opportunity of building a small little business. And I think tools are changing enough fast enough that I'm not a developer by any means. I'm absolutely loving a tool called Lovable right now. It's lovable.dev. i have no affiliation to them. I'm not sponsored by them. I'm not sponsored by anybody anymore and haven't been for years.
- [55:46]
Joel
But you Might be at some point in the future.
- [55:48]
Jason Zook
Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I got tired of that. But. But that tool, like, I'm. I'm now building little software products just by prompting an AI, just literally chatting with it. Like, I chat to ChatGPT. So, yeah, to answer your question, I think definitely people should look into buying existing businesses that at least have some type of revenue that's generating. Like, I would always look to buy a business that has revenue. I wouldn't look to just buy ideas, because I think I. Anybody can come up with ideas. And then if you're on the other side, like, I wouldn't undervalue trying to sell a small business you have that is making some amount of money so that you could move on and have a little bit of cash to, like, put into something else or just stop working and get a job, or not have a job and just retire.
- [56:24]
Matt
Very cool.
- [56:25]
Jason Zook
Possibly.
- [56:25]
Matt
Last question here, Jason. You talked about you and your wife exploring this new country that y'all are in. You're in Portugal. What is it about that country that drew y'all over there? And how long have y'all been there? And do you expect to continue living there?
- [56:38]
Jason Zook
Man, I can tell you what drew it in a different way of answering that, which is not the US And I think that a lot of people are feeling this right now, and I feel really bad because I don't want to bash the U.S. i lived in the U.S. for 40 years of my life, and I consider all of the opportunities I've had are because I was fortunate enough to be born there. I just won the born lottery in that country, and I can't look away from that. That definitely makes sense, but I think that there's a lot that's just not fantastic about it. And I'm not saying that Portugal is a perfect country or any country outside the US Is better than the. I just think that there are small things in life that we just were really looking to change into something else. Like, we wanted to feel safe walking when we were walking outside. We wanted to feel like we were around a little bit more history, a little bit more culture. We wanted to be able to afford the place that we lived, which was really nice. And we wanted to be able to live in a place that actually felt amazing, but that didn't, like, basically take all of our income to be able to afford to live there. We lived in San Diego before we left.
- [57:39]
Joel
Big price change.
- [57:40]
Jason Zook
Yeah. We felt like we were slowly getting priced out of a place that was, like, the Perfect place for us to live. But then all of a sudden, like, it wasn't feeling safe. Like, you go to the grocery store and it's just like, everybody knows all these things. I'm just repeating things people know. But the things that we loved about Portugal. We traveled in 2022 for 10 months. We went to nine different countries. I think it was like, 15 different cities. And we were actually looking for a slower. You could call it a calm little town or city that could really kind of fit our lifestyle, which is like, we're homebodies. We do classic movie night on Saturday nights, and we're watching, you know, Die Hard and, like, another fun movie from our childhood. And we don't need all the things that you can get from, like, big cities. We don't need access immediately to, like, an airport and, like, big city stuff and all that. And Portugal, I think, you know, is one of the countries that we visited that just has so many little pockets of countries. And I think this is probably true for a lot of countries in Europe where there are just so many little towns that no one really stumbles across or knows. And because there's just less people in these countries, there's just so much more space to be able to live and to be able to breathe and to feel safe and, you know, have your money go a little bit further. And so, yeah, we've lived here for two years. We actually are literally just about to sign a lease for three more years, so we're going to be here for five years. We love the fact that there are visa programs so that we can eventually earn citizenship and be dual citizens between Europe and between the US which gives us a lot of advantages. When we have kids, our kids will immediately get a passport for the EU being born here, which gives them amazing opportunities to do whatever they want, you know, as they grow up. So, yeah, I just think, like, there's a lot of amazing opportunities. This is kind of the. It's a metaphor for starting a business, right? On paper, you can read all the steps, but, like, when you start to do it, it's so difficult. Like, when we moved here, it's very difficult. Sell all your stuff, uproot your life, be away from friends and family, live in a whole different country where you don't speak the language. But I can tell you now that we've lived here for two years, best decision we've ever made. And same with building wandering aimfully as a calm business. Best decision we've ever made. And I think that those types of feelings Come on the side of very difficult and hard decisions that aren't easy and most people wouldn't do. And I hope more people listening to this will just take that leap, that little chance that you've been kind of sitting on the edge of your seat to do, but you've been afraid to do. Just, just do it. You can always undo that decision. You can always go back. Like failure doesn't mean that you're gonna die most, most times, obviously. But there's so much on the other side of life that people aren't experiencing because they're just not willing to take that leap.
- [60:07]
Joel
Man, you tied the boat perfectly, Jason. Incredible. Hey, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today on the podcast. We really appreciate it. How can our listeners find out more about you, what you're up to and wondering Aimfully?
- [60:20]
Jason Zook
Yeah, we do a weekly newsletter. We've been doing it now for in some way like 15 years, which is kind of crazy. But at Wandering Aimfly, if you want to hear us talk about ways that you can make your business more profitable, peaceful and predictable, we've got a newsletter called Growing Steady. We also have a podcast of the same name. You can find those both@wanderingaimfully.com if you're interested in our coaching program. It opens up twice per year and you can check that out. We also now have a kind of a six month version of People Just Want to Test the Waters. So we love helping people with that. And you can't really find too much about us on social. We kind of gave up on Instagram. Every once in a while we pop up, but mostly just email is the easiest way to reach out. If you want to find us through our website, you can say, hello, we'd love to hear from any of your listeners. And I'm sorry if you don't like sending people emails, but I don't like being on Instagram or TikTok or any of these other things. So I'm happy to do it, so. But I really appreciate it, guys. It's a really fun combo.
- [61:14]
Joel
All right, Matt, that was such a fun conversation. Big, big fan of Jason, what he's up to over there, how he views.
- [61:21]
Matt
The world as well. Yeah, we spent plenty of time talking about Thundercats and nerdy coffee stuff before we even hit record.
- [61:28]
Joel
You guys and you brothers from another mother, that's for sure.
- [61:32]
Matt
I did kind of feel that way.
- [61:34]
Joel
What was your big takeaway from this combo, man?
- [61:36]
Matt
Dude, he had so many little nuggets of wisdom when it came to Entrepreneurship and how he views the world. And I think my biggest takeaway is when he said that there is not a single way to do business. There's not a single way to do life. And maybe we should be thinking through, like, what. It's funny because, like, even the language, the words that he used are phrases and things that we've said here on the show. But, like, what do you want your life to look like versus what it.
- [61:59]
Joel
Looks like for all the people who are influencing you?
- [62:02]
Matt
Yeah. And just to go against the grain a little bit and to ask yourself, as you're thinking through how it is that you want to try and work and produce an income for you and your family. Like, what is the worst that could happen? He said there's two questions or two things that he kind of lives by. It's that what's the worst that could happen? And that you don't get what you don't ask for. And the ability for us to advocate for ourselves, whether it's within the framework of an employer or a business, but specifically to business formation. What's the worst that can happen? And it affords us the ability to take some, you know, some leaps that might be a little scary, but ultimately not permanently harmful to us.
- [62:39]
Joel
Yeah. I liked what he said. Solve a problem for people in interesting ways. That's great. The truth is, one of the best ways to start a business is to find out what pain points you see in life around you. Maybe it's been a pain point for you personally or just for other people near where you live or something. And you're able to say, wait a second, how can I maybe grease the wheels on that and turn a profit by providing a service or creating a business? And then I also liked what you said. Work longer, but love it. You know, we talk about. That's. I think our philosophy too, Matt, is instead of fire, it's like, how about work less now, maybe make less money, have a more balanced life and enjoy what you do. And then you don't really feel this desire, this need to retire from the thing because you're burnt out by it.
- [63:25]
Matt
It's not necessarily a race.
- [63:26]
Joel
Yeah.
- [63:27]
Matt
And I think Jason would be on board with that, man.
- [63:29]
Joel
And one thing that this conversation brought up too, Matt, I don't remember. I think you probably remember this. We went to a conf. We saw a live podcast taping, and it was all about how to create a billion dollar business. And I just was thinking about that during this conversation too, and it felt so off brand with what so Many people in that room were trying to create which, which is more of like a lifestyle, either side hustle or small business that they can enjoy. And when you try to think too big, let me, oh, how am I going to make this into a billion dollar thing? You have to go back to first principles and say, is that even what I want to begin with? And how am I going to potentially screw up my life pursuing something that doesn't align with my values and doesn't even, you know, it's not what I want my life to look like.
- [64:10]
Matt
So yeah, yeah, there can be a whole lot of misaligned goals if you were just to accept that blindly.
- [64:15]
Joel
Yeah.
- [64:16]
Matt
Let's get to the beer that you and I enjoyed during this episode, which was Nashouf, not a La Chouf, the Belgian beer that we all know and love, but Nashuf, which is their non alcoholic version, which I think we're going to be enjoying some more NA beers here on the show because if you want that segment of the craft beer industry to improve, we got to support them with our dollars. We've had some athletic beers on the show before. This is the first though by Le Chouf. But what were your thoughts on this one?
- [64:45]
Joel
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I'm down to try more non alcoholic beers. I can't say that my experience thus far has been phenomenal. They haven't been nearly as tasty as some of the actually alcoholic craft beers.
- [64:59]
Matt
It still has that NA flavor. Like there's something about it's. Yeah, I think the athletic ones are better than this one. I love.
- [65:06]
Joel
They call it at the bottom Belgian near beer. It's almost there, but it's not quite.
- [65:10]
Jason Zook
It's beer.
- [65:10]
Matt
Ish.
- [65:11]
Joel
And the taste is like near beer too. I mean, it's good and I can see how this could in a pinch suffice. If you like beer and you're like, oh, this is. I still want that flavor in my life, but I'm trying to kick the habit or something like that.
- [65:25]
Matt
Trying to scale cut back a little bit.
- [65:26]
Joel
Yeah. But this isn't wrong with that. This isn't one I would turn to regularly.
- [65:30]
Matt
But it still surprisingly or somehow had like that Belgian wheat kind of flavor profile going on. But I'm going to reserve judgment until I maybe enjoy some more nab. Yeah, we'll try more in the coming weeks or months. But even still glad we got to share this one today. But you can find our show notes up on the website@howtomoney.com where we will link to Jason Zooks business wandering aimfully as well as some of the other things that he's up to. Buddy, that's going to be it for this one. So until next time, Best friends out. Best friends out.
- [66:15]
Joel
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