MBA2449 Why Right Now is The Best Time To Start a Business

Summary

Podcast Summary: The $100 MBA Show - Episode MBA2449: Why Right Now is The Best Time To Start a Business

Introduction

In Episode MBA2449 of The $100 MBA Show, hosted by Omar Zenhom and released on April 1, 2024, Zenhom delves deep into the compelling reasons why the present moment is the optimal time to embark on an entrepreneurial journey. Drawing from his extensive 20+ years of experience in bootstrapping multiple successful businesses, Omar provides actionable insights, strategic advice, and motivational guidance aimed at aspiring entrepreneurs eager to navigate the business landscape with minimal resources.

Key Topics and Discussions

1. The Urgency of Starting Now vs. Delaying

   Omar opens the episode by emphasizing the significant cost associated with procrastination in entrepreneurship. He asserts that delaying the start of a business leads to a tangible loss in potential earnings and growth. As he states at [01:09], “If you put off starting a business by one day, then you are going to taste success one day later... you're losing that much money.”

   • Financial Implications of Delay: Omar breaks down the financial losses incurred by postponing the launch of a business, illustrating how each day of delay equates to missed revenue and growth opportunities.

   • Compounding Benefits of Early Action: By starting immediately, entrepreneurs can begin the compounding process of skills, reputation, and financial gains, which snowball over time to create substantial business momentum.

2. Skill Acquisition and Mastery in Entrepreneurship

   Drawing an analogy to learning the piano, Omar explains that mastering entrepreneurship requires the acquisition of multiple skills over time. At [01:09], he mentions, “To be good at business, you have to get good at a few important skills.”

   • Importance of Practice: Just as musicians need consistent practice, entrepreneurs must continuously develop and hone their business skills through real-world experience.

   • Long-Term Commitment: Omar advises that the longer one waits to start, the longer it takes to develop proficiency, potentially placing them behind competitors who have already amassed relevant skills.

3. Building and Leveraging Reputation

   Omar shares his personal journey, highlighting how consistent effort over nearly a decade has built his reputation and credibility in the business world. He notes at [03:15], “My reputation in the market started to get better and better.”

   • Reputation as a Wealth Asset: A strong reputation attracts opportunities, partnerships, and customer trust, all of which are crucial for business expansion.

   • Compounding Reputation: Each successful venture adds to an entrepreneur’s credibility, making subsequent projects easier to launch and more likely to succeed.

4. Economic Landscape of 2024: Opportunities Amid Recession

   Addressing the current economic climate, Omar explains why starting a business during a recession can be advantageous. At [08:45], he states, “All the best businesses I've created started during a recession.”

   • Market Rebound Potential: Launching at the bottom of an economic cycle allows businesses to ride the wave of recovery, capturing market share as the economy improves.

   • Emerging Needs and Solutions: Economic downturns create new challenges and demands, providing fertile ground for innovative solutions and products that address these pressing needs.

5. Abundance of Resources and Tools Today

   Omar highlights the unprecedented availability of both free and affordable resources that simplify the process of starting and running a business. At [10:30], he mentions, “Now you can learn how to run Facebook ads for $49... You can even shoot incredible looking cinematic videos for free.”

   • Educational Platforms: Online courses, tutorials, and webinars offer accessible learning opportunities for various business skills, from marketing to finance.

   • Technological Advancements: Modern software tools for website creation, video editing, and payment processing have democratized the ability to launch and manage businesses without extensive technical expertise or substantial capital.

6. Elimination of Gatekeepers and Simplified Business Launch

   The removal of traditional barriers to entry is a significant theme in Omar’s discussion. At [16:50], he asserts, “There are really very little if no gatekeepers when it comes to media.”

   • Direct-to-Consumer Channels: Entrepreneurs can now publish content, products, and services directly to their audience without needing approval from traditional media or publishing houses.

   • Ease of Financial Transactions: With platforms like Stripe and PayPal, accepting international payments is streamlined, removing previous financial hurdles that deterred many from starting a business.

7. The Critical Role of Consistency and Hard Work

   Emphasizing the human factors that influence business success, Omar underscores the importance of perseverance and dedication. He warns, “[...] most people will not work hard, most people will not be consistent... they never work hard, they kind of don't do what's required.”

   • Overcoming Common Pitfalls: Consistency in effort and the willingness to endure temporary hardships are highlighted as key differentiators between successful entrepreneurs and those who abandon their ventures prematurely.

   • Creating a Flywheel of Success: Continuous improvement and accumulating wins create a self-sustaining cycle that propels the business forward.

Notable Quotes

• On the Cost of Procrastination:
  “If you put off starting a business by one day, then you are going to taste success one day later. If you put it off by one week, one week later, one month, one year. You get the point.”
  — Omar Zenhom [01:09]

• On Reputation Building:
  “When you create something new or you launch a new product or service, if you reach out to anybody in my space to support me, to help me, to partner with me, they know who I am.”
  — Omar Zenhom [05:45]

• On Overcoming Gatekeepers:
  “You can do anything you want... it's just all based on what you want and how you want to move forward.”
  — Omar Zenhom [13:10]

• On Procrastination as the Enemy of Success:
  “The enemy of success is procrastination. When you put things off, you're putting everything off.”
  — Omar Zenhom [17:45]

• On Temporary Pain and Permanent Success:
  “Pain is temporary. Being a champion is forever.”
  — Omar Zenhom [17:50]

Conclusions and Takeaways

Omar Zenhom's episode serves as a powerful motivator for aspiring entrepreneurs, combining practical advice with inspirational insights. The key takeaways include:

• Immediate Action is Crucial: The sooner you start, the faster you can develop essential business skills and begin the compounding process of growth and reputation building.

• Leverage the Current Economic Climate: Recessions present unique opportunities to launch businesses that meet emerging needs and capitalize on the eventual economic recovery.

• Utilize Modern Resources: Take advantage of the vast array of affordable and free tools, platforms, and educational resources available today to streamline business operations and reduce startup costs.

• Consistency and Perseverance Are Non-Negotiable: Success in entrepreneurship is largely determined by the ability to remain consistent, work hard, and persist through challenges.

• Embrace the Lack of Gatekeepers: The democratization of media and financial tools means that almost anyone can launch a business today without facing the barriers that once existed.

Omar concludes with a rallying cry for listeners to overcome procrastination and take decisive action towards their entrepreneurial dreams, encapsulating the episode's core message: Now is the best time to start a business.

Final Thoughts

This episode of The $100 MBA Show is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone contemplating starting a business. Omar Zenhom not only provides a compelling argument for why the present is an opportune time to launch a venture but also equips listeners with the mindset and strategies needed to embark on and sustain their entrepreneurial journey successfully.

Transcript

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[Omar Zenhom]

Hey, welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA Show. No fluff, just the good stuff with our powerful business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm, and in today's lesson you learn why right now is the best time to start a business. I started my entrepreneurial journey about two decades ago and my only regret is not starting sooner. In today's lesson, I'm going to explain why right now. I'm talking about this moment is the best time to start your business. I'll explain the benefits of getting started immediately as well as the cost of waiting another day, month, year. I'm talking about the actual number dollar amount that it will cost you. We'll also get into why 2024 is one of the best times to start a business in so many ways, economically, in terms of the resources available and much, much more. You're going to walk away with knowing what to do, how to do it, and why it's so important. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. One of the things that people don't tell you when you start in entrepreneurship, when you start a business of any kind, is that it takes time for you to actually get good at this business thing. To be good at business, you have to get good at a few important skills. By the way, this is applicable to pretty much anything you learn. You want to learn how to play the piano, you're going to have to know how to read Music, you have to have an ear for music. You have to learn how to play with one hand, two hands, understand pitch, timing, a whole bunch of stuff. So you need a bunch of skills so that you can play the piano. And entrepreneurship is the same. You have to learn a bunch of skills so that you can be good at business. And it takes time for you to get good at those things. And the longer you wait to get started, the longer it will take for you to get good. Because you need the reps, you need to give yourself the time to work at getting better at business. A lot of people ask me, Omar, how do you have this successful podcast, the $100 MBA show, over 2 million downloads a month, one of the top business podcasts in the world. I say firstly, thank you, I appreciate that. But the answer is that I've been doing this for a while. I've given myself enough time to get better at it. I've been doing this for over nine and a half years. And August is gonna be 10 years. If you do something for 10 years, you do anything for 10 years, you're gonna get good at it. And this allows me to have an advantage. It allows me to compete with my market, with other podcasts that are good and great. But if I didn't start 10 years ago and just decided to start today, I would be 10 years behind my competition. Obviously, it's great that I started 10 years ago, but the next best time is right now. You don't wanna waste any more time gaining the skills, working at and compounding those skills and that momentum. All the stuff that you're building in your business over time so that you can be a powerhouse in your market. Look at it this way, if you start right now, tomorrow, you will be better than yesterday, and next week will be better than this week, and next month will be better than this month and next year you're going to be way ahead than you are right now. So you got to get started. But listen, I know it can be hard at the start, not only to do the work, but to even just put the work out there. I'll be totally honest with you. I have a hard time listening to the first hundred episodes of this podcast, the Hunter Olympia Show. It's cringe worthy to me because I've grown and that's a good thing. You know, I've gotten better. A lot of my friends, they say, what are you talking about? Those first hundred episodes are great and that's sweet and all, but I know that they're not as good as Today's episodes, or at least the last few years of episodes because I've had, you know, five, six, seven years of repetition, work, improvement to make the show amazing. But you have to start somewhere. I always say that if you don't have cringe worthy work, you have started too late. You got to put it out there so you can get better and you have to play at game speed. What does that mean? I learned this when I was playing basketball as a young kid. This is a term that coaches use, is that when you're playing basketball in practice, you're supposed to play at game speed, meaning don't play as if it's practice, play like as it's a real game. Because you need to know how to play at that speed, at that intensity at all times. If you kind of play lackadaisically during practice, then you play a game speed during an actual game, it's going to feel awkward, it's going to feel weird. You're not going to be used to, you know, shooting layups at that speed. So play at game speed means that you want to put in the reps as if you are putting it out there. And guess what? By putting it out there, you're putting it out in game speed. You're doing it as if it's real, because it is real. You're putting it out in the world. Whether it's a blog post or whether it's a YouTube video or a new product or service or a speech, you're working on stage. The point here is that you're actually putting in real world experience with real people to get feedback, to learn, to get better. That's the fastest way to win a business, really. So starting right now, super important next business is all about compounding. I mentioned this briefly before, but you want to compound your wins, meaning the things that you do today, they're going to help you tomorrow because it's going to compound against each other other, not only the work, but the skills and the effort. Now let's put that aside for a moment. Your reputation gets better and better the more you put things out there. So for example, when I got started 20 years ago, I had no reputation, I had no products, no services. I've never done business with anybody, I haven't sold anything. So it's really hard for people to trust me and to do business with me. But as I got started and started to get my first sales, my first businesses got underway. At an E commerce business. I did well, I had customers, I learned how to run a business. I learned about, you know, the finances of business, marketing, sales, all that kind of stuff. People liked my products, I got good reviews. I then moved on to another business where I was a business consulting firm. I learned how to please my customers. They were happy, they gave me good reviews. My reputation in the market started to get better and better. People started hearing about me. I started a podcast and program called the $100 MBA that did really well and that gave me a lot of credibility because people heard about the product that I was creating and the work and heard the podcast and saw the videos and saw the website and was like, okay, this is actually really good stuff. I then started, you know, a software company called Webinar Ninja that also allowed me to get some credibility. I built that for nine and a half years, exited that company recently. So all this stuff compounds and becomes your reputation. You become a well known entrepreneur. And now when I create something new or I launch a new product or service, if I reach out to anybody in my space to support me, to help me, to partner with me, they know who I am. I have a track record that compounded over time. This is why it's so important to get started, to start that compounding, let alone the compounding of other assets like money. When you make money with your business, you're able to take that and reinvest it in your business and reinvest and reinvest and reinvest. And now you're starting businesses with a lot of capital. Now you're able to do better things, hire better people, create better products, all because you got started and that compounded over time. The thing about starting a business and starting down this journey as entrepreneurs is that once you get started and you start learning, as you build, you start to get hungry, to get better and better. So you start reaching out for opportunities, whether it's reaching for a book and learning something new so you can get better in some aspect of business. It could be sales, marketing, finance, networking, negotiation, whatever it might be. So as the journey goes on, you start getting better. You become the person you need to be to build the products and services that will make you successful. You start reaching out to other people at conferences, you meet people, you learn from courses and masterminds, you get a coach. Because the thing about success is that it begets success, meaning you get a couple wins under your belt. When you get started, you make a few sales and you want more. So you figure out, how do I learn more skills, how do I get better so I can get more? Then you get Another win, you get another win, another win that starts to compound, starts to grow and it starts getting addictive. It's like you want to keep on winning. And you understand that to win you got to get better, you got to skill up, you have to improve. And it becomes this flywheel effect of, of improvement results, improvement results. Now, why start a business in 2024? All the best businesses I've created started during a recession. We are in a recession right now and the economy is in a tough spot, recovering from COVID and other financial reasons why we're in this recession. But the point here is that a lot of great businesses start during recessions. And you can Google this, you can do some research. And the reason for this is that when you start at the bottom of the economy, you kind of ride the wave of the economy rebounding. And as the economy grows, you grow. And when things hit rock bottom in economies, they open up opportunities, they open up chances for you to reinvent things in an industry. It opens up different needs and problems that you can solve. People are looking for alternative solutions. People are looking for a better way to do things. And that's where you come in. That's where your product comes in, your service, your thing to help those customers next. There's never been more resources, free and paid for you to build a great business. I'm not talking only about educational resources. I'm not talking about just videos on YouTube or books on bookshelves or on bookstores or on Amazon. I'm talking about software tools, support networks, communities. There is so much out there right now to help you grow. Almost too much. When I got started 20 years ago, there was very little out there to learn how to build an online business. There was very little information out there. In fact, a lot of the information out there was kind of seen as scammy and kind of schwarmy. And I had to kind of filter out the bad and keep the good. And it was really expensive. Like the cheapest online course I could buy was $2,000. Now you can learn how to run Facebook ads for $49. On a Udemy course, you can learn how to shoot incredible looking cinematic videos for free. Watching YouTube videos, you want to speed things up. You want to pay for your training, you want to pay for your ability to improve. There's coaching programs, there's masterminds that you can join that will really speed things up for you. Whatever market you're in now with AI and software automation, there's so many tools out there to make your Life easier and start building faster, whatever that is in your business. I mean, creating a website, super simple, don't need a lot of code, write and copy. I mean, people are using AI left and right now. Video editing, audio editing, there's so many tools out there. There's even free tools like Capcut for video that do an incredible job. Like better than most video editing software out there 10 years ago. There's really nothing stopping you from getting started. Even from a financial point of view, there's a lot of free options out there just to get you started. Just choose something and do it. Doesn't have to be the perfect option. You can change it later. But just get started. There's so many resources for you. No excuses.

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[Omar Zenhom]

And.

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[Jim from Sales]

And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts. His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time? He's going for it. Is that his phone? He's snapping a pic. He's texting around. Jim is fast, but this is unheard of. That's it. He's done it.

[Omar Zenhom]

It's unbelie on ramp expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text, switch your business to ramp.com. there's one more thing I want to mention when it comes to why right now is the best time to start a business. We're in the early stages of a time where there are really very little if no gatekeepers when it comes to media. If you want to get your voice out there with a podcast, with a video channel on YouTube, with a blog, with an ebook, with a published book, like a physical book, you can do this on your own with no permission, with no certificate, with nothing, right? You could just do this now. You can just have a voice. You could be your own media company, you can publish your own books, you could publish your own series on YouTube. No one's going to stop you. For most people in most countries around the world, you can do this. Very, very easily. From a financial point of view, from the finances point of view, there's so many options now for you to process payments. Even in rural countries, they have some options out there. But if you're in North America, if you're in Europe, if you're in Asia, most of Asia, if you're in Australia, New Zealand, if you're in most of the countries in South America, you can use tools like stripe, like PayPal, that can allow you to accept payments internationally easily and get paid in your bank account. This was not the case. Just like 15 years ago, it was almost impossible for you to do this. You had to go to a bank and a merchant account, have all these approvals. You got to show that you're actually worth processing payments and that they're not wasting the bank's time and money. You can literally accept payments in minutes with a small application. Online, it's not even an application. Give your name and email address and you're all set up. So really, it's so, so easy because the gatekeepers basically are all gone. You can do anything you want. And it's only hindered by your ability to be consistent, to give a strong effort and work hard and be committed to your dream, to your business, to your thing. And the reason why this is exciting is because most people won't do this. Let me say that again. Most people won't do this. Most people will not work hard. Most people will not be consistent. Most people will flake out. Most people will quit after three months. Most people will not actually do what's necessary to be successful. The next time a new idea comes about, they jump on that new idea. They're never consistent. They never work hard, they kind of don't do what's required. And this is what's exciting, is because if you just do what you need to do, work hard, buckle down, be consistent, get good at something, add value to the marketplace, you will win. So if you're not afraid of hard work, then there are no more gatekeepers. There are no excuses. There are no limitations. You can basically do what you like. It's just all based on what you want and how you want to move forward. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. I hope you found this episode helpful. If you found any of our episodes to be great and valuable to you, you could do us a huge favor. And it's very easy. All you got to do is subscribe to the podcast on whatever podcast player you're using right now, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts or whatever it might be, hit follow and follow us so that you get our next episodes automatically. And you tell the algorithm, hey, this show is amazing. It allows us to reach new audiences, to create even bigger and better podcast experience for you every single episode. So on your side, all you need to do is a couple clicks. On our side, we'll work hard to continue to give you great value on this podcast. Thank you for doing that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. The enemy of success is procrastination. When you put things off, you're putting everything off. What do I mean by that? Well, if you put off starting a business by one day, then you are going to taste success one day later. If you put it off by one week, one week later, one month, one year. You get the point. If I look at my business and see how much I've been earning every single year, and for many businesses, it's like seven figures, eight figures year. And every year you've delayed starting your business, you're losing that much money. You got to have a little bit more foresight and say, hey, every day that goes by is every day I'm not winning and I'm not living the dream. I'm delaying my dream. I'm delaying what I want. One of my favorite lines is, pain is temporary. I think I learned this from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Pain is temporary. Being a champion is forever or being successful is forever. So go ahead and take that leap and get started right now. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

[Jim from Sales]

And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts. His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time? He's going for it. Is that his phone? He's snapping a pic. He's texting around. Jim is fast, but this is unheard of. That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.

[Omar Zenhom]

On ramp, expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.com.