Alex Hormozi Explains How To Start Your First Business

as a quick you know Pro tip for everybody if you've got stuff that people ask you to do for them because you're good at it maybe you're good at Tech it's like can you help me set up my like Wi-Fi and stuff you know blah blah blah it's like that means you're solving problems you can chart like what people ask you to do as a favor is an indication of the things you can charge for later right so I had all these people who are asking me uh not all these I mean a handful of people who had asked me for programs and stuff and so what I did was during my last year of Consulting I started something called the free training project and so the free training project was I would charge 500 to a thousand dollars but I would I wouldn't charge it they had to donate that to the charity their choice in exchange to work with me right and so that way I wanted people to Value it but they weren't paying me directly so they'd get a write-off they felt good I had a ton of Goodwill also in the marketplace too because I was like I'm doing all this stuff for charity I got I got all these people reaching out to me like this is so cool blah blah blah right and so after a year of doing that I had probably I don't know 12 really good tests of like great before and after pictures that I had collected from my clients and I told them that was part of the deal I was like I'll like you have to donate it I would like to do this for real later but um you have to let me use your testimonial they were like that's fine so once I had that um I had those first you know 10 12 customers who had who had great before and after pictures um I transitioned many of those customers said hey I'm doing I'm going to do this full-time now are you comfortable paying the same amount you're paying to charity except just making a charity of Alex because Alex can't eat either and so and that was actually how I transitioned from not-for-profit or donating everything and I'd even set up the entity I just told them to literally donate it and send me the screenshot I didn't even do anything like that um and so I didn't have a website all I had was an LLC and a PayPal account so like for everybody's like I don't know how to start a business I was like you literally just need a bank account and a way to process money that is it like two things and you can Google how to figure out if you can't figure it out from Google entrepreneurship might not be for you all right but you look like think about there's 30 million business in the United States 30 million other people have figured this out which means you can too so bank account payment processing make the first 10 free or some sort of charitable thing so that people like don't feel weird or you don't feel weird about selling Etc after you have it after providing this service to people you can transition people from free service to paid service and if they don't want to start paying you then that gives you insight as to either you suck right or they suck which is also possible too but either way a certain percentage of those people will continue to stay and pay and now you have income now you can also ask those people for referrals which is exactly what I did so I think half that business came in just for I got you know the initial ones came in from friends and family and me posting and so I was I'll close the loop on what I said earlier a year later after I had the testimonials I made a public post being like hey I've got this thing now I made a website which is that was my big announcement I made a website I still have the post I found it it's 2013. uh I was like I made it I made a website and uh I I am now open for business and so if you would like you know training stuff let me know um this is what I'm doing now you know I had some testimonials and go check out the site whatever and so from there I was able to get I think about 20 guys uh who were willing to let me do just like almost bodybuilding type stuff because I was kind of like what I was powerless back then and so um I think I want to say I got 20 guys at 200 bucks a month and so I was making four thousand dollars a month uh from those people and it took me four hours every Saturday to do the Fulfillment what was the Fulfillment I would just I would just update their training programs and and send them nutrition uh like update their macros updated meal plans um and then like you know new workouts before the week Etc um and then I and everyone had my cell phone and I would just text them the new stuff and if they had any questions they could hit me up like it was a very simple business um and so that's what I did it was just one-on-one online and it only took me four hours on Saturday morning and to show you what kind of person I am I hated it uh even though I loved Fitness I hated having to do something the same thing every day um like on the delivery side so I ended up having the genius idea of saying oh I need to own a gym because then I'll be a business owner I'm really just self-employed right now um and so that's what got me to start my gym rather than probably doing the wiser decision and saying okay this cost you four hours a week and you're making four grand a month maybe you should do this for 40 hours a week but doing more of it to me felt like a horrible idea so I didn't want to do anymore um so how did you jump from that to therefore I should probably own a gym oh I don't think that's that's the difference yeah it was not a good it was not an intelligent one I always thought I was going to own a gym that was I mean that was the not always I had done a so so these are the three things that I was deciding between for my business I was decided between a test prep company because I was really good at standardized testing um and I had a process for how I how I did it I had a yogurt business idea because I was a big Froyo guy yeah I know I was like I'm a Avid consumer of this [ __ ] yeah I feel like I know and I and I hated there's so many things I knew that I thought I could I actually know a lot about the other business now um and I was good at Fitness so those are the three things that I felt like I could do for anybody's listening like those are the three that I was picking between the yogurt business cost 250 Grand to start up I didn't have that money so I couldn't do that one um I had saved about 50 or 60 Grand I can't remember 50 or 60 at the time um I was 23. and then uh the test prep business I actually did a ton of work on um and I was going to partner with a professor from my University to do it with me and so I set up all the initial materials um and based on a miscommunication I'll just put it that way um he ended up either taking the materials and not and using them without me to start a business Consulting thing either way it became clear that what I thought was happening versus what he thought was happening were not the same thing um and that left a very sour taste in my mouth with test prep I do think it was a smarter business I probably should have done um and so all that was left was Fitness and so Fitness I was like I already know that people already want me to help them with it so I'll just start that and so the gym was the the was the what uh what I would have said is like the legit business I didn't think that the online thing was legitimous remember this is 10 years ago so like it wasn't what I don't even thought it was that was a that was a concept of legitimate business you know what I mean so I was really early days on it and so uh you know from there I hit up 40 gym owners uh to see if uh I could just basically Apprentice for them and just work for free uh one guy hit me back he had a mastermind uh I joined his Mastermind for ten thousand dollars even though I didn't have a gym and I said are you sure that it makes sense for me to join he's like oh yeah sure um and it did actually make sense for me because then I could learn from all the mistakes everybody else was making before I started so I was like okay this works and so I learned all the stuff that I could from that Mastermind and from him um he ended up signing me as an employee yeah there's actually a couple questions on that front yeah so um yeah the the test prep thing is interesting I didn't I didn't know that part of the story except my first business that went well was also a test prep business and I still have the Evernote document from 2012 where I was like [ __ ] I need to make some money what am I good at uh and what could I possibly do and it was like test prep and web design I was like cool let me make a test of course thing and let me advertise it on a website because back then it was hard to make a website look pretty and that that's what ended up ended up making the money initially um on the on the gym front so it it seems to me like there's two leaps there um leap number one is I want to do this thing like I start a gym maybe um and therefore I'm gonna work for free I wanted to own a business yeah I want to own a business therefore I'm going to work for someone for free that that is seems like a bit of a leap uh which these days seems very unfashionable to even say because everyone then goes down your throat for being that's only available for the privileged etc etc that's a privilege working for food yeah the working for free thing it's it's quite unfashionable to suggest that people work for free so I made money from that now I offered to work for free but I he quickly was like I don't feel good about it I'll just pay you and so he paid me he paid me like minimum wage but I mean I think I made like I don't know 2800 bucks a month whatever it was I don't even remember what it was because I made more from the four hours a week on Saturday than I did from that but I again but the point wasn't to to to earn you know I mean it was to learn and I had saved up 50 Grand so I knew I could live for you know at least two years on that um I tried to live when I was I was I spent 400 bucks a month splitting a bedroom um and then I ate not you know I spent a hundred dollars a week on food I was eating you know I was spending nothing to live and then the rest of my time was at the gym trying to learn hey friends thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this clip then click here for the full unedited episode and if you like that then do please consider subscribing to the channel it means a lot thank you so much and have a great day

Channel: Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal

Views: 55,636

Keywords: Ali Abdaal, Ali, Abdaal, Ali Abdal, Abdal, Deep Dive With Ali Abdaal, Deep Dive, Ali Abdaal Podcast, Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal Podcast

Id: xDkAbAP5_wI

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023