0:00

I got a really dope episode on the way for you. Be

0:02

First, let's get this started with some afro Tech

0:04

news. Rick Ross says he's one

0:06

year away from becoming the next hip

0:08

hop billionaire.

0:12

We just

0:14

walking up.

0:15

Just what that's audio? Friend Ricky

0:17

Rose. Last week in

0:19

Austin at afro Tech, he performed

0:22

Tortoise Stays Down. He's

0:24

got investments in real estate, cannabis, rest arounds,

0:27

healthcare, and more, and nearly

0:30

thirty Wingstop locations.

0:32

Each location reportedly earns him

0:34

an estimated two hundred thousand dollars

0:37

annually. That's what to give him, and

0:39

it allows him to provide jobs. And

0:41

he says with Wingstop, we're bringing in the food

0:44

I like and adding jobs to the

0:46

community. It's a double win. Shout

0:48

out to Ricky Rose and hope you touch a

0:50

billy TikTok

0:52

announ See. It's pulling the plug on this one

0:54

billion dollar creative fund. Now

0:57

this is important the outlet know

1:00

that before shutting down the

1:02

creative fund, TikTok influencers

1:04

and content creators voiced earning

1:08

low payouts, sometimes

1:10

just a few dollars, for millions

1:12

of views, making it impossible to

1:14

earn a living through the Creator

1:16

Fund alone a lot of discontent

1:18

there, it's previously reported

1:20

by Afrotech in March twenty twenty

1:22

three. Earlier this year, Sean Kim, former

1:25

head of product for TikTok's US

1:27

operations, said the quiet thing out

1:30

loud, claiming that TikTok

1:32

didn't create the fund to help creators monetize

1:34

their content, but rather to help with

1:37

user retention for their metrics. For

1:39

TikTok's metrics, he

1:41

says, when we launched the creator

1:44

the TikTok Creator Fund, we didn't launch

1:46

it to help creators monetize.

1:48

To south by Southwest, I

1:50

mean, that's what we said everywhere publicly.

1:53

We're doing this to help create us monetize.

1:55

That's not why we launched it. We launched

1:58

it as a reactive measure against other

2:00

platforms launching their creator funds.

2:03

We thought to ourselves, what happens if

2:05

these creators then go monetize

2:07

or create content on these other platforms.

2:10

It hurts our metrics, our dau,

2:13

our retention. That's the reason

2:15

why the Creative Fund was launched. I

2:17

appreciate the honesty dau

2:20

of stately active users, by the way, but I appreciate

2:22

that kind of honesty. But I hit up

2:24

Isaac Hayes, who's founder at the

2:26

growing fan Base app, and

2:28

asked what he thought about this.

2:30

I think TikTok canceling their creator

2:32

fund further proves

2:35

that you can't pay

2:37

creators and run advertising

2:40

at the same time. It's impossible

2:42

to serve an audience of

2:45

advertisers but also try

2:47

to make it possible for creators to earn

2:49

millions of dollars when you suppress

2:51

their content and having

2:54

to do that by running advertising.

2:58

And the future of this is really subscrib and

3:01

that rev share and subscription models

3:03

are the ways that creators are going to earn the

3:06

most money in the future, which is

3:08

what we've been doing at fan Base from

3:10

day one. So it's unfortunate

3:13

and I feel for the creator community, but

3:15

I think they have to start thinking differently about

3:18

ways to monetize other than revenue

3:21

from creator funds

3:24

or small pieces of pennies

3:26

per thousands of views

3:30

that really can lead to a

3:32

sustainable, thriving

3:34

and growing business. So it's

3:37

unfortunate, but I think it points

3:40

to the future that subscriptions are

3:42

coming.

3:43

Afrotech report last week the fan base just

3:45

hit another milestone and Isaac

3:47

an important one becoming the first

3:50

black person to raise ten million dollars

3:52

in crowdfunding, which means a whole lot

3:54

of people, people who look like you and I

3:56

who otherwise wouldn't be able to get

3:58

a piece of equity in owing startup.

4:01

Now hold stocking one

4:04

that's your AFRO technos. I'm

4:14

with Lucas is black, tach, Green Money,

4:16

and I appreciate all the feedback and comments

4:18

I've been getting on these solo episodes,

4:21

and I was thinking about this one. I'm gonna

4:23

talk to you about today.

4:26

As always, if you get something out of

4:28

this, I hope you will share it with somebody. You

4:30

can even comment sign me

4:32

a DM. I just want to know what you're thinking

4:34

about this type of content. I've been getting

4:36

asked for a long time to do these solo episodes,

4:39

and I'm doing them, but to keep

4:41

doing them, I just want to hear from you, so

4:44

at Will Lucas on IG I'm

4:47

on fan base too. By the way, at

4:49

Will Lucas on fan Base, it

4:52

is not uncommon or irregular

4:55

for someone to stop me at some

4:57

point during my day at least once a week

5:00

with the request for advice on a business

5:02

concept or even a business move.

5:05

Now I've made it clear to me and a

5:07

few folks who have shown interest, like

5:09

my twenty year plan. I have a plan that I wrote

5:12

at the beginning of twenty nineteen. It

5:15

is detailing a twenty year

5:18

run and everything I wanted to do, everything

5:20

I wanted to work on, why I

5:22

was working on it, the people I needed

5:25

to connect with to be able

5:27

to find success with it. Now

5:30

it's my personal mission, and it's a very

5:32

detailed mission. I might even do an episode on

5:35

that one of these days if you're interested. But

5:38

my mission is to

5:40

create both content and opportunities

5:42

that help black people realize entrepreneurial

5:45

success beyond their wildest streams.

5:48

So everything I do has

5:50

to be aligned with that. Now, there are some things on

5:52

the periphery that I know how

5:54

they tie in, but everything

5:56

that I'm actively involved

5:58

with in some way helps me to, you

6:01

know, achieve that particular mission.

6:03

So I suppose that

6:05

wavelength of intention attracts

6:08

people who have ideas and need information,

6:11

and I'm okay with that. What I've

6:13

learned to do is scale

6:17

that kind of support for people, because

6:19

what happens is when you're in a position

6:21

to help the questions you get

6:25

the questions you get asked a lot are

6:28

a lot of the same questions, or

6:31

even if they're not, to say, they're very similar and may

6:33

only vary with you know,

6:35

a little bit of nuance that makes the questions

6:37

specific to that person. But by and large,

6:40

what I get asked about mostly is

6:43

how to take a business from idea to a

6:45

tangible thing. That's

6:47

what I get asked about the most from budding

6:50

entrepreneurs or would be entrepreneurs, or

6:52

would or early founders. People

6:55

come to me with their ideas a lot or very

6:57

early concepts of their products.

7:01

That could be for variety of different reasons.

7:03

But being somebody like who is constantly

7:06

trying to feed on resources like

7:09

me, like and like I imagine you

7:11

are, I'm

7:13

looking for things that help me get

7:15

from point A to a different point. And I'm

7:17

sure you're trying to always look for things that

7:19

help you get from point A to point B. Now,

7:22

whether the point A is the id and point B is

7:24

making money from that idea, there's

7:27

a lot of resources out there that are, in

7:29

my view, insufficient to helping small

7:32

business owners, startup founders, early ambitious

7:35

entrepreneurs get the motor running.

7:37

You know because too often the

7:40

episode. Now, this episode is not about

7:42

how to make your first million. There's a lot of episodes

7:45

of the why, variety of podcasts, why,

7:47

variety of books, a lot of wide variety

7:49

of resources that help you find

7:52

success in that area. This episode

7:54

isn't about how to scale or

7:56

how to sell your thing to people all over the world,

7:59

and it's not about how to raise money.

8:01

This episode is about how to start, and

8:04

how to start in such a way that you

8:07

improve your chances

8:09

of success. Now we're going to talk

8:11

about scale and we're going

8:13

to talk about raising money, but in

8:15

a way that helps you think about

8:18

them properly at the stage at because

8:20

too many of us aren't clear on those topics

8:23

as they relate to ideas that we've

8:26

ideated, because we tend

8:28

to be more beholden

8:30

to ideas when there ares and

8:32

we don't think about them as clearly.

8:35

Often not everybody, but we don't

8:37

always think about them as clearly as we should.

8:40

And so this episode is

8:42

about just that, how to

8:45

start, And in

8:47

order to start, you

8:49

got to write it down. It

8:52

needs to be clear in your

8:54

mind what you are trying to do, and

8:57

you won't even know how many questions

9:01

that will need to be answered until

9:04

you start to write it down. When your

9:06

idea only exists

9:08

in your head, you can't get

9:10

specific or gain an

9:13

actionable view on the steps you're

9:15

going to need to take to make that idea

9:17

exist in the world. So I highly

9:19

recommend there's some really

9:21

good journals out there I

9:24

use. I used to use this Full

9:26

Focused Journal by

9:28

Michael Hyatt. I no longer use that

9:30

one because I didn't need necessarily

9:33

the prompts that it gave me anymore.

9:35

I'd kind of just like to take notes in a different way.

9:39

But if you need prompts to help

9:41

you start to structure your idea, the

9:44

Full Focus Journal by Michael Hyatt

9:46

is a really, really good one. I've moved

9:48

on personally to like just regular

9:51

mold skins, so I

9:53

carry one of those in my bag. I

9:55

just need some place to just jot down

9:58

ideas. Often I'm just jotting

10:00

down ideas in my notes app on my

10:02

iPhone because it's always

10:04

readily available, and

10:06

I also very often

10:10

I will carry a small little

10:13

It's kind of like, what do you call those things?

10:17

Little tiny journals? Somebody

10:19

knows what I'm talking about. One

10:21

of the field notes, so I

10:23

will just have one like in my back pocket.

10:26

Very often I will have those with me because I

10:28

like to just write down, like it'll be like

10:30

one word, you know, reminders of things

10:33

that I'm going to need to transfer to a larger

10:36

effort later. So I will often

10:38

do that because it's just helpful for me. So I

10:40

recommend you do whatever works

10:43

for you, but definitely start to

10:45

write down not just the idea,

10:48

but what are the steps that are required to

10:50

actually making that idea happen. Now,

10:53

in the previous episode, I want to say it was

10:55

two three weeks ago. It's

10:58

an episode I put out the best Apps and

11:00

Tech for Small business Owners.

11:03

That is a really good episode if you want some

11:05

more resources and things like that, things that

11:07

I recommend you do to help structure

11:09

yourself and structure yourself with success. So

11:13

I'm going to reference that episode a couple of times,

11:15

but that is a really, really great episode if

11:17

you want more depth about

11:20

actual tools that you can use in your

11:22

how to start a journey. Now,

11:24

I would also recommend you start getting

11:27

really good at AI applications,

11:30

and I shouldn't even say really good, just to

11:32

get proficient at using an AI

11:35

like a chat gpt it is

11:37

not too late. As a matter of fact, most

11:39

people in the world are still

11:42

unaware of what's even happening in

11:44

the conversation of GTPs GPTs,

11:47

and even before we discuss

11:49

how to use them. Just get familiar

11:52

with how you could apply

11:55

that sort of a resource. And so whether

11:58

you want to spend time. I

12:01

could spend a whole episode on my

12:03

love hate relationship with business

12:05

plans like writing out thirty

12:07

forty page business plans, which a lot of places

12:10

if you go to support, you know, like kind of like

12:12

local supports like chambers of commerce and et cetera,

12:14

they'll have you, you know, start to work on

12:17

these long business

12:19

plans. We can talk a whole episode

12:21

about that. I'm not gonna do that, but forget

12:23

about putting your

12:25

questions in

12:27

like the Google search bar. You

12:29

know, AI is supercharging

12:32

your ability to get these things

12:34

done quickly and well, and

12:36

so you can simply ask questions

12:38

to the intelligence, you know, even

12:40

super specific ones based

12:42

on your demographical

12:45

information. If you're trying to figure out

12:48

what your demographics should be. Should

12:50

you manufacture you know, in house

12:53

or should you outsource your manufacturing?

12:55

What country should you have your manufacturing

12:58

in like all of these superspecif if it questions

13:01

that it is harder to get answered

13:03

on the traditional search and navigation,

13:07

you can do that with something

13:09

like a chat GPT. So

13:11

I highly encourage you to start

13:14

learning about writing

13:16

prompts for GPTs.

13:19

And what I mean by that is structuring

13:23

your questions in such a way to

13:25

get the responses that you need

13:28

that will believe. I believe that that

13:30

will be one of the most valuable

13:32

skills inside the next five

13:34

years is how to write

13:37

prompts. And this is not a technical

13:39

thing. It is a

13:41

way of thinking, a way of thinking

13:44

about how to write questions

13:47

such that you get responses

13:49

that are actually helpful to you getting

13:52

what you need done. And

13:54

so what I did I went to

13:56

chad GPT, I said, all

13:58

right, what I write? I wrote, how

14:01

can I best write prompts to

14:03

get the best answers from chat

14:05

GPT? And so it gave

14:07

me a couple prompts I could

14:10

use to get the best answers from it.

14:12

This is something you can do with an AI like

14:14

chat GPT. So number one it

14:16

said, be clear and specific, Clearly

14:19

articulate your question or request, ambiguous

14:22

or vague prompts may lead to unclear

14:25

off topic responses. Provide as much

14:27

detail as necessary for the

14:29

context you're seeking. That is something you

14:31

can't do with like

14:33

a traditional navigation a search bar,

14:35

being super specific, giving a bunch

14:38

of detail it can't find. It's harder

14:40

to find the answers you need when you're that specific

14:42

and so. But with the chat GPT or another

14:45

GPT, it's saying be

14:47

specific because it can handle

14:49

that much information. Actually, it works

14:51

best if you give it more information. The

14:54

next thing you said was ask one thing at a

14:56

time, and it

14:58

says, break down complex queries

15:00

into simpler, more focused questions. This

15:03

helps the model understand your intent better

15:05

and provides more precise answers.

15:08

This is what's so important about writing

15:10

things down, because we

15:12

don't always necessarily have enough

15:15

clarity and what it

15:17

takes to get to the next level.

15:20

If the ideas are in our head,

15:22

but if we need to write it down and provide

15:24

instructions, then

15:26

you get to You get an idea of

15:28

what is unclear to you as

15:31

the entrepreneur, as the founder. But

15:34

if you don't take the time, if clearly

15:36

think through point A to

15:38

the next point, you're not

15:40

gonna know what you

15:42

don't have clarity about, all

15:45

right, So that's a couple

15:48

of things that there's like four or five

15:50

more. I won't go into those, so I don't want to spend this whole episode

15:52

on writing prompts. But these are the

15:54

types of things that if you get at least

15:56

reasonably good at

16:00

AI, you will be so much

16:02

further than most people. So

16:04

I have a few more at These are just a couple of

16:06

points, and loogain, I want to start

16:09

shit. I should have started here, but I'm gonna say

16:11

midway through this episode, these

16:14

are not These are not everything

16:16

that you're gonna need to know about

16:19

how to start. These are I'm

16:22

speaking to the specific things

16:24

that stop the people who come to speak

16:26

to me, the things

16:28

that they find challenging. So

16:31

I'm using those people as

16:33

a focused group because I believe they represent

16:36

more entrepreneurs, and so most

16:38

people get stuck on certain

16:40

things. So the things I'm gonna speak to in this episode

16:43

are the things that I believe will help you get past

16:45

those specific hurdles. The next one is

16:48

I would stop spending money on stupid stuff,

16:50

and so it is super important even

16:53

I do it. So I will go to my

16:56

credit card statement every month, my bank statements

16:58

every month, and just look

17:01

through them. I would just look through them and just see

17:03

what is on here that I didn't even know

17:05

I was being charged for anymore, Things

17:08

on here that I'm not even using anymore.

17:10

And So, because you're

17:13

gonna need to be your first investor, it

17:16

is your job

17:19

to invest in yourself before

17:21

you start to even think about asking

17:23

somebody else to invest in you. You should

17:26

have the belief that

17:29

I am willing to put my own money

17:31

up if you believe in the idea.

17:33

If you're not willing to put your own money up in

17:35

the beginning, come on, I

17:39

would be hanging around the right people. And

17:41

I'm not gonna get into a munch like very

17:44

rudimentary stuff. But what

17:46

we miscalculate

17:49

about finding success in entrepreneurship,

17:51

business, startups, and etc. Is

17:53

this not like these there's

17:55

these rocket science level challenges.

17:59

These are doing basic things

18:01

over and over well, doing well,

18:04

doing well again today and well

18:06

again the next day. Do

18:08

the stuff well, the simple

18:10

stuff, really well, and you will find outsized

18:13

success because most people don't do the simple

18:16

stuff well. One of those things

18:18

is the people to hang around you

18:20

cannot grow with the people you're hanging around with

18:23

aren't growing. I'm gona leave

18:25

that there. I'm not gonna go further than that one.

18:31

This is one. This next one, I'm gonna just tell

18:33

you what it is, then I'll talk about it. I would

18:35

get as unromantic as possible

18:38

about my ideas. And there

18:40

will be things that you want

18:42

to do that

18:44

do not mean you should do them. I'm

18:48

gonna say it again a different way. Just

18:50

because you want to do something doesn't

18:52

mean the world wants that from you. As

18:56

much as you love the thing,

18:58

as much as your passion about the

19:00

thing, as much as you believe. Man,

19:04

if I could just do this, you know I would love

19:06

to do this every day for the rest of my life. That does

19:08

not mean people will pay you for it. And

19:11

so you've got

19:13

to be taking an honest

19:16

assessment of yourself. A

19:18

lot of people cannot do this.

19:20

This is entrepreneurial success

19:23

requires a very

19:26

strong ability to

19:29

look at yourself, see

19:32

where you're deficient, see where you excel,

19:35

and then match yourself

19:37

with something that the world will pay you for.

19:42

That is not an easy thing to do for most people. Because

19:45

we are passionate about specific

19:48

things, and your

19:51

passionate about specific things is

19:53

helpful in determining what

19:55

you should be spending your energy

19:58

on. But it does not mean that

20:00

other people are as passionate to

20:03

pay you to do it. And

20:05

so that takes some honest self

20:07

reflection that most people are not prepared

20:10

for. So I would

20:12

ask myself a few questions. What

20:15

is the market need at

20:17

such a level that people are willing

20:20

to pay you for your solution?

20:24

What does the market need so much

20:28

that people are willing to pay you to

20:30

do the thing to solve their problem? What

20:33

pains do people have that they're

20:35

willing to pay you an appropriate amount,

20:38

an amount that works for you to

20:41

have that pain alleviated.

20:44

Just because people have a pain, and just

20:46

because people have a need doesn't

20:48

mean that they're willing to pay to pull out

20:50

their wallet to scan their card, to

20:53

you know, touch their Apple watch

20:55

to the pay you know device

21:00

at such a rate that it

21:02

makes sense for you to do it. There's a lot

21:04

of people who are willing to pay

21:06

for things, but they're not willing to pay enough

21:09

to make it a valuable business proposition.

21:12

It's not worth it. Can

21:15

your service or your product provide a solution?

21:18

At a price consumers are willing to pay

21:21

that still leaves enough money for you

21:23

to grow and reinvest into the business.

21:28

Here's the thing that I found

21:31

most people will not do. And

21:34

I've done this a gazillion times

21:37

to my own pain, because I love

21:39

to do things that I've done. If

21:42

nobody cares that you stopped

21:44

doing it, if you were to start a business

21:47

and you stopped doing it, would

21:50

anybody say ouch? Would

21:53

anybody say where's

21:57

the thing that you were doing yesterday?

22:00

I need more? Why are you not? Why

22:03

would you not give me more? Why are you Why

22:06

are you depriving me of your product?

22:10

Why are you not letting me have your service?

22:13

If nobody does that. If

22:16

your website has been down for

22:19

three weeks and nobody's emailing

22:21

you saying, yo, I need your website.

22:23

I came here every day for you

22:25

know, my information, and it's been down for three

22:28

weeks. What's going on if nobody's

22:30

doing that. If you are,

22:33

you know, the fashion

22:35

designer of your community and

22:37

you don't release a new fall line

22:41

and nobody says, hey, when's

22:43

the new drop coming, that

22:47

you got to think about whether you really got a thing.

22:50

If nobody cares that you stopped, you

22:53

probably shouldn't have been doing it in the first place.

22:57

That is hard to swallow. If

23:00

nobody cares, nobody raised

23:04

the flag and said foul because

23:08

Gene over here, stop doing donuts.

23:11

I the men Gene

23:14

keeps doing donuts. I

23:16

need those donuts. If

23:19

nobody's doing that at some level, obviously

23:21

I'm exaggerating, But if nobody's

23:23

asking where is the product? Where

23:25

is the service that you used to provide?

23:29

You really got to think whether

23:31

you've been force feeding and trying

23:33

to trying to get people who just love

23:35

you and just want to support you, versus

23:39

actually building a market.

23:42

Because people will support you, and you get confused

23:44

about whether it's just support because

23:46

they's cute and they want to see me, you

23:49

know, do my thing, or are

23:51

you actually building a business. That

23:54

is a hard thing to swallow. You

23:58

got to define who's your target

24:00

audience, who's your consumer? Your product.

24:02

I don't care what it is. It is not for everybody,

24:05

It is for a specific group people. Number

24:07

One, you don't have enough money to reach

24:10

everybody with your marketing and

24:12

your branding efforts and your communication efforts.

24:14

So you've got to define who is best suited

24:18

for who is the low hanging fruit?

24:20

Who is this thing designed for? And

24:22

then there may be other people later who

24:25

you know, come and join the bandwagon

24:27

who see themselves in your thing too.

24:31

But if you're building a brand, who are

24:33

you building it for and super

24:35

serve that audience? Nothing is for everybody.

24:40

There may be specific vertical,

24:42

specific things inside of a vertical that's

24:45

this one's for that group, this one's for that group,

24:47

and they self select, but nothing

24:49

is for everybody. Some people like this version of

24:51

a thing, whether it's white

24:53

bread. Some people like this

24:55

version of the white bread, the one that uses

24:58

this type of flower. Other

25:00

people love the one that look that's

25:02

in brown packaging. So you've

25:05

got to determine who is it

25:07

for? Who are you talking to when you

25:09

present your offering to the world.

25:12

This is about all I'm gonna get

25:14

into. I told you I will get into scale

25:17

and raising money, and I'm gonna

25:19

just touch on it because I'm gonna get out of here, and

25:21

because I've been laboring these points. It

25:24

is while so often

25:26

many of us are not ready for capital

25:29

or to even scale, but behave

25:32

you should always be behaving like you

25:34

will be And how

25:36

do you do that? Your systems

25:38

will be important. How can How good

25:41

are you are you at documenting your

25:44

operation? You cannot do this as

25:46

a hustle. This has to be a business.

25:48

How can you I can't invest in your hustle, but

25:51

I can invest in your business. So your

25:53

business is made up of operations.

25:55

I need to see some documentation. I want to see,

25:58

you know, metrics over time. How are you tracking

26:00

your things? How are you working to get your costs down?

26:02

How are you how are you working to

26:05

you know, widen the gap between your costs and your

26:07

reverge? Like all these things, document

26:10

your business accounts. Those things have to be in

26:12

order. Stop doing this stuff on your personal credit card.

26:14

I'm not going to get into that today, but we'll talk

26:16

about that at another time. You know, use

26:19

the use the systems that are designed to help

26:21

you grow your business. Are you using quick books?

26:23

Is it integrated with your bank account? Is it

26:25

integrated with your credit card? Are those

26:27

things tied together so you don't even have to go in

26:29

and you know, connect every manual,

26:32

you know transaction. It happens automatically.

26:35

But at the end of the day,

26:38

this is what's important about this entire

26:40

episode. I can encapsulate it in one

26:42

statement. The

26:44

whole concept of how to start

26:48

implies that you are serious

26:50

about going, that you are serious

26:52

about finding success. And

26:55

I'm going to encapsulate how

26:57

to start with this one statement.

27:01

You can fool a lot of people, but

27:03

please don't fool yourself. You

27:06

can fool me into thinking

27:09

he's serious, she's serious. But

27:11

only you know how early

27:14

you got up and how hard you went after

27:16

it. Only you know how

27:18

late you stayed up, and how much dedication

27:20

and sleepless nights you put into doing

27:23

the thing. Only you know the

27:25

sacrifices you were going through

27:28

to get better, not to just do the thing, but

27:30

to get better at doing the thing. Only

27:32

you know the

27:35

stuff that nobody else is going to see. That's

27:37

where you fool yourself versus fooling

27:39

everybody else. Because you're

27:41

not on stage. You

27:45

can fool a lot of people by

27:48

what you show them and what you wave

27:50

in their face, but don't fool yourself

27:52

by thinking the stuff that you're waving in our face is

27:54

actually moving the ball forward.