- Thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this video
and supporting my channel.
Okay, so I am running the risk
of making myself look pretty old here
but 10 years ago this month, I opened up a laptop
on the desk underneath my dorm room loft bed
and I bought the domain collegeinfogeek.com
which started out as a side project blog
then eventually became my full time job
and launched this very YouTube channel.
So that means that this month marks a full decade
that I've spent as a content creator
and as an entrepreneur.
So today, I wanna share some of the lessons
that I've learned during my long 10 year journey
as both a content creator and as an entrepreneur
and each of these five lessons
is something that I wish I would've known
at the beginning of my journey.
So if you're a creator yourself or if you have aspirations
to become one in the near future,
I hope these lessons will be useful for you as well.
Lesson number one,
your best friends are deadlines and accountability.
Running my own company means that I am my own boss.
And this is awesome for many different reasons.
I can get up whenever I want,
there's no corporate policy telling me I can't install
what I wanna install on my computer
but it also comes with certain downsides.
When I started working for myself,
I lost all the structure that I took for granted
in school and in the jobs that I held.
The deadlines and the oversight,
and the bosses that came built into both the school system
and into work created pressure
that forced me to get my work done on time.
But as an entrepreneur everything is on me.
And to be quite honest,
my self discipline is not always up to the task
of reining in my brain's more impulsive,
system one tendencies.
So what do I mean by system one?
Well this is a term from Daniel Kahneman's book,
"Thinking Fast and Slow"
which introduces two different systems within the brain.
System one and system two.
System one is the largely subconscious system.
It does all the fast, reactive thinking.
When you have an involuntary reaction
to a bee buzzing near your ear,
which is one of things I hate most in this world,
or when you instinctively reach for your phone
to check a notification when it comes in,
that is system one at work.
And by contrast, system two is the slow system.
The one that handles thinking that is voluntary
and effortful.
So when you work to solve a tough math problem
or you play through a difficult piece on the guitar
or you try to resist checking the notification on your phone
you're utilizing system two
and it's worth noting that system two
is very much the self discipline system.
In fact, when we're talking about self management,
we can think of system one as the horse
and system two as the rider.
The latter has some limited ability to control the former
but system one is still a 1,200 pound horse.
And the deadlines and the authority figures
that come with schools and companies
are examples of external controls that lend system two
a helping hand in guiding and controlling system one.
And without them, it will inevitably fail more often.
And I've learned this the hard way more than once.
One of the most prominent times was back in 2012
when my blog finally started gaining some traction
and I actually started earning enough passive income
from a few of my articles to pay my very meager bills.
I lived in Iowa at the time,
so living basically cost nothing but it was pretty awesome.
But then in 2013, I made the fatal mistake
of getting into a little game called, "Magic the Gathering"
and then I ended up spending much of that year
doing very little other than building decks
and very little grew of my business.
Now this wasn't intentional.
I would wake up each day intending to write a new article
or code a new feature for my site.
But then I would invariably get distracted
researching card combos or building new decks.
Without any real deadlines, without a boss,
without any pressing need to bring in additional money
right now because I had passive income,
I found myself controlled by the whims of system one.
And this pattern continued for quite some time.
In fact, if you look on the website's analytics
from that time period,
you're gonna see a long period of well, stagnation.
But you'll also see something else
to the right side of the graph.
Because in mid 2014, things finally started to move upwards
leading to a big increase in average daily visitors
starting in 2015.
And that's because mid 2014 was when I finally decided to
start acting like a professional.
And when I use that term, professional,
I mean it in the sense that James Clear meant it
when he said, "Amateurs wait until they feel inspired
"to do creative work.
"Professionals do it on a strict schedule."
And that is exactly what I started doing.
I committed to creating one blog post, one podcast episode,
and one YouTube video every single week
and I used apps like Habitica and Beeminder
to keep myself on track,
to guarantee that I would get that work done.
And these tools essentially replaced the role of a boss,
acting as those all important external controls.
The lesson here is clear.
If you're gonna work for yourself, act like a professional
and that might mean making the executive decision
to add some kind of external commitment device
that helps you stay on task.
Lesson number two, reach out and build relationships.
Working for yourself, which is often done by yourself,
can get pretty lonely.
Often you're running your own business
and your in real life friends,
they do not understand what it is you're doing
or why you feel compelled to stay up until 4:00 a.m.
tweaking button colors on your website.
I know this was absolutely the case for me.
I had a great group of friends when I started my business
but all of them were still in college at the time
and they really didn't understand what I was doing
or why I was so passionate about it
and this is just one of the reasons why
the relationships I've built with other entrepreneurs,
other content creators, have been so valuable to me.
When I started out, I didn't have anyone to talk to
about SEO or web design or habit trackers
or small tiny details in typography
or any of the other nerdy stuff that I was into.
Mostly, my friends just liked to make fun of me
for spending all my free time blogging
instead of playing video games with them.
But once I started reaching out to my contemporaries,
that all changed.
I was still isolated geographically
but I started to gain a network of friends on the internet
who shared my passions, who understood what I was doing
because they were doing it themselves.
And not only did we share a lot of common ground,
but we were also often able to help each other.
We can give each other feedback, promote each other's stuff
and my only regrets related to this
are that I didn't start sooner.
I kinda wish I started right when I started my blog
and secondly, that I continually, even to this day,
sometimes give in to my fear that reaching out to somebody
who I admire would bother them.
And I wanna talk about that second regret here for a second,
as it's something that, again, I even deal with now
as somebody with nearly two million subscribers on YouTube.
I will often start following somebody
whose work I really admire
and I wanna reach out, I wanna be friends with them,
I wanna potentially work with them but I'll hesitate
because I feel like I'm not impressive enough yet.
I feel like I need to get to a certain follower count
or I need to write more articles
or make more videos about a certain topic
so I can be legit in their field.
I can be worth their time.
And I will be honest,
there is a certain element of truth to this fear
because when you wanna connect with somebody,
especially somebody who has a large following,
who has a lot of respect in their field,
you have to be aware of the fact that many other people
are also trying to connect with that person as well.
For just one example,
can you imagine how many people
are trying to get Gary Vaynerchuck's attention
each and every day?
So naturally, if there's something that makes you stand out
then that person you're trying to reach out to,
may be more likely to take an interest when you do so.
And this is simply how the human mind works.
We are wired to pick out interesting
or threatening things in a noisy, complex environment.
And this means that there is, in fact,
some amount of merit to the idea that you should be
ready before reaching out to somebody you admire.
But that's only true if you're making a pitch.
See when you pitch something,
you're creating a transactional interaction.
You want something from them,
and you're offering them something in return.
And this isn't a bad thing.
Much of the world runs on transactional interactions.
But you can't pretend that a pitch isn't a pitch
and when you're making a pitch,
you wanna make sure that whatever it is you're offering
is going to interest the other party.
In these instances, it may be worth
waiting to reach out until you're ready,
whatever that means.
And you're gonna have to define
what that means for yourself.
But not every interaction is transactional.
You don't have to be ready
to email a creative you admire to tell them
that an article they wrote or a video they made
really resonated with you.
You don't have to ready to share someone's work
to your own followers
or to respond to them on Twitter with your own thoughts.
In fact, many of the first interactions I had
with a lot of my online friends started on Twitter.
It's a really great platform for casually interacting
in a way that's not intimidating.
And these kinds of interactions are what I call
the fan first approach.
When you admire somebody,
a great way to start building a relationship
with that person is to simply be a fan.
To share their work, give feedback, interact in casual ways.
And later, if you see an organic way
to further that relationship, you can then take it.
Lesson number three, know the taxes you have to pay
as an entrepreneur.
All right let me tell you a story.
I had a rude awakening during the 2013 holiday season.
I was visiting my girlfriend,
now fiance but then girlfriend's house for christmas
and I was talking with her uncle who was a financial advisor
and somehow we got on the topic of taxes, I'm not sure how.
It should be christmas,
I don't know why we're talking about taxes.
But I do remember myself saying something along these lines.
Being an entrepreneur is great.
It is awesome that I only have to pay self employment tax
because it's actually lower than regular income tax
and if you know anything, anything, about taxes,
you probably winced a little bit just now
because, well, that is not how self employment tax works.
Self employment tax is something you have to pay
on top of regular income tax.
And when her uncle helpfully informed me about that fact,
my stomach dropped, probably my heart as well.
A lot of my internal organs probably just dropped a foot.
So I spent some time running the numbers on my mistake
and realized that I owed the government about $30,000.00
in additional taxes, all due by April 15th.
I thought I was all paid up but no, another $30,000.00 due.
So for the next few months, things were pretty tight.
I had to scramble to get everything paid on time
because I didn't want to be in the hole going forward
but it could've been avoided entirely
if I had been better informed
about the taxes I needed to pay, so please,
learn from my mistake.
If you're going to work for yourself,
make sure you know what you owe to the government.
Now I'm not gonna go too deeply into this here,
because this is a list video
and it's not a video about taxes.
But if you wanna get a decent estimate
of your tax breakdown, again if you're U.S. based,
in the description,
I have linked to the budget model or spreadsheet
that I've built and used for my own finances.
I've built a ton of formulas into it
that take in your rough monthly income
and then spit out estimates
for each of these three main taxes.
And in the template version,
I've also put lots of little notes in many of the cells
that can explain things so if you're curious,
you can feel free to make a copy, play around with it,
look at those notes, hopefully you find it useful.
Now keep in mind that it is not a panacea
because there many be other taxes
that you're gonna have to pay
depending on the kind of business that you run.
For instance, my fiance sells art prints
and other physical goods at anime and sci fi conventions
all around the country.
And since she is selling things directly,
she has to collect and pays sale tax on those goods
in addition to all the other taxes.
Lesson number four, get yourself a lawyer and an accountant.
Look, even if you are a solo-preneur,
traveling the dusty roads of the internet
with nothing but a sun faded Stetson
and Adobe suite subscription,
this joke seemed funnier when I wrote it.
If you're content to DIY everything, I totally get it.
But it is still worth putting together a team of sorts
that consists of a lawyer and an accountant.
Now, it is possible to get by without either of these
especially when you're just starting out.
Sites like LegalZoom can help you do things like
setting up an LLC, and tools like TurboTax
can help you to figure out your taxes
even if you're self employed, they work pretty well.
It is also possible to build a table
with nothing but a screw driver instead of a power drill.
But that doesn't mean you should actually do it.
There is a lot of value in using certain tools
or getting certain kinds of help to accelerate things.
So even if you wait years to delegate other work,
like I did, I highly recommend building a good relationship
with a lawyer and an accountant early on.
Don't be like me because I didn't do this
for my first few years as an entrepreneur.
And there was a pretty stupid reason why.
See, I was afraid that hiring these people
was going to be prohibitively expensive.
So I just never really reached out to either.
I tried to do everything myself.
I never even asked about pricing.
And it must be said,
there was some amount of good that came from that.
I did learn how to do my own taxes, albeit on TurboTax
and I did develop a pretty wide array of knowledge
from running my own business
that does come in handy on a regular basis.
But I can tell you from experience
that there's only so much that googling around can do
and if that's the route you take,
sometimes you're gonna land yourself in trouble
because you missed something important.
Case in point, my $30,000.00 tax mistake
that I talked about earlier.
That could've been avoided if I had an accountant.
As the old saying goes--
- Nothing is more expensive than a cheap lawyer.
(dinging)
- And the same thing goes for accountants.
And make no mistake, when you convince yourself
you can handle everything with nothing but Google-fu,
you are hiring a very cheap accountant
and a very cheap lawyer.
So start building your team.
It is a very worthwhile investment
if you're gonna run your own business.
And if you don't know where to start,
a great way to get accountant and lawyer recommendations
is to simply ask your local entrepreneur community.
Back in Des Moines where I used to live,
there was one co working place
where many of the city's entrepreneurs worked.
So I asked around there
and I got a great lawyer recommendation
who really really helped me out.
And my accountant actually came recommended
by my fiance's uncle who was the one who pointed out
my $30,000.00 tax mistake so I guess I owe him twice.
But as you can see, building relationships in your community
is a great way to get recommendations
for professionals who can help you
and that goes beyond accountants, it goes beyond lawyers.
It's gonna help you when you need to hire
other help as well.
Lesson number five, become an unprompted learner.
Another quick story for you.
Something odd that I noticed
near the end of my high school career
was that a lot of my friends would spend
a lot of their time complaining
about how much work they had to do to apply for colleges.
They would complain about
having to search the college website for degree requirements
they would complain about writing essays and applications,
they would complain about applying for scholarships.
And this always struck me as odd
because in doing all this work,
they were literally signing themselves up
to do a lot more work.
A college application takes a few hours
but in doing it, you're are literally signing yourself up
to be a full time student.
At the time, that baffled me.
Later on, I came to understand that there is a difference.
See, despite the feeling of freedom that college brings
at least in comparison to high school,
part of the allure of college is the idea
that you're gonna be guided through a structured curriculum
that will eventually render you ready for a high paying job.
College is, or at least it purports to be, a guided path.
It provides you with a solid set of directions
and I found that most people are willing to work really hard
as long as you hand them a solid set of directions.
But much rarer is the type of person
who's willing to do the mental work
of figuring out what they have to do in the first place
which explains why my friends complained so much
about the college application process.
It involved a lot more independent decision making.
It was a lot fuzzier
but that is exactly the kind of person that you have to be
if you're gonna work for yourself.
You have to be willing to spend a bunch of hours
googling questions like, do I need an LLC?
What taxes do I have to pay as an entrepreneur?
Do I need a business license?
And probably hundred or thousands of others.
In short, you have to become an unprompted learner.
The kind of person who not only relishes
solving tough problems,
but who is willing to go out and figure out
what problems they have to solve in the first place.
Being your own boss means being the one who builds
literally every single guiding structure
that employees in normal job rely on and take for granted.
And this kind of relates back to my tip
about getting a lawyer and an accountant.
Don't be like me, don't just assume they're too expensive
and then never ask anyone what they charge.
Ask around, get quotes.
You can always say no to a pitch if it's too expensive.
But on the other hand, if you don't ask,
then you're never going to get an answer.
Or to simplify that,
and to put it in the words of Stevie Wonder,
"if you don't ask, you don't get."
Now if you're ready to start building a business of your own
and if you have something to sell,
then one of the first things you're gonna need
other than, again, making 100% sure you know what taxes
you have to pay, please make sure you do that,
but another thing you need is an online store
and that is exactly what Shopify provides.
Shopify makes it incredibly easy to set up
a great looking online store
without needing any coding skills
and if you'd like to see an example,
well you've probably seen me wearing this shirt
or drinking coffee from this mug in past videos
and I actually use Shopify to run the online merch store
where I sell both of them.
And they also make it super easy to manage
and market your business
with the dashboard that shows you your customers,
your inventory and your sales data,
email marketing and SEO tools
and a great payments platform.
In fact, one of the reasons that I really loved
using Shopify in particular for my store
is that people who have bought
from other Shopify stores in the past
can choose to automatically fill in their details
when they're checking out,
which reduces friction for them
and helps to boost sales for me.
Plus, the team at Shopify also has 24/7 support
which is one of the reasons
why over a million business owners
trust them with their stores.
And if you'd like to give it a try for yourself,
you can actually start a 14 day free trial
by going over to Shopify.com/thomasfrank
and signing up which also helps to support my channel.
So check it out if you're interested
and as always, thank you so much for watching
and hopefully you found this video helpful.
If you did, maybe consider gently
fist bumping that like button
with your middle knuckle on your right hand,
we gotta be specific here.
And I'm actually curious.
I really wanted to make this video because again,
you only have a 10 year anniversary
of starting your business once
but I enjoy talking about content creation.
I enjoy talking about entrepreneurship.
I love getting nerdy about this kind of stuff.
So if this is something that you like,
I would love to hear from you down in the comments below.
If you have any specific questions that you want answered,
let me know and I'll see if I can make content
on those questions.
If you haven't subscribed yet,
you can subscribe right there
to get new videos when they come out
and I also wrote an article version of this video
which is actually a lot longer and more detailed.
So if you wanna check that out, I have it up on my website.
I'll link to it right over there.
Beyond that, there's a couple of other videos
floating around on the screen here,
they're probably not floating but I can float
and make it look like they're kind of floating in relative.
I don't know (laughing)
but smash your face into your phone screen
and check those out if you're curious.
Otherwise, go do whatever you wanna do
as long as it's safe because as always, I'm not your dad.