alright hey tech elite here and welcome
back to another episode today we're
going to be talking about how to start
and grow a small business and we're
going to be talking to somebody somebody
in their 20s who has founded a
multi-million dollar business a company
and that person is going to help us get
all started and/or gentleman what are
you doing here I'm not talking about you
Gemma what do you mean well maybe you
should go to sleep then gather here go
to bed it's past your curfew time not
talking about you either and start a
multi-million dollar business yeah here
let me get over here climate climate hey
Clement now Clement here has started and
grown a very successful business in his
20s Clement is going to tell us all
about how he got this started what were
the logistics and how to practically get
a business going and why it is so useful
for young people to be starting small
businesses he's going to take us all
through the steps what was this business
that you started and tell us all about
it
our business is called Aldo expert algo
expert gallo it's basically targeted at
software engineers who like you and I
who want to prepare for their coding
interviews especially a big tech
companies big startups and we provide
curated questions like the ones you find
these coding interviews and we give
video explanations for those questions
of coding work space etc etc so you can
go to algo exper do a slash tech we'd if
you want to check it out that's right
you want to make sure you use code
technically get discount check them out
now start your business sounds cool and
we are here all the time well just our
business list our business I'm gonna
start business but how exactly do you
start a business what are the steps that
you have to go through what are the
challenges and how do you concretely get
this off the ground yeah so the first
step I think is coming up with the idea
and to be honest I think a lot of ideas
can work it's just about finding a
problem and then coming up with a
solution to that problem and building it
and executing it and so in my case I was
prepping for coding interviews and I was
using a bunch of resources textbooks
websites online YouTube Wikipedia and I
thought there's got to be a better way
that's how I came up with the idea
sounds simple enough do you do it by
yourself do you have a co-founder do you
set up like a LLC do you incorporate
start partnership you can do it alone
I think alone is a bit tougher I ended
up having a co-founders so I contacted
one of my best friends who happens to be
a software engineer as well I pitched
him the idea and he was on board and we
got it up and running so we ended up
going with an LLC the reason being is it
fit our needs the best we wanted from a
tax point of view to have things be
simple we want to only be taxed once
right so now we'll see was good for us
from that point of view as opposed to
corporation for instance but we also
wanted that limited liability that a
partnership a general partnership may
give you yeah that's right because as I
understand that you have a sole
proprietorship and that is where anyone
can actually start a business you just
start making money and that's a business
already you're a sole proprietorship now
is that beyond that you can actually
form a partnership say with multiple
people but that's still pretty much ax
very similar to like a sole
proprietorship the level above that is
you for my OLC which acts more like a
corporation where you can pay yourself a
salary you get limited liability such
that if anyone sees you they don't have
access to your personal assets is simply
the company standing alone on its own
and then the company has its own bank
account its own social security number
for tax purposes
everything is very separate and then
it's easier in a way to separate your
business and personal expenses now how
do you go about forming an LLC isn't it
very complicated aren't there all sorts
of paperwork that you have to go through
so it's a little bit complicated there
are a few services like stripe Atlas
Legal Zoom Rocket Lawyer that'll give
you like services to make the LLC for
you or help you along the way we ended
up is doing it ourselves it's sort of
like old-fashioned rent
oh wow so you just filed the audit
paperwork on your own yeah we went to
the State Department and did all that by
ourselves how complicated was that to do
on your own it's intimidating but not
actually that complicated okay
interesting now I have formed a few
LLC's myself as well and generally I
just use a service like lemon mint
and that's an arrow it's very simple and
easy to get this all set up you just
fill out an online web application press
submit button and don't get a LLC all
set up for you what are the fees
involved in it I'll see here so you have
an incorporation fee it's escaping me
right now but it's roughly two hundred
to a thousand dollars something like
that might vary from state to its eight
hundred dollars in California and as I
understand that you choose a state to
incorporate in and then you can actually
operate in any other state yep
which state did you choose we ended up
giving New York we just fit well for us
okay cool
generally I will actually register in
Delaware which is very well known for
its business friendly laws and then you
can operate as a foreign business in
other states yep not working now once
you have to say I'll see you all set up
how did you fund the company so we
didn't need too much money at the
beginning so we just put $2,500 each up
front me and my co-founder and that was
it the company has been self-sustaining
ever since did you ever have issues
choose iam co-founder I find that they
say co-founders are often almost like
having a marriage because you get to
work with the co-founder so closely and
you have to work out so many different
issues how did you know that you could
trust your co-founder what would happen
if your co-founders decided to just stop
working at some point this is where I
totally agree I think choosing the right
co-founder is probably the most
important thing you can do me and my
co-founder are lucky in that we're very
good friends and we just have that trust
on top of that we have very
complementary skill sets and we also
have different sort of like goals so we
don't overstep on each other and it just
works out really beautifully we're able
to work remotely pretty seamlessly with
no personal issues no work issues
fighting someone who has a complementary
skill set it's probably gonna be one of
the most important things because so
that you it's actually useful to have
multiple people and then probably just
making sure that you have open
communication if you have open
communication and trust you will be able
to work together and you can maybe even
be creative instead of things where you
have to work a certain amount of time or
produce a certain amount until you get
your equity in the business so is your
business purely online
do you have office space yeah so we're
purely online that means that we don't
have an office space we can work
remotely from wherever we are in a
coffee shop on a beach if we want that's
one thing that's really cool about the
era that we live in where we can build
fully online businesses and not have to
deal with the difficulties of having a
physical product having to have an
office space or a warehouse or hold
inventory of course not everyone has
luxury to do this not everyone has a
purely online business but you can't
have that these days yeah I think that's
one interesting thing when that was
running the online businesses it
actually allowed me to take time off
work between jobs there wouldn't be like
a huge resume gap because I could say
well I'm working on this business during
that time I can do some traveling during
that time as well and I just get more
flexibility and freedom in what I'm
doing well at the same time still being
productive and living how I might choose
to live I remember I would work from
Hawaii sometimes or work on cruise boats
now you're painting a really good
picture of running your own business
what are the cons of this what are the
challenges of running the business yeah
I think that there there are three big
challenges but in some sense they are
also positives if you like this if you
have that sort of entrepreneurial itch
the first one is there's a lot of work a
lot of the work is gonna be stuff that
you don't like
like for instance forming the LLC
marketing I'm not the biggest fan of
running ad campaigns and all that but I
have to do it challenge number two is
that sometimes you're putting in all
this work and you're not getting much in
return especially like in the earlier
months or earlier years of your business
you might not be making that much money
you you might be losing money right
that's a challenge to stay motivated and
number three this one is really critical
it is that everything that goes along in
the business is your fault everything
that goes wrong is your fault and even
beyond that if you do something wrong
and you break something in the business
there's no one on the other side that's
gonna be able to fix things when you're
at a normal job and something goes wrong
for instance in software engineers some
system breaks even if you don't know how
to fix it you have this sort of mental
piece that oh some other expert here is
gonna be able to fix it here that's not
the case it's only me and my co-founder
and maybe you know one other person no
one's gonna fix it for you you got to do
it that's right you have to really be
accountable and have a good work ethic
and understand that it doesn't matter
how much time you put in in the normal
job it's just about putting in the hours
and many times people would just go in
and work and they're not going to worry
about being terribly productive all the
time but when you're running your own
business
you really need to make sure that the
effort that you put in translates into
real impact into the bottom line and
oftentimes it's not going to be that's
something that you really enjoy doing
sometimes you're going to find out that
all you want to do is maybe code but it
turns out that you know that marketing
is going to be what your company really
needs at this point and then you have to
spend all your time studying about how
to do Facebook advertising or Instagram
advertising or something like that
that's a key thing like it especially as
software engineers we have this tendency
to want to code code code want to build
sometimes you got to stop building and
you got to start maintaining and don't
sneak up on me like that now I hope
you've enjoyed part one of two of this
interview for the stunning and epic
conclusion to this interview head on
over to Clements channel is going to be
great link in the description below and
I'll see you over there