If I Started a Business Again Today, I'd Do This

Summary

This video introduces a new series on building a 'feel-good business,' emphasizing personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and a positive customer impact. The host outlines the philosophy, contrasts it with traditional and startup business models, and shares a five-step framework for creating a lifestyle-oriented business. They also discuss common mistakes to avoid, like ignoring market validation and scaling too quickly, while promoting a balance between work and personal life for sustainable growth.

Takeaways

• 📘 The video introduces a series called 'Business Class' aimed at sharing insights on building a profitable yet stress-free business known as the 'feel-good business model'.
• 🛠 The 'feel-good business' is defined by its focus on personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and a positive impact, alongside financial success and a balanced lifestyle.
• 📋 The 'Feel Good Business Charter' outlines principles for creating a business that prioritizes enjoyment, autonomy, diversity in clientele, slow growth, small team size, profitability, flexibility, and meaningful work.
• 🔑 The difference between traditional businesses, high-growth startups, and feel-good businesses is highlighted, with the latter emphasizing fun, freedom, flexibility, and lifestyle over rapid growth and high capital requirements.
• 💡 The speaker emphasizes the importance of market validation and aligning business ideas with personal passions to create a sustainable feel-good business.
• 🚀 A five-step framework is presented for building a feel-good business, starting with identifying a skill and passion, choosing a business model, creating a minimum viable product, scaling sustainably, and re-evaluating and pivoting as necessary.
• 💼 Shopify is mentioned as a valuable resource for starting and scaling businesses, offering tools and platforms to make e-commerce accessible without extensive technical knowledge.
• 🔄 The video discusses common mistakes made in building feel-good businesses, such as ignoring market validation, scaling too fast, and neglecting work-life balance.
• 💡 The importance of periodically re-evaluating business direction is stressed to ensure alignment with the owner's lifestyle goals and passions, even if it means reducing profits for a better quality of life.
• 🤝 The video concludes by inviting viewers to share their thoughts on the series and what they would like to learn more about regarding the feel-good business model.
• 🌐 A call to action is made for viewers interested in the tools used to grow the speaker's business, directing them to another video for an in-depth look at specific apps and strategies.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the 'Business Class' series?

The main theme of the 'Business Class' series is to share insights on building, growing, and scaling a profitable business that is relatively stress-free and provides a lifestyle that the owner enjoys, which the speaker refers to as the 'feel-good business model'.

What are the three parts of the video content as outlined in the script?

The three parts of the video content include: 1) Discussing the differences between traditional business, high growth startup, and the feel-good business model. 2) Presenting a high-level five-step framework for building a feel-good business. 3) Sharing common mistakes made in the journey of building feel-good businesses.

What is the 'feel good business charter version 0.1'?

The 'feel good business charter version 0.1' is a set of principles that the speaker and his team are trying to follow in growing a feel-good business. It includes prioritizing personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and a positive impact on customers, team members, and the audience, among other principles.

What are the key differences between a traditional business and a high growth startup according to the script?

A traditional business has a steady and moderate growth orientation, focuses on profit with sub-20 margins, and has a formal and hierarchical structure. A high growth startup, on the other hand, aims for rapid and exponential growth, often requires high capital investment, and is known for poor work-life balance and a flexible organizational structure.

What are the main characteristics of the feel-good business model?

The feel-good business model prioritizes fun, freedom, flexibility, and lifestyle of the owner and team. It often has high profit margins beyond 40%, requires little to no capital, and emphasizes work-life balance with a small and manageable team size.

How does the speaker describe the process of building a feel-good business?

The speaker describes a five-step process: 1) Identifying a skill you're passionate about and market validating the idea. 2) Choosing a business model and generating leads. 3) Building a minimum viable product to get feedback. 4) Scaling sustainably and optimizing for balance. 5) Periodically re-evaluating and pivoting the business.

What is the role of Shopify in the speaker's business journey?

Shopify is mentioned as a resource for starting and scaling a business, providing tools for creating an online presence, selling online and in-person, and across social platforms. The speaker uses Shopify for their stationary brand and for selling online courses.

Why did the speaker decide to pivot away from running live cohort courses?

The speaker decided to pivot away from running live cohort courses because they realized it was not aligned with their ultimate goal of building a feel-good business. Despite the courses' success, the speaker wanted to focus on work that brings joy and aligns with their lifestyle priorities.

What are some common mistakes made when building a feel-good business, as mentioned in the script?

Some common mistakes include ignoring market validation, trying to scale too fast too soon, and forgetting about work-life balance. These mistakes can lead to stress and detract from the enjoyment and lifestyle that a feel-good business aims to provide.

What is the importance of re-evaluating and pivoting in the context of a feel-good business?

Re-evaluating and pivoting are important to ensure that the business continues to align with the owner's lifestyle goals and passions. It helps to avoid burnout and maintain the 'feel-good' aspect of the business by making necessary adjustments based on changing circumstances and personal preferences.

How does the speaker suggest finding a balance between work and personal life in a feel-good business?

The speaker suggests setting rules for oneself, such as not working on weekends after a certain point, and making time for health, relationships, friends, family, hobbies, and joy. This approach helps to maintain the balance that is a key aspect of the feel-good business model.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introduction to the Feel Good Business Model

The video introduces a new series called 'Business Class' focused on sharing insights gained from six years of experience in starting, growing, and scaling a profitable yet stress-free business. The host outlines the 'feel good business' philosophy, which emphasizes personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and a positive impact on customers and team members. The video will be divided into three parts: discussing different business models, presenting a five-step framework for building a feel-good business, and sharing common mistakes to avoid. The host also acknowledges the sponsorship of Shopify and hints at discussing their role later in the video.

05:01

📜 The Feel Good Business Charter

The host presents a set of principles known as the 'Feel Good Business Charter' that guides the creation of a business prioritizing personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and a positive impact. The Charter includes principles such as enjoying the journey, embracing autonomy, diversifying clientele, prioritizing slow and sustainable growth, maintaining a small team, focusing on profitability and longevity, embracing flexibility, minimizing synchronous work, setting own deadlines, and pursuing fulfilling work. These principles aim to create a business environment that is enjoyable, supportive, and conducive to a healthy work-life balance.

10:01

🔍 Exploring Business Models: Traditional vs. Startup vs. Feel Good

The video segment compares three types of business models: traditional businesses, high growth startups, and feel-good businesses. Traditional businesses are characterized by steady and moderate growth with a focus on profit but often with sub-20% margins and a formal, hierarchical structure. High growth startups, on the other hand, aim for rapid and exponential growth, often at the expense of short-term profitability and work-life balance, and are typically backed by venture capitalists. Feel-good businesses prioritize fun, freedom, flexibility, and lifestyle over growth, typically have high profit margins, require little capital, and aim to keep the team small and the structure flat.

15:03

🛠️ Building a Feel-Good Business: A Five-Step Framework

The host outlines a five-step framework for building a feel-good business. The first step is identifying a skill or passion and ensuring there is a market for it. The second step involves choosing a business model—service, product, or content—and generating leads. The third step is creating a minimum viable product to get feedback and adapt. The fourth step is scaling sustainably and optimizing for balance, avoiding overworking and ensuring the business remains enjoyable. The final step is periodic re-evaluation and pivoting to ensure the business continues to align with the owner's desires and lifestyle goals.

💡 Common Mistakes in Building Feel-Good Businesses

The host discusses common mistakes made in building feel-good businesses, including ignoring market validation, attempting to scale too quickly, and neglecting work-life balance. The importance of ensuring there is a market for the business idea is emphasized, as is the need for sustainable growth to avoid stress and burnout. The host also stresses the importance of maintaining a balance between work and personal life to truly achieve the feel-good aspect of the business model.

🌟 Conclusion and Call to Action

In conclusion, the host reflects on the feel-good business model, emphasizing the importance of enjoying life while making money. They encourage viewers to share their thoughts on the video and express interest in further content on the topic. The host also promotes another video detailing specific apps used to grow their business, inviting viewers to check it out if they found the content of this video helpful. The video ends with a thank you and a sign-off, promising more insights in future videos.

Keywords

💡Business Class

Business Class refers to the new series introduced in the video, aimed at sharing insights on building and scaling profitable businesses. It is the overarching theme of the video, with the host detailing his experiences and strategies over six years in the business world.

💡Feel-Good Business Model

The Feel-Good Business Model is a central concept in the video, describing a type of business that prioritizes personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and a positive impact on customers and team members. It is characterized by high profit margins, low stress, and a focus on lifestyle and enjoyment, as opposed to traditional business models or high-growth startups.

💡Traditional Business

A Traditional Business, as discussed in the script, is a business model that focuses on steady and moderate growth with a profit orientation. It typically has sub-20% profit margins and requires moderate capital investment. The script contrasts this with the Feel-Good Business Model, highlighting differences in growth orientation, profit margins, and work-life balance.

💡High Growth Startup

High Growth Startups are businesses aiming for rapid and exponential growth, often backed by venture capitalists. They are willing to forgo short-term profits for the potential of long-term profitability. The video script contrasts these with Feel-Good Businesses, emphasizing the intense work demands and lack of work-life balance often associated with high growth startups.

💡Personal Fulfillment

Personal Fulfillment is a key principle of the Feel-Good Business Model. It relates to the idea that the business should bring satisfaction and enjoyment to the owner beyond just financial gains. The script mentions that the host and his team strive to create a business that prioritizes personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and a positive impact on others.

💡Profit Margins

Profit Margins are a critical financial metric discussed in the script, indicating the percentage of revenue that a business keeps as profit. The Feel-Good Business Model often targets high profit margins, beyond 40-50%, which provides the business owner with more flexibility and control over the business operations.

💡Work-Life Balance

Work-Life Balance is a core aspect of the Feel-Good Business Model. The video emphasizes the importance of not just making money but also enjoying life and maintaining a healthy balance between work and personal time. The script contrasts this with high growth startups, where work-life balance is often compromised.

💡Slow, Sustainable Growth

Slow, Sustainable Growth is a strategy mentioned in the script for building a Feel-Good Business. It involves prioritizing long-term success over rapid expansion, aiming for manageable growth that does not compromise the business owner's lifestyle or the business's stability.

💡Market Validation

Market Validation is the process of confirming that there is a market for a product or service. In the script, the host advises that创业者 should ensure there is a demand for their offerings before fully committing to a business idea, which is crucial for the success of a Feel-Good Business.

💡Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a development technique used to launch a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development. The script suggests building an MVP as a step in the Feel-Good Business framework to get ideas out quickly and adapt based on market response.

💡Scalability

Scalability refers to the ability of a business to grow and expand, especially in terms of customer base and revenue. The script discusses the importance of scaling sustainably within a Feel-Good Business, avoiding the pitfalls of rapid, uncontrolled growth that can lead to stress and detract from the business's original goals.

💡Re-evaluation and Pivot

Re-evaluation and Pivot are strategies mentioned in the script for maintaining the integrity of a Feel-Good Business. It involves periodically assessing the business's direction and making changes if necessary to align with the owner's lifestyle goals and market conditions. The host shares his personal experience of pivoting away from a successful course business to better align with his feel-good business principles.

Highlights

Introduction of a new series 'Business Class' aimed at sharing insights on building a profitable and stress-free business.

The concept of a 'feel-good business' model that prioritizes personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and a positive customer impact.

The 'feel-good business charter' outlining principles for creating a business that emphasizes enjoyment, autonomy, and sustainability.

Differences between traditional businesses, high-growth startups, and feel-good businesses in terms of growth orientation and work-life balance.

High margins as a characteristic of feel-good businesses, often exceeding 40-50%, providing the ability to operate on one's own terms.

The importance of market validation in building a feel-good business to ensure there is a demand for the service or product offered.

Choosing a business model (service, product, or content) that aligns with one's passion and skills for a feel-good business.

Building a minimum viable product to quickly gather feedback and adapt to market conditions in feel-good business development.

Sustainable scaling and optimization for balance to maintain a manageable business growth without overworking.

Periodic re-evaluation and pivoting of business strategies to ensure alignment with the owner's lifestyle and enjoyment.

Avoiding common mistakes such as ignoring market validation, scaling too fast, and neglecting work-life balance in feel-good businesses.

The role of Shopify in powering businesses, providing tools for creating and scaling online businesses without the need for coding.

Emphasis on the importance of enjoying the journey, embracing autonomy, and maintaining a small, efficient team in feel-good businesses.

The significance of flexibility in work schedules and minimizing synchronous work to support a healthy work-life balance.

The pursuit of fulfilling work that goes beyond monetary rewards, contributing to a sense of purpose and satisfaction.

Encouragement for business owners to share their experiences and lessons learned in real-time for mutual learning and growth.

Transcripts

hey friends welcome back to the channel

and to a brand new series called

business class

this is a new series where I'm going to

share everything I've learned over the

last six years of starting growing and

scaling a profitable business that makes

lots of money but is relatively

stress-free and gives me a lifestyle

that I really enjoy and so in this video

I'm going to go through the general

philosophy of this kind of business

which I call the feel good business

model so this video is going to be stood

up into three parts firstly we're going

to be talking about the difference

between three different types of

business model the traditional business

the high growth startup and the

feel-good business then we're going to

go through a high level five-step

framework for how to actually build a

feel-good business and finally we'll go

through some of the mistakes that me and

others have made along the Journey of

attempting to build these sort of

feel-good businesses and so I'm hoping

that by the end of the video whether you

want to start a business or you're

trying to grow a business you can decide

is the feel-good business model or

something like that the right thing for

you and thank you to Shopify for

sponsoring this video but more on them

later part one the feel good business

charter so before we talk about the

differences between a feel-good business

and traditional and startup I just want

to share a few notes that I've taken for

myself where I've been trying to create

a sort of Charter that lays out the

principles that me and my team are

trying to follow or trying our best to

follow as it comes to to growing a

feel-good business if you Vibe with some

of these ideas you might enjoy the rest

of the video so this is our feel good

business charter version 0.1 our purpose

is to create a business that prioritizes

personal fulfillment meaningful work and

a positive impact on the lives of our

customers our team members and our

audience we strive to make good money

have freedom fun and flexibility while

helping others our principles are as

follows number one enjoy the journey we

look forward to Mondays and embrace work

that energizes us even with financial

success we would continue doing what we

love to cultivate positive relationships

we work with team members and clients we

genuinely enjoy spending time with

fostering a supportive and enjoyable

work environment three Embrace autonomy

we create a business structure that

allows team members to focus on tasks

they enjoy and Excel at while delegating

responsibilities as needed four

diversify clientele we avoid

over-reliance on big clients embracing a

diverse client base to maintain our

independence and ability to choose who

we work with five prioritize slow

sustainable growth we aim for slow

steady growth that's more manageable and

sustainable focusing on long-term

success six maintain a small efficient

team we keep our team size manageable

striving to keep the team as small as is

reasonable to reduce pressure and

maintain a close-knit collaborative

atmosphere seventh focus on

profitability and Longevity we aim for

high profit margins and take profits

annually investing in our future and

creating a financial safety net eight

Embrace flexibility we create a work

environment that allows for schedule

flexibility enabling team members to

maintain a healthy work-life balance 9.

minimize synchronous work we limit

synchronous work to maintain flexibility

while acknowledging the occasional need

for team interactions and collaboration

10. we set our own deadlines we choose

our own deadlines and avoid Reliance on

external pressures fostering a sense of

autonomy and control and 11 pursue

fulfilling work we engage in work that

helps others and feels meaningful

creating a sense of purpose and

satisfaction Beyond monetary rewards

part two traditional business versus

startup versus feel good business okay

so one way of understanding the feel

good business model is to appreciate the

differences between that and a

traditional business model and a high

growth startup business model so a

traditional business is generally most

businesses that you interact with day to

day it can be small businesses like the

local laundromat or the local dry

cleaner or a marketing firm or the

accounting firm that you use all the way

through to massive companies like

McDonald's Coca-Cola Ford that kind of

thing now generally a traditional

business has a steady and moderate

growth orientation profit is a focus of

these businesses but their margins tend

to be sort of sub 20 they tend to have

moderate Capital requirements so often

requires investment to get one of these

businesses started to buy the equipment

or the Machinery or to rent the premises

work-life balance isn't really a

priority obviously it varies depending

on the company but like the company

isn't oriented around the idea of

work-life balance it's oriented around

the idea of growth and usually the

structure of this organization is very

formal and fairly hierarchical so that's

one type of business then on the other

hand you've got high growth startups

that sort of turn all of this on its

head so for example hybrid startups are

aiming for rapid and exponential growth

and of course they care about profit in

the long term but in the short to medium

term they're willing to blow a bunch of

cash and poor VC venture capitalist

money into this machine to go for

exponential growth in the hope that

profitable will materialize further down

the line This is the classic thing that

Uber did that Amazon did this is very

different to how traditional businesses

and feel good businesses operate usually

a high growth startup has a very High

Capital requirement and tends to be

backed by Venture capitalists there's

not a lot of work-life balance when

you're building a high growth startup it

is famously bad for work-life balance it

tends to be very demanding on the life

of the founders and the team and

generally the orc structure is very

flexible and people are constantly

changing roles there's more things are

needed and more people are being added

to the team and then the third main

category is what we're calling the feel

good business model so when it comes to

growth the growth isn't really that

important for a feel-good business the

main thing is to optimize for the fun

Freedom flexibility and lifestyle of the

owner and sometimes by extension the

team so often with a feel-good business

you might think I could work twice as

hard to grow twice as much but actually

if I could work half as much to keep my

profits the same I'd rather go for that

secondly when it comes to profit and

margins usually feel good businesses

have very high margins so beyond the 40

50 Mark and I know plenty feel good

businesses that have margins way higher

than that as well and this is nice

because the more profit you're making as

a percentage of Revenue I.E your margin

the more ability you have to run the

business on your own terms usually a

feel-good business doesn't have much of

a capital requirement often you can

start them off for bootstrapping you can

just fund them yourself work-life

balance is absolutely prioritized with a

feel-good business and when it comes to

the organizational structure the

objective is to keep the team to a very

small and manageable size there are some

people that are just solopreneurs it's

just one person maybe with a few virtual

assistants and maybe a few contractors

but the key thing is to keep the

organization as flat and as small as

possible which is not one of the

priorities of these other two types of

businesses now once you've got the

product and you actually want to start

your business then a genuinely fantastic

resource to use is Shopify who are very

kindly sponsoring this video Shopify

Powers businesses by giving you all of

the tools you need to create your

business wherever you are in the world

letting you sell online in person and

across all major social platforms it's a

fantastic way to start and scale your

own business without having to learn how

to code or having to design your own

website now Shopify Powers more

businesses and entrepreneurs than anyone

else in the world with millions of

businesses using Shopify including our

own across 175 countries their mission

is to reduce the barriers to business

ownership to make Commerce better for

everyone which is a pretty great goal if

you ask me now we use Shopify for both

our stationary brand and we've also used

it to sell online courses and we're

using Shopify to power the e-commerce

platform that we're building as we speak

for our upcoming attack brand where

we're trying to design our own keyboards

and bags and stuff and Shopify also

makes tools for new business owners like

the business name generator which is

awesome and also Shopify learn which is

their online learning platform for all

things related to business they also

give new entrepreneurs easy to use

selling options like their starter plan

where you can create an online store in

literally minutes without needing to

know how to code now if you're

interested in trying out Shopify and

generating leads and sales for your

business then head over to shopify.com

forward slash Elliott or hit the link in

the video description and that link will

let you sign up to a totally free trial

of Shopify so you can make a store you

can try it out completely risk-free you

can have a play around and you can see

if it Vibes with you so thank you so

much Shopify for sponsoring this video

part three the feel good business

framework how to actually build a

feel-good business okay so again there's

a lot of different ways of doing this

but I've tried to narrow it down to five

things that I think make a good

feel-good business and this is the

method that I would follow if I was

trying to build a feel-good business

from scratch so step one would be to

figure out what is the skill that you're

passionate about and trying your best to

Market validate the idea so the key

difference between a feel-good business

and other kinds of businesses is that a

few good business tends to be centered

around a skill that you as the owner or

as the business Creator particularly

enjoy and that's one of the key things

because part of the feel good business

model is you want to create a business

that gives you fun freedom and

flexibility and part of that fun is

making sure that the work you're doing

is actually intrinsically enjoyable for

you so if for example you decided to

create a t-shirt printing business

because you thought it could make money

but you had zero passion about t-shirts

or about printing or about clothing it

won't really be a feel-good business

you'd be doing it just for the sake of

making money which is fine but that's

not the vibe that we're trying to go

with for a feel-good business the

objective is that we enjoy the work

alongside the work making money now this

could be something creative like graphic

design or illustration or writing or

coding or video editing it's like things

like that are generally fairly easy to

build a business around and so one of

the questions you can ask yourself and

this is a question I ask myself a lot is

that if I won the lottery and I had 100

million dollars in the bank how would I

choose to spend my time and then

initially I might say well I choose to

spend my time by sipping cocktails on a

beach in Thailand and stuff but like

when that gets boring most people

realize that they do want to spend their

time do doing something that is of value

to other people doing some sort of

service that adds value to the world or

to their local community for me

personally that's things like Reading

Writing learning and teaching that's why

I make these YouTube videos because all

of that is inherently enjoyable for me

and so the question for you is what is

that skill for you if you don't have one

of these skills yet or you don't yet

know what you're passionate about that

is totally okay finding work you love is

a lifelong journey but an easy way to

get started is by just trying out lots

and lots of different things and the

more of these things you try the more

you'll get a sense of what do you

personally have an aptitude for what do

you personally enjoy doing what are the

sorts of things that when you do you

find that they generate energy rather

than drain your energy now obviously you

have to make sure that there is a market

for the thing because it's not a

feel-good hobby it's a feel-good

business and so the objective is to use

this thing that you enjoy to add value

to other people and then they can pay

you for it and that's where step two

comes in and step two would be to choose

your business model and find a way to

generate leads for that product now

broadly there are three different ways

that you can make money you can do a

service business you can do a product

business or you can do a Content

business now a service business is when

you are providing a service in return

for money a product business is when you

are using your skills to create a

product and then you are selling that

product for money and then a Content

business is when you are using your

skills to create free content on the

internet and then you're monetizing it

through advertising on YouTube AdSense

or medium or whatever the format is or

you're able to then sell products and

services to the audience that you build

up over the long term and so if you take

whatever skill you're passionate about

you can start thinking of it in this way

you can start thinking okay if I had to

create a service a product and or

content around this skill what would it

be for example let's say you are very

passionate about Woodworking and you

want to create your feel-good business

around the skill of woodworking now the

service-based version of this would be

to offer woodworking as a service so for

example you could go to people's houses

and you could tweak their setups and you

can design custom furniture for them and

all this kind of it sort of becomes a

bespoke service that you offer to

clients secondly you could try and make

a product business out of it you can

think okay cool what are the products

that I can make using my woodworking

skills and then how can I find a mass

audience of people to sell them to and

it doesn't need to be that many people

but it just needs to be enough to

sustain your business and make a

reasonable profit or thirdly you could

create a Content business around this

I.E you could start making content on

the internet about how to do woodworking

and you could do a tour of your workshop

and you can teach people how you make

stuff or time-lapse the process of you

making stuff now if the skill is

something general then it's generally

easier to build a feel-good business out

of so for example I really enjoy coding

for example I can basically imagine any

client that I might like spending time

with and I can imagine how I can serve

that client through the skill of coding

for example let's say I spend a lot of

time watching YouTubers I might think

cool how do I apply my passion and skill

of coding to the market of YouTubers and

then I might be able to make some

Creator economy startup through code I

might be able to offer services and

build custom competitor analysis

databases for YouTubers and other

creators I might be able to start a

YouTube channel based around teaching

people how to code so you can see how if

you start thinking in this way you can

make sure that the thing you're trying

to build your business around is the

skill or passion that you are passionate

about and you're just connecting it to a

business model that works step three

would then be to build a minimum viable

product what's the minimum viable thing

that you can create that gets your idea

or your service or your product or your

content out there into the world that

lets you get feedback now the wrong way

of going about this is to sort of sit in

a cave for three years and build your

thing in the hope that when you launch

it three years later people will come

and get to it but that's generally a bad

way of building any kind of business and

also a bad way of building a feel-good

business like the idea of doing a

feel-good business is that you're Nimble

you're agile you're able to adapt to

market conditions and you're able to be

flexible in your approach because if you

want the sort of business that gives you

the lifestyle that you really love you

can't necessarily be wedded to one

specific way of doing things because if

the market isn't right for it or you

can't find the audience or people aren't

willing to pay you for the thing you

can't really build a business out of it

it's just going to be a hobby rather

than a business right step four would

then be to scale sustainably and

optimize for balance so in the early

days of a business especially it's very

easy to burn the Midnight Oil and sort

of work super super super hard but we

sort of want to begin with the end in

mind and we want to recognize that hey

if we are attempting to build a

feel-good business we kind of want it to

be sustainable from day one that's not

to say that we can never work past 5 PM

we always have to I don't know not work

on weekends whatever the thing might be

sometimes when you're starting a

business things just do take a little

bit more work and in future videos in

the series we're going to go into a

bunch of specific methods that me and my

team have used over the last few years

to try and sustainably scale and I'll be

sharing and all of the ins and outs of

those so if that sounds interesting and

you haven't yet subscribed to the

channel then do please consider doing so

and then step five in this very high

level process would be to periodically

re-evaluate and pivot and to figure out

is the thing that you are currently

doing actually the thing that you want

to be doing now when it comes to a

business like it's too easy to Once

especially once you get success to just

keep on doubling down on that success we

had a big success a couple years ago

with our course the part-time YouTuber

Academy it was making millions every

year loads of people were signing up to

it but then I had this nagging feeling

where I asked myself if I won the

lottery would I really want to continue

running courses teaching people how to

be YouTubers and the answer was not

really and because I knew that I

ultimately want to build a feel-good

business I decided to reevaluate and

pivot the business away from running

live cohort courses teaching people how

to be YouTubers so in the end we ended

up turning that course into a

pre-recorded Evergreen course that's

available now people can buy it at any

point in fact every year we're probably

gonna make at least a million dollars

less than if we had kept running it as a

live cohort but part of the feel-good

business thing is that you make

decisions for the sake of your lifestyle

and for the sake of free Freedom fun and

flexibility rather than necessarily

making every decision with growth and

profit and revenue in mind there are so

many startup Founders I know who kind of

talk to me in confidence and say hey I

don't really enjoy my startup anymore

yes it's worth 100 million dollars 300

million dollars or whatever the thing

might be but I really like the idea of

starting a YouTube channel because you

have freedom you have fun you have

flexibility you can do what you want

part four common mistakes to avoid so

I've been speaking to a bunch of people

who have these sorts of feel-good

businesses and there's a bunch of

mistakes that I see people make a lot

and I've made basically all of these

mistakes as well and so we're just going

to talk through some of these now in the

hope that they might come in handy for

you and these are actually all serving

also as a reminder to myself because you

know when it comes to building a

business it's not something I figured

out I don't think there is anything to

figure out I think it's an ongoing

process of learning which is why I want

to make this series of videos because as

I'm learning new things and applying

them to our business and making mistakes

and taking principles and lessons along

the way I can then make videos sharing

those things anyway one big mistake that

people make when it comes to feel good

businesses is ignoring Market validation

I see a lot of people trying to build a

business from a YouTube channel for

example but they focus only on making

videos that they enjoy making and they

completely neglect the fact that like if

there isn't a market for the thing and

people don't Vibe with what you're

making then you can't really make a

business out of it because a hobby is

something that you do for fun for

yourself because it brings joy to you

but a business is something that you do

for other people to add value to other

people and to make money now feel good

business is somewhere in the middle but

there is sort of that overlap between

the thing that you enjoy but the thing

also needs to have a market and be able

to make money because if you're not

making money then you can't build a

sustainable business off the back of the

thing that is just the way of the world

we're aiming for very high margins we're

aiming for 50 and above margins and you

don't get that by constantly trying to

make stuff where there isn't a market

for the stuff second big mistake that we

definitely made like a year ago is

trying to scale too fast too soon it's

too easy to think oh my God money's

growing on trees we've got product

Market fit this thing is going really

well let's just like double our team

size but actually slow sustainable

growth is a much more relaxing and much

more chill place to be rather than rapid

exponential growth and whenever I've

been in the point where I feel like

we've scaled too quickly I found my time

being going in multiple different places

because then there's all these problems

that rock up as a result of trying to go

too big too quickly and then we don't

have time to solve the problems then

it's like a lot of my time is spent

firefighting and then I think I look

back on my week and I think like you

know I started this business because I

wanted to make content that helps people

and I wanted to learn and teach and

share stuff and I've spent my entire

week managing the team or I've spent my

entire week doing operations or like

fighting fires or like doing admin and

it's like how did we end up here and so

you know I think I I've never met anyone

who's managed to get the balance

completely solid for their entire

business Journey you know it's always a

case of like going back and forth but

constantly reevaluating and making sure

that you're not trying to scale Too Fast

Too Soon you're not setting your growth

targets to be like ridiculously

ambitious because all of that stuff adds

stress and stress is not fun and chronic

stress especially over the long term is

just bad for your physical health bad

for your mental health bad for your

emotional health bad for everything in

general and so sort of goes against one

of the key principles of the feel good

business big mistake number three is to

forget work life balance again this is a

mistake that I make all the time so this

is as much a kind of note to self as

anything else but the whole point of a

feel-good business is to enjoy life not

just work I spent the weekend a few days

ago with some of my friends from

University up north in Yorkshire it was

very nice and very relaxing and I was

kind of wondering during that weekend

that like I didn't really do any work

and normally I work on the weekends and

I convinced myself that I'm working on

the weekends because work is fun and I

look forward to work and therefore it's

like I'd rather be doing that than

anything else

then I kind of asked myself how much joy

do I have in my life and the answer was

honestly not very much there's not many

things I do just for the sake of it just

just purely for the joy of it like I

really enjoy playing video games I

really enjoy reading fiction but I tend

not to do as much of that because it

feels like oh but we're in a point at

the business where the business is

growing and all this kind of stuff and

it's so easy when you know especially

when you're doing something that's fun

you know this is really fun I enjoy the

stuff I enjoy building the business it's

so addictive like seeing the growth and

the team and adding more people but it's

so easy to forget the work-life balance

thing this is like absolutely first

world problems but like that's fine

while we're here and so again one of the

things that I'm hoping for like by

making videos about this and by like

writing down the charger for the

feel-good business is to basically make

a set of rules for myself that when I

find myself for example working on a

weekend two or three weekends in a row

or something like that I think nope

that's not the goal the goal is to build

a feel-good business to allow me to

enjoy life and not just work and that

means making time for health and

relationships and friends and family and

hobbies and joy and all that kind of fun

stuff so that is the feel good business

model it's a sort of high level approach

on how to make money while also having

fun and enjoying your life along the way

if you got to the end of this video I

would love to know what did you find

interesting or not interesting about

this what more stuff would you like to

see this is a brand new series like I

don't really talk about this business

stuff very much and as you might have

been able to tell I'm still sort of

formulating my thoughts on some of these

but I thought it would be more

interesting to share stuff in real time

like the V 0.1 of our Charter rather

than for me to have solidified it over

the next three years and then share it

once it's fully ready because I think

every business is basically an evolving

entity and as I'm learning stuff and as

I'm reading books and attending courses

and using coaches and making mistakes

and learning stuff as our business is

growing I really want to try my best to

share these insights with you guys so

that you can learn from that experience

and if you go to this point and you're

interested in learning about the

specific apps that we use to grow our

business check out this video over here

this is a sort of over-the-shoulder

walkthrough of 12 specific apps that

we've been using for the last couple of

years to help grow a multi-million

dollar business and lots of people have

commented on that video saying they

found it very helpful so if that turns

up your street then do check it out

otherwise thank you so much for watching

have a lovely day and I'll see you

hopefully in the next video bye