How to start a 7-figure business in 2025: Advice from 4 millionaires

Ali Abdaal 0:00 Hey, friends. Welcome back to Deep Dive, the podcast where it's my immense pleasure to sit down with entrepreneurs, creators, authors, and other inspiring people, and we find out how they got to where they are and the strategies and tools we can learn from them to help build a life that we love. In this video, we're looking back at previous episodes to take the best business advice from some of our previous guests. So without further ado, here we are. To what extent do you think it's useful to join an existing startup versus just start your own and have a punt and kind of do it anyway?

Speaker 0:25 It's, it's massively useful to join someone else's startup. Like, I would highly recommend that to absolutely anyone. So here's what goes wrong with a lot of young people. They go to careers fairs and all that sort of stuff. It's only big corporates that exhibit, so they end up being funneled down the big corporate, uh, uh, path. Now, you can start a business that doesn't exist. You can go to a big corporate. So in the UK, there are 7,000 large companies that have more than 250 employees. There's 5.5 million businesses in the middle that already exist but don't have 250 employees. So... And the vast majority of them have 10 people or less, right? So it's huge- hugely stacked between two and 10 people is the small business landscape. So when you join a big corporate, you have no idea what the whole business does. You know, have no idea what everyone else does. Um, they don't bring you in on strategy or any of that sort of stuff. You are just completely in the dark, and they say, "This is your job. Go do that job, and if you can't do it, we'll find someone else who can," is the subtext. But when you join a business that's four people, five people, six people-

Ali Abdaal 1:30 Yeah

Speaker 1:30 ... you know exactly what the whole company does. You, you often know the revenue. You often know the profit. You often know the weekly activity of the entire team. So you get this kind of feeling and experience of what an entire team does and what an entire business does. And I, I would highly recommend anyone who wants to start a business, first do two years working inside somebody else's small business.

Ali Abdaal 1:53 Ooh, interesting. So, like, a lot of people, um, sort of in, in our team when I talk to them about this or people who've done internships with us feel like... Say, say that, "Oh yeah, you, you know, I l- I, I feel like I'm learning a lot." And to me I'm always a bit... I can feel like what, like, what is, what is there to learn? Like, 'cause we're just, like, doing stuff. But I guess for someone who doesn't have experience running a business or being in a... Or yeah, it's completely different to life in Amazon HQ corporate.

Speaker 2:17 And it's also n- not too different to what you did with medicine, where, you know, you do your study and you do your education, and then you go and work in a hospital, and you're working around experienced doctors.

Ali Abdaal 2:28 Yeah.

Speaker 2:28 And you're working, you know.

Ali Abdaal 2:30 And, like, the theory is all well and good, but, like, the two, first two weeks on the job when you realize, oh, this is the dynamic between the nurses, and this is how you request a scan, and this is how you do all this other stuff that you never... It... You can read about it, but you never really go-

Speaker 2:41 Yeah, and here's how you talk to people-

Ali Abdaal 2:42 Yeah

Speaker 2:42 ... and here's how long this actually takes. And, you know, these little things that... Like, in a business context, flipping back from medicine [laughs] which I know nothing about, uh, you know, just things like, uh, well, how do you send out, like, a big bulk email to a list? Or where do you get a list from? Or like, how do you sit down and have a lunch and negotiate a joint venture? So for me, my two years doing that when I was 19 to 21, I actually got to sit in on those meetings. So when John was negotiating to do a list swap,

Speaker 3:12 you mail your list for our product and we'll mail our list for your product, I'm sitting in on that meeting quietly and going, "Oh wow, that's how that happens."

Ali Abdaal 3:20 That's the thing. Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 3:21 Yeah. And when John was proposing, "Oh, here's what we'll do with the revenue. We'll do a revenue split, and we'll actually... This will be the first chunk for costs, and we'll take that out first, and then this will be... And here's how we'll measure it." And it's like, oh, right. Okay, that's just a meeting that you have, and you just agree that in the meeting, and then you write it down and confirm it, and then you put it in the heads of terms.

Ali Abdaal 3:42 Yeah.

Speaker 3:42 Okay, now I get it.

Ali Abdaal 3:44 Yeah, I think there's so much stuff like this where until you've had experience in a thing, it's just... It, it's hard to even fathom what goes on. Like, this weekend I w- I was at this, like, phil- philanthropy conference-y type thing where there were people from, like, nuclear policy making and, like, grant making, and I was, I was asking all the basic questions. I was like, like, "What, what does it mean to, like, lobby a cong- a congressman?" And they're like, "Oh, you literally queue up, and then you literally give them money for it." And wait, what? That's a thing?

Speaker 4:09 [laughs] That's a-

Ali Abdaal 4:09 And like, how, how do you contact a government official? Do you just, like, Google their name? And they're like, "Well, no, it's opaque for a reason, and you have to do this, and you have to..." Like, it's just completely mind-blowing that this whole world of, like, government and policy into grants and philanthropy that I have zero experience in, and like, I can read all the books, but I, I wouldn't know how to contact a government official-

Speaker 4:26 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 4:26 ... unless I know someone who is literally doing the thing.

Speaker 4:29 Yeah. And you hear these fancy titles. It's like, "Oh, I'm an analyst with, um, KPMG or Goldman Sachs."

Ali Abdaal 4:35 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:35 And it's like, but what do you actually do? "Oh, I get given a list of these people, and then I have to go and put these spreadsheets together." Oh, oh, okay. Yeah. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 4:44 Okay. So you're 21. You've started your own, I guess, lead generation company. Okay, so i- is this like, let's say I am an estate agent, and I want to sell houses to-

Speaker 4:55 I'll give you some real examples.

Ali Abdaal 4:56 Yeah.

Speaker 4:56 We worked with, um, financial planners. We worked with franchisors. One of the biggest deals we did was with franchisors who wanted to sell franchises, and what we'd do is a roadshow of events-

Ali Abdaal 5:06 Yeah

Speaker 5:06 ... introducing their franchise to potential franchisees. Um, now, as a $60,000 franchise, we would get, uh, 15% of the franchise success fee, um, as our marketing fee.

Ali Abdaal 5:18 Okay.

Speaker 5:18 So they paid us, um, an amount that covered costs first, and then we got 15% success fee on, on top of that. So that was a great deal. They'd put a lot of energy and effort into creating a franchise.

Ali Abdaal 5:31 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:31 We, um... They... When, when I met them, I went to a franchise expo, and there were 300 franchisors all trying to say that they had the best franchise. And my-

Ali Abdaal 5:41 Franchisors, as in like a Five Guys, McDonald's, KFC-

Speaker 5:43 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 5:43 ... would be a franchisor.

Speaker 5:45 Yeah, exactly.

Ali Abdaal 5:45 Okay, cool.

Speaker 5:45 And they're... Like, those are... Like, McDonald's is the biggest well-known franchise. They sell you the rights to run their business, but there's all sorts of little franchises like, um, mortgage broking franchises and even things like gardening franchises and-

Ali Abdaal 5:58 Oh, okay [laughs]

Speaker 5:59 ... and cleaning franchises.

Ali Abdaal 6:00 Yeah.

Speaker 6:01 So, um-

Speaker 6:02 You, you basically, I go along to a franchise expo and I see that there's 300 franchisors trying to stand out and be different, and I go, "This doesn't work for anyone." 'Cause if you're a customer thinking about buying a franchise, you've now got way too many choices, and if you're a franchisor, you're just standing right next to 300 competitors. So it's just feeling too weird-

Ali Abdaal 6:24 Yeah

Speaker 6:25 ... like too, you know, too, um, uh... It, it feels too saturated. So we just basically approached one that I thought was great, and we negotiated a deal. And we did a roadshow, where instead of them being shoulder to shoulder with competitors, we would put them in front of 50 people who were potential customers.

Ali Abdaal 6:43 How would you find these 50 people?

Speaker 6:45 So we'd advertise, do direct mail campaigns. We would do, um, uh, [laughs] there was something called fax broadcasting at the time.

Ali Abdaal 6:52 Fax broadcasting. [laughs] Okay.

Speaker 6:54 Let's not even go... Uh, I'd have to s-

Ali Abdaal 6:55 [laughs]

Speaker 6:56 I'd have to even begin by telling your audience what a fax machine is.

Ali Abdaal 6:58 [laughs] I'm gonna make up a random offer. So let's say I lose m- everything on my YouTube channel. I get canceled overnight, but I still have the skills. I'm keeping in mind that my business ideas have to be something I can sell for ideally 2K, ideally five sales a month.

Speaker 7:13 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 7:14 I might be thinking either web design agency type situation-

Speaker 7:19 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 7:19 ... potentially, but I've kind of been outside of that market for a while. Or I'd be thinking, uh, p- video content-

Speaker 7:27 Well, just, just quickly

Ali Abdaal 7:28 ... Yeah.

Speaker 7:29 You've been outside of that market. Do you know someone who's credible? Web development. Do you know someone who's a web developer?

Ali Abdaal 7:35 Yeah.

Speaker 7:36 Yeah. Sell them.

Ali Abdaal 7:38 Hmm. Yeah, that could work.

Speaker 7:39 Right.

Ali Abdaal 7:39 Actually, in, in my head I was defaulting to, oh, I guess I'd have to do it myself-

Speaker 7:42 No

Ali Abdaal 7:42 ... so I need to learn quite a lot of stuff.

Speaker 7:43 No, you don't. You can find someone who's good at web development, and you can just go running around selling two grand packages-

Ali Abdaal 7:49 Yeah

Speaker 7:49 ... for them to build.

Ali Abdaal 7:50 Ooh. Okay, that could work too.

Speaker 7:52 There you go. There's 10 grand a month.

Ali Abdaal 7:54 What if I was like, uh,, "Hey, I know how to use a camera, I know how to do video editing, uh, therefore if I do personal brand video content for startup founders who I know have money-

Speaker 8:05 Yeah, yeah

Ali Abdaal 8:06 ... or business owners like you who I know-

Speaker 8:07 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 8:07 ... have money." And I could be like, "Dan, you have books. You wanna be on all the con- social platforms."

Speaker 8:11 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 8:11 "I'll show up to your house once every month, and we'll film a bunch of stuff."

Speaker 8:14 Sign me up.

Ali Abdaal 8:14 "I'll just ask you the questions. I'll chop it up. Content for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, et cetera, et cetera."

Speaker 8:19 Sign me up. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 8:21 [laughs]

Speaker 8:21 Rock and roll.

Ali Abdaal 8:22 Yeah.

Speaker 8:22 Of course. So that's g-

Ali Abdaal 8:23 Yeah

Speaker 8:23 ... that's a great example, yeah. And, um, and you just sign me up, and, uh, y- you might say it's initially two grand and see if you like it, and then it's two grand a month after that.

Ali Abdaal 8:31 Yeah.

Speaker 8:31 Um, now you might say, uh... By the way, I've got a whole team. I've got a amazing team of people. Uh, I've actually found, um... I've got lead, uh, content, uh, creators here in the UK. I've also got an international team so that we can do, um,

Speaker 8:47 an initial style guide and some signature content, and we can also do brute force content, you know, through our team in the Philippines, and then we've got a team in Ghana. And actually, we send all the raw footage to them, and they create lots of videos, and we then put that on TikTok and all that sort of stuff. We see what sticks and bring it all together. I'm like, whoa, that sounds really great. So yeah, that would be... Y- Like, I'm really big on the idea of the entrepreneur's job is to be the organizing force, not to do the work.

Ali Abdaal 9:14 Hmm.

Speaker 9:15 So, like, y- you keep getting into, like, "Oh, I know how to edit videos."

Ali Abdaal 9:18 Yeah.

Speaker 9:18 It's like, it's like that's doing the work. You, you're not being an entrepreneur. You're being a video editor. So the, the entrepreneur's job is to be the organizing force. You're the organizer. I don't know how to do anything. Like j- just, just on that, I, I've built multiple $10 million plus companies. I don't know how to do anything. Like as in I don't have any web development skills, I don't have video editing skills, I don't have design skills. I don't have any skills. [laughs] Like the... I, I can write, all right? I can write books, but, um... And I can speak, but that's it. I'm an organizing force. I'm the guy who just organizes it. I bring together talented people, uh, and I say, "Hey, you're good at video editing. You should join my team as a video editor."

Ali Abdaal 10:00 Yeah.

Speaker 10:00 "And you're good at designing. You should be a part of our team." So all I'm good at is enrolling people in stuff.

Ali Abdaal 10:06 So the sort of person who enjoys organizing people, who enjoyed, like, organizing university societies back in their university days and, like, organiz- bringing people together and, like, keeping people organized.

Speaker 10:16 The entrepreneur's job is to be the organizing force. It's not to do the work.

Ali Abdaal 10:20 Damn. [laughs] I still keep on thinking it's like, yeah, you know, what skill do I have? What, what skill can I offer?

Speaker 10:25 That's the schooling system.

Ali Abdaal 10:27 Yeah.

Speaker 10:27 That's the, that's the schooling system-

Ali Abdaal 10:28 Component labor

Speaker 10:28 ... that, yeah, you're component labor. You're like, which component do I fit in? It's like none. You're not in the business. You're the entrepreneur. You're building the business. Um-

Ali Abdaal 10:36 Damn

Speaker 10:36 ... your job is to get really clear about what the customer's trying to achieve-

Ali Abdaal 10:39 Yeah

Speaker 10:39 ... and then be the organizing force to fill that for them, um-

Ali Abdaal 10:43 Yeah

Speaker 10:43 ... and bring together all the people that you might need in order to do that. So that's your first 10 grand. Concept, audience, offer, sales. That's all you have to do. It's cheap to do. You can do it with Microsoft Word. You can do it with Apple Pages and-

Ali Abdaal 10:54 Yeah

Speaker 10:54 ... Keynotes. Uh-

Ali Abdaal 10:55 Okay

Speaker 10:55 ... yeah.

Ali Abdaal 10:56 Before we go on to the next stage, let's talk about sales.

Speaker 10:58 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 10:58 So sales, sa- sales are scary. Sales is a dirty word. I don't wanna be a salesman. Uh, I feel that, like, emotional, ugh, response at the, even the word sales. Uh, h- how, how do we, how do, how do I approach sales for my web design agency or for my... Assuming I'm not doing the work, I'm just going out there.

Speaker 11:17 So almost everyone's had a positive experience with a salesperson and a negative experience with a salesperson, but that could be true for any profession. I, I've had negative experiences with bookkeepers. I've had negative experiences with lawyers. I've had negative experience with doctors, fairly.

Ali Abdaal 11:33 Yeah.

Speaker 11:33 Um, there are good doctors and bad doctors. There's people who've got amazing bedside manner and people who are really not, um, that great. So when it comes to sales, the word that everyone says about a good salesperson is professional. They were professional. Um, they, they approached it professionally. So what does professional mean? It means that they ask great questions. They give you guided, uh, advice. They are not pushy, but they also do give guidance.

Speaker 11:59 Um, they've done their homework. They've done their research. They've got great product knowledge. They listen. They understand. They're trying to get on your side to figure out what it is you actually genuinely need, and they're making sensible recommendations.

Ali Abdaal 12:10 Hmm.

Speaker 12:10 So all of those things are professionalism. So sales is a science, and it's a very valuable skill that you can use in any profession. It, it doesn't matter what you are or what you do, a sales skill is a powerful skill because sales is listening, understanding, and then creating a good argument for the right solution, and being able to marry up this is what you... this is what you're trying to achieve, this is what I think you need, and here's why, right? So you're creating a path of least resistance. Here's the mental model you should have with sales. There is the current reality that the person has. That is their current situation. There is their desired reality. That's what they want. And then there's the obstacles and criteria that are in the way, right? These are all the things that stop them from getting what they want. And then there's you, who says, "This is the path of least resistance. Here's what you need to do. You need to go and do this, this, this, this, and this, and that is gonna get you from your current reality to your desired reality." And it's a lot like being a doctor. So if you're a doctor, you're actually [laughs] ... It's so similar to sales. When you see someone who's not happy with their current reality, you ask them-

Ali Abdaal 13:14 Ask them a lot of questions

Speaker 13:15 ... "What's going on?"

Ali Abdaal 13:16 [laughs] Yeah.

Speaker 13:16 Right? You ask them a load of questions.

Ali Abdaal 13:17 Yeah.

Speaker 13:18 And then you might say, "The first thing I wanna do is a diagnosis. I wanna do some sort of assessment."

Ali Abdaal 13:22 Yep.

Speaker 13:23 Right? So then you do an assessment, and then you say, "Okay, so I think I've got a treatment plan," which is just a path of least resistance-

Ali Abdaal 13:30 Yeah

Speaker 13:31 ... or a solution. "Oh, okay, what do I have to do?" "Well, you're gonna have to do some antibiotics, but you have to take these every day for seven days." "Okay, what else do you need to do?" "Well, you need to do this thing with this thing." "Okay, great. What else do you me to do?" "Well, you have to stop doing this." "Okay, great." So that's the treatment plan. And essentially, you are recommending a treatment plan. So in there, you're, you're talking to them, you're asking a lot of questions, you're doing an assessment, you're figuring out where are they now, where do they wanna be, what's in the way, what's stopping them, and then you're advising them about a treatment plan, and that's sales. That is sales. That's great sales.

Ali Abdaal 14:07 I guess when I think of sales, I think the combative, adversarial relationship that I go into a used car dealership with, thinking they're gonna try and get me to spend $10K.

Speaker 14:16 On a, on a serious note, have you actually ever had that?

Ali Abdaal 14:18 Uh-

Speaker 14:19 Like, have you actually ever had a used car salesman do that to you?

Ali Abdaal 14:23 No, I haven't. But I've, I-

Speaker 14:24 You're just imagining it

Ali Abdaal 14:24 ... I've, I've been, yeah, I've been imagining it and expecting it, like, and I've been to these dealerships with my mom, and she approaches it with that kind of, like-

Speaker 14:29 When you went and bought-

Ali Abdaal 14:30 Yeah

Speaker 14:30 ... your Apple stuff-

Ali Abdaal 14:31 Yeah

Speaker 14:31 ... and the Apple genius came up and asked you-

Ali Abdaal 14:34 Yeah

Speaker 14:34 ... like, "What are you gonna use it for?"

Ali Abdaal 14:35 Mm.

Speaker 14:36 And, you know, what... like, "What do you do?" and all that sort of stuff, "Here's what I recommend"-

Ali Abdaal 14:40 Yeah

Speaker 14:40 ... was it a positive or a negative experience?

Ali Abdaal 14:42 Uh, it was a good experience, yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 14:43 Right? Do you know they do 40 minutes of sales training every day?

Ali Abdaal 14:46 What? 40 minutes a day?

Speaker 14:47 40 minutes a day.

Ali Abdaal 14:48 Oh, wow.

Speaker 14:48 It's like Peloton. They have a central sales trainer who does video

Speaker 14:51 uploads to the iPads. They do 40 minutes of sales training every day.

Ali Abdaal 14:54 Oh, wow.

Speaker 14:55 They do a combination of product knowledge, and they do, uh, rapport building, objection handling, and they actually make suggestions as to things you can buy right now today. That's part of their process. They want you to walk out of the store with something.

Ali Abdaal 15:09 Hmm.

Speaker 15:09 But it's positive. They're professional, right? They're not pushy. They are making recommendations.

Ali Abdaal 15:14 Yeah.

Speaker 15:14 They're trying to solve your problem. If you go in there and say, "I'm a professional speaker, and I like to give talks," they're gonna go, "Okay, so you use a lot of Keynote. Yep. Okay. Did you know that this thing here, this is like a touch bar, and it actually shows you your slides as you're going through, and you can see your slides when you're speaking, and you can jump to slides from slide?" And it's like, "Oh, that, I would use that all the time." "Yeah, that's, that's a really good thing that you might wanna use." "I want that." "Great. Let's pack it... Let's box it up."

Ali Abdaal 15:40 Okay.

Speaker 15:41 So they're doing 40 minutes of sales training a day, right? And it's a positive experience. Everyone likes ge- geniuses.

Ali Abdaal 15:47 Yeah.

Speaker 15:48 But they're salespeople.

Ali Abdaal 15:50 Okay. So it sounds like to go from zero to 10K, all we need to do is come up with some kind of concept that we can charge ideally 2K for-

Speaker 15:58 Yep

Ali Abdaal 15:58 ... and find a way to land five clients a month through a sales process.

Speaker 16:02 Through sales process. I will say one more thing about sales. You need to learn how to do LAPS, leads, appointments, presentations, sales. So you just keep a little spreadsheet. Who are your leads? Who are the people that might buy? Can you book an appointment to speak with them, right? Actually get their, their commitment to just focus.

Ali Abdaal 16:19 Yeah.

Speaker 16:20 Can you present them with a solution? Can you actually do a presentation or, or an actual conversation? Um, and then can you ask them whether they would like to go ahead or not?

Ali Abdaal 16:29 Mm.

Speaker 16:29 And those are the four steps, lead, appointment, presentation, sale. So great salespeople do a rhythm of weekly LAPS. They do leads, appointments, presentation, sales, and they just have a, a... Good, good salesperson has a dashboard, digital or physical, and they just have a, a set of leads, appointments, presentations, and sales. So LAPS, LAPS, LAPS, LAPS, LAPS. And entrepreneurs need to do that as well when they're launching something.

Speaker 16:53 You know, getting to six figures is literally just like sell something to someone. Like, that's it. That's all you have to do to get to six figures. Like s- [laughs] one channel, one product, one avatar. Like, that's it. You don't have to do anything else. And then, you know, when you get... You wanna get to seven figures, then you just do that and then add the word consistently, which is you do... You know, you input, put the inputs in the system in a way that's consistent so that you get a consistent output. So it's whatever way you acquired those customers, whether it was reach outs, whether it was content, whether it was paid ads, whether it was affiliates, whether it was referrals, whatever the thing was that got you the customers, cool. Do that consistently and you'll be at a million. You know what I mean? Which is, which is still only 20K a week. It's not like a huge number. You know, one to three is usually, uh, increasing output of that, that main thing to a small degree, um, and really just like baseline efficiencies and building out the core team. So usually at that point, going one to three is getting the person out of delivery, um, to a large, you know, to a large extent, and usually they get their first kinda first follower, first like one or two, uh, I'm trying to think the right word to how to say this, um, competent individuals, uh, who are helping them out, and then, you know, a handful of frontline. And so it's usually like companies that si- you know, 3 million, they're like five to 15 employees, and so... And there's usually really only like two-ish good ones, um, and the rest are okay, right?

Ali Abdaal 18:10 [laughs]

Speaker 18:10 And so at that point, you know, going from three to 10 is usually where We can, it's the minimum level that we take people on, and it's not because there's something magical about three million. It's that three million typically checks two boxes. Box one is that they have product market fit at some level. People want something from them. Like, something they're selling is resonating enough that they can generate sales. And the second thing ... I guess there's three boxes. One is that. The second is that they have at least one reliable acquisition channel that they're currently doing, and the third is that they have a core team in place. So they've demonstrated product market fit, they have a reliable acquisition channel, just at least one, uh, and they have a core team in place, which may be relatively dysfunctional and have very few key players, but at least they have some semblance of structure. And so if they ha- if they meet those minimum requirements, then we can at least start from at le- some level of leverage, um, to start helping them grow.

Ali Abdaal 18:59 Okay, so I'd love to talk a lot about that, that initial bit that you sort of th- threw away with, like, oh, one product, one channel, one, uh, one avatar.

Speaker 19:08 One avatar, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 19:09 Um,

Ali Abdaal 19:10 so for a bit of context, a c- a couple of weeks ago, I, I happened to be on, on vacation on some Greek island, and I posted an Instagram Reel of like, "Hey, this is the creator life. I'm working on my-

Speaker 19:19 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 19:19 ... iPad and, and stuff." And there were a few comments-

Speaker 19:22 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 19:22 ... from people being like, "I'd love to live this sort of lifestyle, but I just don't know where to start." And that sort of, that idea of I'd love to be able to ... You know, if w- if we imagine 99.9% listening to, of people listening to this, if you told them they could make six figures a year doing what they love, they'd be like, "Phew," mind blown, would absolutely love that. So I wonder if we can kind of explore that zero to six figure jump, uh, or sort of process. Let's say someone has got a full-time job. Let's say they're working in, I don't know, consulting or some- something corporate, and they love the idea of I wanna make a living doing what I love. How, how, how would we break that down?

Speaker 19:55 And this is under the assumption that they hate doing what they're doing.

Ali Abdaal 19:57 Yes.

Speaker 19:58 I was like, 'cause I, I always like to be clear. I was like, I've got employees that make a million bucks a year plus, so, like, you can absolutely become filthy wealthy, and that's income, right? And so a lot of businesses that are at $10 million a year, the owner might only take a million bucks in income, depending on, you know, margins, et cetera. And so, like, a lot of, a lot of employees will wish for ... They see top line as income, which is just a very employee mindset. Um, they're like, "Oh, if I make six figures a year, I'll make six figures a year." It's like, well, if you really wanna make six figures a year, you'll probably make 500 grand a year, um, you know what I mean, revenue-wise, at least, if you don't wanna have just bought yourself another job, right? 'Cause so s- let's, let's talk through this transition. So if you're an employee, when you make the switch, you're still an employee. You're just an employee of a different business that you happen to own, and you are basically 100% of the expenses. And so the business itself actually makes no money. You, as the sole employee of that thing and the boss, um, gets to call your own shots, but you are still the employee, right? So you're wearing all the hats, et cetera. Um, and so it's relatively nuanced. You know what I mean? [laughs] Like, if you had a six-figure consulting job and then you start consulting on the side, for example, through your own LLC, you have the same job. You just got rid of the person who was giving you direction, and now you are responsible, right? The thing that most people have to do is they have to go get money, right? You have to go make money, and the way you do that is you sell stuff, right? And the way that you can even begin the conversation to sell stuff is that you have to have people who show interest in the thing, which means you have to make your products known, and we do that through advertising, right? And there's five ways to advertise, which I, which I just went over earlier. Um, and so it's like pick one of those five ways, start doing it on a consistent basis. Bring people in. What do you sell them? That's what the $100 Million Offers book is for, is like this is how you figure out what to sell. Um, and then you sell them the thing, and then after that you'll have some delivery. Now, usually if you have a consistent method of advertising and selling with a, with a what to sell from the offer, then you can start getting people to help you, uh, on the level of delivery you have, which comes down to breaking the delivery into chunks rather than holistically and saying how can I specialize the labor? 'Cause you trying to say, "I just need somebody to do what I do," is silly, right? You need to figure out how can somebody do... How can I get, how can I get five people to do 20% of what I'm doing and do it consistently, right? And then you can increase your advertising. Sales is a very high leverage thing in the beginning. If you spent all day selling, just you, you would have enough for five people to do work, right? And so then you would have a business, you know?

Ali Abdaal 22:12 So let's say someone's listening to this and they're thinking, "All right, cool. I know, I..."

Speaker 22:15 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 22:15 "Like, I've, I've read Alex's book. He, he, he's telling me I've, I've got a-

Speaker 22:18 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 22:18 ... I've got to sell a thing."

Speaker 22:19 Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 22:19 "I don't, I don't know what to sell. I don't know if I have any skills."

Speaker 22:21 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 22:21 "I don't, I don't, I don't know what I could possibly offer to the world."

Speaker 22:25 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 22:25 How do we, how do we break that down?

Speaker 22:27 Yeah, this is actually a topic that I, um, I cover more in the leads book that's coming out soon. Uh, soon relative terms, six months-ish. Um-

Ali Abdaal 22:34 Not that long [laughs]

Speaker 22:36 ... everybody knows something, all right? And so the idea is what do you have... Like, everyone has unique depth of knowledge in certain areas because you've been alive and your eyes and ears have taken inputs, period, right? And so I like to think of, of people starting... Like, so if you look at, are you familiar with Y Combinator?

Ali Abdaal 22:54 Yeah.

Speaker 22:55 Y C... Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 22:55 But, um-

Speaker 22:55 So-

Ali Abdaal 22:56 Yeah.

Speaker 22:56 Yeah. So Y Combinator is one of the most successful, you know, uh, I don't know if they're technically VC. They're st- you know, seed capital, startup, um, investors in Silicon Valley, and they have a very standard deal structure, and they have criteria for what they look for in companies, and one of the most important criteria that they look for is past experience. And so they're okay with somebody who's super young, et cetera, but they wanna, they want you to have experience in the industry 'cause there's just so much ignorance debt that you have to pay down if you literally know nothing about an industry. Like, there's just so much. Like, if your dad was a mechanic, you know so much about cars just by osmosis of being around a mechanic for 18 years. And so I like to think past jobs you've held, you will know stuff about that industry. Um, the jobs of your parents are things that you will know about that industry, and then you've got personal interests. And so I think that if I put those into three buckets, it's like parent stuff, past jobs of self, and current interests. And so it's like of those three things, which of those three buckets do you think you could help someone do a thing better? And so the idea is you wanna sell the most valuable thing, right? And so the most valuable thing is what is the problem that I can help somebody else

Speaker 24:08 solve that I could charge the most money for, or in reverse, that could make them the most money? Um, and then I will be able to charge a percentage of the money that I'm able to make somebody else in this thing. Now- That's in a B2B setting. In a B2C setting, it would be how valuable do people perceive, uh, the problem that they have as, right? Whether it's like I can teach music, tons of people wanna be able to learn how to... And if you're better, you know, 'cause you've had a side interest in that, awesome. Maybe you have a side interest because you're really good at editing the songs. Well, there's tons of musicians who would love- who hate that part and would love to have it. So it's like we all know how to do stuff, and all we have to do is package the thing that we're doing, and I think the big problem is that people expect that they're gonna have a perfect business. But if you look at the track record of all of... I can't think of an entrepreneur, besides Jeff Bezos, who's a freak of nature, whose first business [laughs] becomes the most valuable business in the world, is most people have a, a graveyard of failures behind them. And so the idea is you start not with the intent of saying, "This is gonna be the one thing I'm gonna do for the rest of my life," which is the fallacy that employees have, uh, that whatever they pick is gonna be the thing they're gonna do for the rest of their lives, when in reality it's I just have to do a thing that I'm good enough at that I can learn the game. And the thing is, once you start taking steps, the p- the next step becomes illuminated. You trying to think 100 steps into the future when you have no context is, is irrelevant because chaos is going to break your plan anyways. And so do what you know. Exchange, I like service businesses to start because they are the, in my opinion, the lowest risk to start, 'cause you're just... It's just your time, right? So-

Ali Abdaal 25:32 So service businesses meaning?

Speaker 25:34 Do stuff for money. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 25:36 Like mowing the lawn or cleaning windows or like-

Speaker 25:38 100%. Service

Ali Abdaal 25:39 Yeah.

Speaker 25:39 Clean houses.

Ali Abdaal 25:40 Yeah.

Speaker 25:40 Like, whatever. Like, all of those are just service businesses, right? And they're fine.

Ali Abdaal 25:42 Mm.

Speaker 25:43 And a lot of people think they need to have some novel idea to start a business when, l- I mean, the best, in my opinion, if you're, if you're getting into it, the best way to start a business is just look at what everyone else is doing and just try and do it better. Like, I mean, a- and there's obvious holes. Like, if you've, if you've gone to, if you've gotten your dry cleaning, it's like can I do this in half the time as this guy? If I do the lawn care, what are the things people hate about lawn care? Ah, they leave the, the, the trimmings around the edges. They're all, are all shitty. The person doesn't speak English that well. Like, well, cool, then I've got advantages, right? So it's like what are things that I already know how to do or I have past experience in? What things, because I have past experience, I know that other people struggle with that sucks about this thing? And then I will solve that specific problem, and it could also be a problem that other people solve too. You just try and do it a little bit better. Like, it's, it's just not rocket science. You know what I mean? And then you exchange, you start selling your time for money, so yes, you're still trading time for dollars. You don't need to re- read Rich Dad Poor Dad just yet, right? You're still trading time for dollars, right? But the point is that you're, you're, you're trading that time for money in order to learn not to earn. You need to earn in order to pay your, pay your rent, eat, et cetera. But the, the major thing you're doing is you're paying down ignorance debt. So the vast majority of your income is coming in the terms of, in, in the form of education rather than earning.

Ali Abdaal 26:54 Just a quick message from one of our sponsors, and then we'll get back to the show. So if you are making money online or saving up and wondering how to grow it, you might wanna check out Trading 212, who are very kindly sponsoring this episode. Trading 212 is an amazing app that I've been using for the last several years now that makes investing in stocks and shares and funds simple and commission-free. One of my favorite features that they've got is the Pies and Autoinvest features. Now, these tools make it easy to create a diversified portfolio that helps you automate your investing. With this feature, you can automatically allocate assets based on your chosen asset diversification. You can reinvest dividends seamlessly, and you can fully automate this process with scheduled deposits and monthly contributions. You can even automatically rebalance your portfolio. Now, this is a feature that's usually reserved for high-net-worth individuals using investment banks, but it's entirely free using Trading 212. You can create your own custom investment pie tailored to your goals, or you can choose from the Pie Library, which includes themes like dividend pies, growth pies, and tech pies. This is a great way to explore different strategies while maintaining full control of your investments. Despite common belief, you actually don't need a lot of money to start investing, and even high-priced stocks like Apple or Tesla, you can buy fractional shares of those stocks for just a small amount. And with these two features, fractional shares and zero commission investing, those let you build a diversified portfolio without worrying about fees eating into your returns. Speaking of fees, Trading 212 keeps costs super low. They charge just a 0.15 foreign exchange fee on currency conversions, which is the lowest in the industry. And with their new multi-currency support, you can hold and trade in up to 12 currencies, which saves you from unnecessary conversion fees when trading internationally. On top of that, Trading 212 now offers a debit card, which is completely free with no sneaky subscription plans, and it gives you 1.5% cashback on purchases until January 2025. The card seamlessly integrates with your Trading 212 invest account, so you can earn cashback while also compounding interest on uninvested cash. There are no currency conversion fees, and you'll always get the true interbank exchange rate for your transactions. If you'd like to get started with this, check out the link in the video description or in the show notes. And if you sign up using the promo code ALI, you'll get a free fractional share worth up to £100, which is free money, so you might as well claim it. And of course, a quick disclaimer, this episode is sponsored by Trading 212, but I am not a financial advisor, and this is not financial advice. When investing, your capital is, of course, at risk, and you might get back less than you invest. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and terms and fees apply. And you'll find all the details in the video description and on the Trading 212 website. Cool. So thanks, Trading 212, for sponsoring this episode, and let's get back to it. One of the things that I, um, I took away from your first book, Happy Sexy Millionaire, we can talk about the title of that in a moment.

Speaker 29:13 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 29:13 Um, but one of the things I really took away was the quitting framework.

Speaker 29:16 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 29:16 Um, I wonder if you can talk through that for people who might not have come across it.

Speaker 29:19 I feel like you know it better than me [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 29:20 [laughs]

Speaker 29:21 But I'll, but I'll, but I'll pop at it. So the reason I wrote the quitting framework is because I realized in hindsight that I was able to quit things e- easier than most people. Let's take one step back. Why is quitting important? In life, we glamorize starting, right? But my observation was that the advantage I've had, as I've said, was being able to quit fast and e- with peace and ease. And when you just think logically about starting something, right? Or saying, it's also the same with, like, saying yes and no to things. In order to start something in life, you actually first need to quit something else. So you can't start a new relationship unless you quit the last one. You, you're not gonna start a new startup unless you've quit the last one. Um, you're not gonna start a new career, career unless you've quit the last job. So quitting and starting should be held in equal regard, and there should be acknowledgement that they have a two-way relationship with one another. They're both the actions of winners. People say quitting is for losers, and they say, like, starting is for winners. In fact, quitting and starting are both for winners. The, and the, the most successful, intelligent people I've ever met have an unbelievable ability to quit things that make no objective sense.

Ali Abdaal 30:27 Mm.

Speaker 30:27 You're quitting that high-paying job to go and deal, to go and do card tricks at a table in Bristol, Darren Brown? You're quitting that amazing

Ali Abdaal 30:35 ... career as a lawyer, um, that your parents are now so proud of you, off to go and spend the next 10 years going up and down the country in pubs and cracking jokes, Jimmy Carr? It just, it objectively seems to make s- no sense, but subjectively they've r- reached a certain level of ease. So I, I could relate to myself in the same way in the regard of if you look at what I've quit from, like stop going to school 'cause I realized that that wasn't gonna, gonna be th- the p- the paper that I got at the end

Ali Abdaal 31:00 of the process wasn't gonna be enough, especially compared to my brother's. Quit university after that first lecture, quit my first startup after two years, quit my second one after about six years. Um, and lots of little quitting in and amongst there. Um, why was I able to quit with, with peace in s- at times when objectively you would think I was a mad man for doing so, when I was leaving so much apparently on the table? And so I tried to make a framework, a framework that other people could use to try and make their quitting decisions through. So at the start of the framework you ask yourself, "Am I thinking of quitting?" It's either, you know, yes or no. So if you are thinking of quitting, the framework begins. And I created these two subcategories which you can define for yourself, which I think is important to do. You're either thinking of quitting something because something's really hard, like it's difficult. And then w- which would be, you know, you're running a marathon and you're on the 23rd mile and you're doing it, you know, to raise money for a charity, but it's really, it's painful, it's difficult. It's, it's causing discomfort. Or you're thinking about quitting something because it, like, it sucks, and that's more of, like, an emotional, mental thing. It's just, it just doesn't feel good to you on an emotional, mental, psychological level. So let's go down the hard route. I'm thinking of quitting because it's hard. The first question you should then ask yourself is, is the hardship worth the rewards on offer? So you're running that marathon, you're raising money for that leukemia charity. You're on the 23rd mile, but it's worth it. The, the hardship is worth the reward at the end of it. If the hardship is worth it, don't quit. If the hardship isn't worth it, then you should quit, because the, the worst thing to do in life is to do something that is hard and meaningless.

Speaker 32:37 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 32:37 Like, those are, th- those are where all the problems happen. When I think about studies of the impact of not having autonomy in your work and working on a production line and not having meaning and purpose in what you're doing every day and how that impacts your health and disease rises in your body, that is the worst situation to be in. Let's go down the other side of the framework. By the way, do correct me, 'cause you know this framework better than I do now.

Speaker 33:00 No, you've got it spot on.

Ali Abdaal 33:00 Okay, good.

Speaker 33:01 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 33:01 We'll go down the other side of the framework. So you're thinking about quitting something because it sucks. You're in a relationship. Your husband, you know, the, the, the magic has just left the relationship. You're in a company and there's problems at work but you, you know, you haven't yet had the conversation with your boss. The next question becomes, do you believe you could make it not suck? Right. So in the context of a marriage, um, that might mean going to marriage counseling-

Speaker 33:26 Mm

Ali Abdaal 33:26 ... and having a difficult conversation and thrashing it out with your partner and un- you know, going through those issues. If the answer's no, it, so it sucks and you think you can't change that, quit. If you believe you could make it not s- not suck, the next question to ask yourself is, is the effort that it would take to make it not suck worth the rewards on offer? So, like, you look at how that marriage might look if you were to resolve it. You believe you can. Is it worth it?

Speaker 33:53 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 33:54 Is Dave worth it? Is the, is the reward on the other end of that process to fix it sucking worth it? If the answer's no, quit. You believe you could make it not s- not, not suck anymore, but the effort it would take is not worth the reward on offer, quit. If you believe you could make it not, not suck, and the effort it would take is worth the rewards on offer, stay and fight-

Speaker 34:16 Mm

Ali Abdaal 34:16 ... for it.

Speaker 34:17 Nice.

Ali Abdaal 34:17 And that's my simple framework, which is intentionally ambiguous.

Speaker 34:21 Productizing yourself. So, so turning your knowledge in whatever domain and using writing as the ability to scale yourself and productize yourself. So we did this with Ship 30 for 30, which is our course, right? So it's all the things that I and, uh, my business partner Dickie talk about in terms of writing, and then we scale it through an education course that's writing based. You know, you can also do that with e-books and you can do that with other assets. But the goal is instead of providing whatever you're doing as a service, so being like, "I'm going to be a ghostwriter for you," or, "I'm going to be a consultant for you," or a editor for you, right? It's all one-to-one. It's, you're, you're using time as your measure. Now you're just packaging it di- digitally, and that allows you to scale it. The, the beauty of productizing y- your service is that you, like we were talking about earlier, you're removing the constraint of, uh, being paid for time. That's the whole ... That's, like, the biggest challenge, is as long as you're being paid for your time and not the outcome, it's really hard to have some sort of exponential jump-

Ali Abdaal 35:29 Mm-hmm

Speaker 35:29 ... in income.

Ali Abdaal 35:30 Mm.

Speaker 35:31 You need to divorce the two.

Ali Abdaal 35:32 Yeah. But I guess, like, you know, it's, it's very useful to start out being paid for your time.

Speaker 35:36 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 35:36 'Cause I think another mistake people make is jumping to, "Let me create a course," and it's like, uh, no one's gonna buy it. Like [laughs]

Speaker 35:42 And that's, that's why one of the things that I often encourage is start by providing a service. So it's like start for free.

Ali Abdaal 35:50 Yeah.

Speaker 35:50 Prove you can do it. When you can do it, people will pay you. Trust that that will happen and they'll pay you well for it, and then use the paid work to learn what questions do people have, what problems are they facing, what are your unique frameworks for solving those problems, right? Once you get paid to learn all of those things, then when you go to productize yourself, you a- you're not sitting in a room going, "Well, how do I magically come up with all these answers," right? You already got paid to do it. So now you're just transforming your service into a digital product. And the whole model for this, going back to free work, is give away 99% of what you know for free, right? What ... The mistake everyone makes is they go, "I'm gonna productize myself, and before I tell you anything you have to pay for it." Well, it's the same mistake as providing a service, right? You don't walk up to someone and go, "Hey, before you know what I can do, here's how much it costs." They're like, "Get out of here." But if you start by going, "Here's everything. Here's, here's, here's how to think about it. Here's how to solve the problems. Here's the interesting frameworks to frames the, frame the solutions. Here's everything you need to know," the person then goes, "Well, if all the free stuff was so great, then what's in the paid stuff?" Right? And what most people don't realize is most courses, most books, most, uh, like, paid membership communities, all of that, you aren't really buying information. What you're buying is implementation. You're buying accountability. You're buying access to the person that you want to learn from. So you can use all the information in your course as your free content. It's just when someone pays, they're not buying just the information, right? It's that you packaged it. You're saving them time. You're giving them access to you. You're answering their questions. That's what someone's paying for.

Ali Abdaal 37:39 All right, so that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching. Uh, do hit the subscribe button if you aren't already, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.