Josh Kaufman: Why an MBA never beats five fundamentals

1. 0:00 – 2:00

   Intro

   1. JKJosh Kaufman0:00

      So every business, from the smallest startup to the largest corporation in the world, has five fundamental parts. If you want to create a business or interviewing for your first job, or interviewing for your first big promotion, understanding this is a superpower. It's so exciting and fun.

   2. NANarrator0:18

      Josh Kaufman, the world famous business expert, entrepreneur, and best-selling author.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett0:23

      Renowned for his practical approach to mastering business, productivity, and rapid skill acquisition.

   4. JKJosh Kaufman0:30

      This is the foundation of every business plan that has or ever will exist. So step one is value creation. Find those important unmet needs and then focus on meeting those. Is this enough of a problem for you to pay money to solve it?

   5. SBSteven Bartlett0:45

      How do you find out if there's a big enough market for your idea?

   6. JKJosh Kaufman0:48

      The easiest, best thing to do is just-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett0:50

      Step two then.

   8. JKJosh Kaufman0:51

      Marketing. And humans have five drives: the drive to acquire, to bond, to learn, to feel, to defend. And the more drives that you hook into, the more attractive the business offer is going to be.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett1:03

      What is step three?

   10. JKJosh Kaufman1:04

       The third part of every business is- The fourth part is particularly important, which is- And the fifth part is what a lot of people struggle with, but I'm here to help you. So the fifth part is-

   11. SBSteven Bartlett1:15

       Josh, the narrative out in the market is you have to do 10,000 hours to learn anything. You're telling me it's actually 20 hours is the key.

   12. JKJosh Kaufman1:21

       Yes, or 40 minutes a day for about a month.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett1:23

       So how do I do that then?

   14. JKJosh Kaufman1:25

       The best way to approach this is to start with- That's the secret.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett1:31

       Congratulations, Diary of a CEO gang. We've made some progress. 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%. Our goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode.

2. 2:00 – 4:32

   Why Did You Write The Personal MBA

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:00

      Josh, why? Why, why did you write a book called The Personal MBA? It's a world-class business book that's sold almost a million copies so far. It's a real iconic book in the category. But why? Why did you feel compelled to write that book? Because I can tell by the thickness of it, it took you a long time.

   2. JKJosh Kaufman2:18

      It did, yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:18

      So there must have been some sort of personal motivation that is pretty strong to write that book.

   4. JKJosh Kaufman2:25

      Sure. Uh, uh, a couple of things. Um, curiosity and persistence, and I was solving my own problem. Um, so one of the things that, that happened is right after school I got a job at a big company, and I was working with a lot of people who had just graduated from top 15 business programs. Um, I got this job straight out of undergrad. I had no idea what I was doing, and I really wanted to learn, like, what, what are, what are we doing here? What is, what is business? How does it work? What's important to know? What, what's not important to know? And so one of the things that I tried to do with The Personal MBA, um, and, and one of the, the reasons, like how the project got started, was I figured that there was, there was a book written by a business school professor in the 1950s or something. And I just needed to go out and find that book and read that book. And then I would understand the fundamentals, then I would understand the basics of, of what it is that, that we're all doing here. And I looked, and I looked, and I read, and I read, and I, I couldn't find it. And so at a certain point that I had essentially spent months reading, just going through category after category, just trying to understand for myself what businesses are, how businesses work. And at a certain point, I realized, like, this is important to me, and there's something that should exist in the world that for some reason doesn't exist in the world, and I think I need to be the person to make that, to do that. And so that's when The Personal MBA bec- w- went from just this crazy side project that I, that I did post-undergrad into essentially a second full-time, time job, reading and research and, and trying to, to decide for myself what are the critical parts of business? How do businesses work? How do they function? And then I decided to put that in a form that other people could read and benefit from as

3. 4:32 – 10:30

   What Is An MBA?

   1. JKJosh Kaufman4:32

      well.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett4:32

      What is an MBA?

   3. JKJosh Kaufman4:34

      Masters of Business Administration's, big, big degree. Um, actually one of the most economically, uh, successful academic degrees that exists. Um, over the past several decades, uh, growth in, uh, business masters programs worldwide has, has just exploded. And so for better or worse, when adults decide that they're interested in business, the first thing they do is go to Google or Amazon and they type in the letters MBA, and they start looking for graduate business school, uh, school programs, and I think that's a mistake. I think there's, there's a reason that people want to learn business. There's a reason that people, uh, find this area of, of knowledge useful. And I don't necessarily think academia is the, the place to start. I think there's an enormous amount of business knowledge and skill that you can develop on your own, um, by understanding the most important concepts around what businesses are and how they work and using them in your day-to-day life, using it in the career that you already have, using it to start something new on your own. And just a, a, a few very simple, straightforward ideas go a very long way. And so my goal in writing The Personal MBA was to...... explain business to someone who has no knowledge, no experience, no idea what's going on, start from absolute square zero, and explain all of the different parts of a business, how they work, how they interrelate to each other. And so you can take that knowledge and do good work, whatever it is that, that you do in your life or in your career.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett6:22

      When you say do good work-

   5. JKJosh Kaufman6:24

      Sure.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett6:24

      We're talking about an outcome there. What kind of outcomes do you think... If someone's just clicked on this conversation now, and w- you know, with the knowledge that we're gonna talk about this-

   7. JKJosh Kaufman6:32

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett6:32

      ... as many, as well as other things, what do you think the outcome for them could be if they got access to the information that you put in this book, The Personal MBA, but also from listening to this conversation?

   9. JKJosh Kaufman6:43

      Sure. Uh, so many of, of the readers of The Personal MBA over the years, um, are early career professionals who are just getting started in their career in some way, shape, or form. And I can't tell you the number of times that, that I've heard from someone who's like, "I'm interviewing for my first job," or, "I am interviewing for my first big promotion." Um, I actually have a friend who was, who was in this position, uh, a couple months ago. She's like, "I'm a skilled professional. I've been working for a while. There's an opportunity to move into management here. And part of that interview is going to be, they're going to ask me, like, how, how do we improve the business that we're in?" She's like, "I'm trained as an engineer. I don't know about any of this business stuff." And so there's a very simple way of understanding what a business is, what a business does, the primary parts that every single business has, and, and how those processes interrelate. And what that knowledge gets you is the ability to take a look at any existing business and understand it in a very deep and fundamental way. So you can take a complex organization, you can break it down into parts that are very simple, straightforward, easy to understand. And then you can take that knowledge to ask a series of very useful questions. How is this business creating value? How do they attract the attention of people who might want or need what this business provides? How do they convince people to pull out their wallet or checkbook or credit card, um, and, and give the business money? How does the business deliver the value that it, it's promising to its paying customers? And then how is the business bringing in money? How's the business spending money? And A, is it bringing in more than it's spending? 'Cause if not, there's a problem. Um, and more importantly, is it enough? Is it enough to make all of the time and energy and effort that's being put into the business by the owner and the employees worthwhile? And that's the essence of finance. And so understanding business in this very systematic way is a superpower. It allows you to take a look at anything, like the businesses that are happening in the world all around us, it helps you understand them. If you want to create a business, this is the foundation of every business plan that has or ever will exist because each of these parts is universal, essential, and fundamental. You have to answer these questions. And so by having this framework in your head, um, going d- back to my friend earlier, her prep for the interview was very simple. We had a 15-minute conversation about what those things might look like. She went away and did her prep, and she went into the interview the next day, and she was offered the job. And one of the things that comes out of having this deep understanding of business, even for potentially very young or very junior people who are just getting started, understanding these things, being able to ask these questions, being able to know what's important and what's not, and think like an owner or an operator of the business is what the owners and operators and executives and managers are looking for in terms of people to hire, people to recruit, or people to start companies. And so the more you understand how all of this works at a deeply fundamental level, the more opportunities you're going to have. I think it's, I think it's a skill that's essential for every person to, to know and, and be conversant.

4. 10:30 – 14:19

   Should You Do A MBA?

   1. JKJosh Kaufman10:30

   2. SBSteven Bartlett10:30

      I think from the stats you said about how the desire to sign up to a academic MBA have increased, most people would agree.

   3. JKJosh Kaufman10:39

      Sure.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett10:40

      Because, you know, that's a reflection of demand in the market.

   5. JKJosh Kaufman10:43

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett10:43

      You're saying more and more people are going to university and trying to do a business course. Are they being scammed? Because if you think about the promise they're signing up to, even through the lens that you've just described, they're being marketed something.

   7. JKJosh Kaufman10:58

      Sure.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett10:59

      Is that institution delivering the value that they're being marketed, i.e., I guess the, the promise is that you'll have a better career, you'll earn more money if I go to university and do a business degree. Is that being delivered?

   9. JKJosh Kaufman11:12

      The answer to that is it depends, and the it depends is it depends on what you want for yourself and your life. And so, um, approximately two thirds of business school graduates, um, go into either management consulting or investment banking. Um, the remainder of them, the vast majority, go into working for extremely large companies. And so if you want your life to look like that, then the promise that is, is very often delivered but- with business- business school programs is you're essentially buying yourself a very expensive interview to have an opportunity at a company or a firm or an industry where that is the primary mode of, of, um, of getting into it. Now...The price of that interview can be very, very steep. And so, um, the, the top 10 business schools, um, as we're talking right now, charge anywhere between $240 and $250,000 for a two-year program. That's an enormous amount of money, and that's usually financed with debt. And so if you don't have a, a, for example, if you're not working for a company that is willing to sponsor your way through and pay the tuition costs, most of these degrees are, are financed with debt, and that debt is going to be with you regardless of whether or not you like your career, regardless of, uh, uh, of the, the economic situation that you, you graduate into, regardless or, uh, whether or not you get a job at, at the end of it. So, you're taking on an enormous obli- an enormous obligation, spending a lot of money, borrowing a lot of money with a very unsure outcome at the end.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett13:05

       Is there any correlation between getting an MBA and long-term career success?

   11. JKJosh Kaufman13:09

       Uh, it, it, it's funny. Uh, this has been asked by very many people and the answer is always no. Um, so my, my two favorite studies here, um, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Christina Fang at, uh, Stanford University at the time, this was the early 2000s, business school professors did a study of do business school programs work? Because if they did, you would expect to see more successful executives, professionals having business school degrees. And what they found is no, it makes absolutely no difference. And my, my favorite quote, um, was, was by the lead author, um, Jeffrey Pfeffer, was like, "If you are good enough to get in, you are good enough to do well regardless." It's a credentialing system. It's a s- it's a pre-selection. Um, but really, like, the people who make things happen in business are people, individuals with skills and abilities and the abil- the, the, the curiosity and the drive to, to make things happen. You don't necessarily get that from having three letters after the end of your name.

5. 14:19 – 16:57

   How Difficult Is Starting And Running A Business?

   1. JKJosh Kaufman14:19

   2. SBSteven Bartlett14:19

      Th- there's gonna be so many people that are listening that wanna start their own businesses. They're probably currently in a corporate job right now, and they're thinking, "Gosh, I have this idea. I'd love to give it a go," but something is holding them in place. And from reading your book, it's, it's the first thing that tends to hold people in place, is just that belief that business is complicated.

   3. JKJosh Kaufman14:36

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett14:37

      Um, from everything you've come to learn and all the testimonials you've had, do you agree with that belief that business is complicated and/or how difficult do you think it is for the average person with an idea to go from working in a job to earning, I don't know, $10,000 a month running their own business? Do you think that's achievable for most people?

   5. JKJosh Kaufman14:55

      I think it is achievable for most people. Yeah. And I, I think, um, I think business is complex in the sense of there are many moving parts. It's not just one thing. There are interrelatednesses that you need to understand. It's not complicated in the sense of the most important ideas, principles, things to do, things to understand are not all that difficult when it gets, gets down to it. Um, I think in business in general, um, somewhat for status-related reasons, but business people like to feel fancy and complicated and, and sometimes you signal status or sophistication by making things sound really big or difficult or, or complex. I think that's fundamentally not the case for business. Most of the ideas that we deal with are common sense and simple arithmetic. And so, we do need to grapple with the complexities of the world because, uh, as we were talking earlier, the bus- every business has these five major interrelated parts. We need to understand how those work. Um, businesses are created by people for the benefit of other people, and so we need to understand human psychology, both our psychology and the s- the psychology of the people we inter- uh, interact with, relate to, whether that's customers or employees, contractors, the other people in our world. And then there are certain parts about how the world works, system and process, how things tend to interact with each other, that's very valuable and important to know. Um, but again, complex, not complicated. And I think there's, there's a lot of, for the, for the person who wants to start a new business, a lot of it comes down to answering those fundamental questions. How are you going to create value that someone else in the world wants or needs?

6. 16:57 – 19:29

   First Steps To Setting Up A Business

   1. JKJosh Kaufman16:57

   2. SBSteven Bartlett16:57

      Okay, so let's start y- uh, so typically, when I do these podcasts, I, I try and navigate the journey, right? I try and figure out where to start. But this is gonna be the first time I actually ask you. If I am that person who has an idea in my head, um, or maybe I've got, you know, I'm off to the races with an idea. I've got a, I don't know, I'm gonna launch a business that sells candles.

   3. JKJosh Kaufman17:17

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett17:18

      Okay?

   5. JKJosh Kaufman17:18

      Sure.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett17:19

      Uh, I think I can make candles that smell amazing. So, what's the first of those sort of levers or principles I need to think about when I'm, when I'm d- designing my business, thinking about my business, you know, thinking about making a business plan? What is step one in that journey?

   7. JKJosh Kaufman17:34

      Yeah. Step one is, is the value creation component, which is, it, it sounds like in, in this particular example, the candles are the, the type of value that, that would be created. And then the, the relevant question there is, why do people buy candles? What are they looking for? When's- when somebody goes, goes out and they say, "You know what? I would really like to have a candle right now," what do they want? What do they need?

   8. SBSteven Bartlett18:01

      They want-

   9. JKJosh Kaufman18:01

      What are they looking for?

   10. SBSteven Bartlett18:03

       They want them to smell nice.

   11. JKJosh Kaufman18:04

       Exact- uh, okay, so perfect.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett18:06

       They want them to look nice.

   13. JKJosh Kaufman18:07

       Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett18:08

       Um, they want them to not be a rip-off, so they want them to be cheap-

   15. JKJosh Kaufman18:12

       Uh-huh.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett18:12

       ... is me guessing. They want them to l- last a long time, I guess.

   17. JKJosh Kaufman18:17

       Sure, yep.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett18:18

       Last a long time.

   19. JKJosh Kaufman18:19

       Okay. And then th- so this is a, a really interesting thing. A lot of the things around value creation comes, come down to making trade-offs between competing priorities. And so the perfect product or the perfect offering would deliver every single thing that the, the customer would like, and it would be free.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett18:39

       Yeah. (laughs)

   21. JKJosh Kaufman18:39

       And so a lot of the, the early stage value creation process is like, okay, we've identified some, some areas, like, things that people are looking for, things that people want. Can you understand each of those things in detail around, for example, what makes a really good candle scent? What makes a candle last longer? What allows candle manufacturing at, at a relatively inexpensive rate? All of those things. And then most successful businesses pick one or two of those things to focus on and then turn that dial all the way up to 9, 10, 11. And so, for example, you might be able to make the best smelling, longest lasting candle using some complex chemistry manufacturing process, whatever.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett19:24

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JKJosh Kaufman19:25

       That might be very expensive to do. So the price of the candle might be higher than you,

7. 19:29 – 27:49

   Loads Of Business Are Finding Problems To Solve

   1. JKJosh Kaufman19:29

      than you otherwise, uh, would like it to be. Um, or you could go the other direction. Let's make the cheapest, most ubiquitous candles ever, but then let's focus on the distribution end of things to have candles in more places. And so you start, um... This was something that, that I learned how to do very early in, in, in my career. I worked for a consumer goods manufacturer, big company called Procter and Gamble.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett19:54

      Who make everything, by the way, if people don't know what Procter-

   3. JKJosh Kaufman19:56

      Everything.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett19:57

      They literally... There's probably 10 things in this room that Procter and Gamble made.

   5. JKJosh Kaufman20:00

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett20:01

      (laughs)

   7. JKJosh Kaufman20:01

      Toothpaste, laundry detergent, you know, all of that. I, I worked on the home side, and one of the things that I took away was, uh, every once in a while you'll, you'll read in like the, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, whatever, about the, the crazy lengths that consumer goods researchers will, will go to to figure out how people use, like, paper towels or something like that. I got to be one of those people for a couple years, and it was fascinating. I've watched so many people clean their kitchens, and there's, there's a certain amount of, like, the value creation process that, that is psychology and anthropology, of just going out into the world with your eyes wide open, noticing what people do, asking questions, noticing subtle things that they might not even pick, pick up on. And then if you do more formal research, you can as- start asking people to make explicit trade-offs between options. And so if you could have a candle that lasted a long time versus had the most amazing scent throw ever, which one would you pick? And you can start to, to kind of navigate the space of possible solutions in that particular category by talking to people who buy candles, 'cause you don't wanna ask a random person on the street. You wanna talk to people who actually purchase the things that, that, uh, that you're creating. But by paying attention and by asking questions and starting to f- to get a feel for how the people who are making these buying decisions actually navigate the process of narrowing down options to make a decision, that's where you find some- sometimes the very tiny things that make an enormous difference.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett21:50

      That's where you find the places to innovate, right?

   9. JKJosh Kaufman21:53

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett21:53

       But people don't know what they want, right? So you gotta be careful, 'cause if you give a people a survey on candles-

   11. JKJosh Kaufman21:58

       Exactly.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett21:59

       ... they, they might tell you something, but they might buy... You know, there's this sort of d- detachment between what we think we want and how we spend our money-

   13. JKJosh Kaufman22:07

       Totally.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett22:08

       ... which can cause p- People, you know, 'cause I'm on Dragon's Den so people... I'm halfway through filming at the moment, so-

   15. JKJosh Kaufman22:13

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett22:13

       ... I've had 50 pitches so far, and one of the most popular phrases I hear as a dragon on Dragon's Den, which is the, like Shark Tank in the US and around the world, is, "I have this idea. My friends and my mum, my mum have told me it's great and they'd, they'd definitely buy one, and here it is." And I go-

   17. JKJosh Kaufman22:29

       Yep.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett22:29

       ... "That means fucking nothing." (laughs)

   19. JKJosh Kaufman22:30

       It, it means absolutely nothing. Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett22:33

       And a lot of people pursue ideas, they quit their career, they spend years pursuing this thing that their seven best friends and their mum said they would buy. And they, you know, they gave it to their f- their friend and their mum, and their friend and mum used it and said they liked it.

   21. JKJosh Kaufman22:46

       Yeah. The best way to get around that, ask for early pre-orders. Ask people to lay down money on the idea. So, um, this, uh, I mean, this is part of how Kickstarter started, right? Here's an idea, here's a concept, here's exactly what you're going to get. Please enter your credit card details, because it's that act, it's the raising your hand, wallet, checkbook, credit card, and saying, "Yes, I'll take one." That's the signal that you're looking for, for. And that can be everything from, you know, Kickstarter on the consumer side to letters of intent on, on the, the mid to large size company side. Yes, if you build this software system, we will sign up for an engagement at X price for X term. Um, so finding that buy- buying signal is really important. And then going back to, to your comment earlier about, um, noticing the, the subtle things, people's behavior says a lot more than people's words. And so if you, if there's a conflict between what people are saying and what people are doing, focus on what they're doing all the time. Um, one of my favorite, uh, stories coming out of the, the, um, consumer research department at, at Procter and Gamble was, there was a researcher in, in a, a lady's home one afternoon, and they were just watching her do her laundry.And this was, this was back in the days of powdered laundry detergent. So, you know, you have the box of powder, you have the scoop, put it in. And so the, uh, the lady turned on her, her washer and just stood there for like 15, 20 seconds, doing nothing, just like waiting. And the researcher's just watching, and then at a certain point, she's like, "What are, what are you doing?" She's like, "Oh, I'm, I'm waiting for the tub to fill up." "Well, why are you doing that?" It's like, well, if there's not water in the bottom when I put the powdered laundry detergent in, it's not, it's not going to dissolve properly. So you've got to wait for the tub to fill up a little bit, and then, then you put the powder in, and you swish it around the, the bottom of the basin with your hand so it dissolves all the way, and then you put the clothes in. And so the researcher took this back to the, um, to the research department, and all the chemists are just like, "This is dumb. We have science, we have data that says, no, our, our detergent dissolves completely. This is not a... This is a non-issue." And the consumer researchers are like, "No, this is a psychological need. There's a bit of reassurance here that people don't have. How can we give that to them?" And the answer to that was the invention of liquid laundry detergent, which is now a multi-billion dollar a year product category, and it didn't come from a physical need. It came from an unmet psychological need. And I just love that because I remember growing up, um, watching my grandmother do laundry, and she did the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. And it's sometimes those subtle things. So, for example, going back to our candles, um, one of the things that, uh, just by pure coincidence I was involved in, uh, when I, when I worked at P&G, uh, was scent research. So the scent of a cleaning product, like there's, there's a lot of psychology, there's a lot of science, um, that, that goes into that. And there's a difference in how something smells, for example, when you take a cap off a bottle of something and sniff it, it smells different than if you, for example, a cleaning product, you pour it into a bucket and dilute it with water and you mop your floor. And so those things make an enormous difference, like how is the product going to be used? And in the case of candles, one of the things that people pay very close attention to is the smell of a candle while it's burning, and the smell of a candle when it's not burning. And there's a whole category of candle purchasers who will buy a candle based on what's called cold throw. How much does it smell when it's just sitting on the middle of your table, not burning, not doing anything? And so those are the, the little bits. Like, if you pay close enough attention, if you focus on the right things, the, the, the subtle things that people are either saying or not saying, you can find those very important unmet needs and then focus on, on meeting those. And that's, that's the making of, of a, a product or an offer that, that has legs to

8. 27:49 – 35:47

   How To Give Value To The End Consumer

   1. JKJosh Kaufman27:49

      it.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett27:49

      So interesting, because, um, we all walk around, y- that thing you were saying about the powder laundry detergent-

   3. JKJosh Kaufman27:55

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett27:56

      That was 100% me.

   5. JKJosh Kaufman27:57

      (laughs)

   6. SBSteven Bartlett27:57

      I was too young to be messing around with the washing machine-

   7. JKJosh Kaufman27:59

      Sure.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett27:59

      ... but whenever I had like my shot and my parents were out, I'd pour all the powder in-

   9. JKJosh Kaufman28:03

      Uh-huh.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett28:03

       ... into the little tray, and then I would like swish it around with my finger. I'd get water from the sink above and pour it in there to try and dissolve the powder with my finger.

   11. JKJosh Kaufman28:11

       Yep.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett28:11

       So I was doing that as well. And I was thinking as you were, you, you were saying that, you know, we all walk around with the same kind of set of psychological biases. So if we assume that we can truly understand e- how other people are behaving when we are other people-

   13. JKJosh Kaufman28:30

       Sure.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett28:30

       ... when we are them as well, when we have the same sort of psychology, assuming that we can guess that, is quite dumb, because none of us would have ever guessed what you just said about the laundry detergent thing.

   15. JKJosh Kaufman28:41

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett28:41

       None of us would have ever sat in a boardroom and figured that out. We had to go out into the world and almost become like a fly on the wall or take a bird's eye view on how we as humans are behaving to spot that opportunity.

   17. JKJosh Kaufman28:53

       Right.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett28:53

       And, and I was thinking, you know, there's so many people that ha- are, maybe have business ideas now, um, or are thinking of a business idea, but, but there's just, just gaping opportunity in observing the world objectively and seeing how people are doing what they're doing and why they're doing what they're doing. Um, I always wondered that. I think, you know, if you're trying to think of a new business idea, should you sit down with a piece of paper and sketch out the problems that you've had in your life? Should you just b- start to become more aware of your day-to-day life and then make notes in your journal? Or is there another way to find that idea?

   19. JKJosh Kaufman29:26

       Yes, start there, for sure.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett29:28

       Yeah.

   21. JKJosh Kaufman29:29

       And then go out into the world with your eyes open, just looking for problems, annoyances, frictions, um, things that are just a little bit annoying or suboptimal in some way. I mean, I, I think kind of a general, a general question, like we're not, humanity is not running out of problems to solve. The, there are millions of opportunities to make someone's life a little bit more pleasant, a little bit more secure, a little bit more interesting, a little bit more fun. And so I think there's, there's a lot of magic to be had in just going out into the world and having experiences in the world with other people, and just noticing in a way that you've never noticed before, of, oh, there's something there that's, that's a little bit higher friction than it otherwise could be. I mean, this, this was kind of the, the genesis of, um...... like Amazon, Amazon Prime. How can we make it as easy as possible for someone to click a button and something magically arrives on your, your doorstep within 24 to 48 hours? How can we make just, just this opportunity a little bit more fun or different or interesting? Um, this is, this is where like, um, over the past 20 years in consumer goods, packaging design has come a- come a long way. Because if you can grab someone's attention and give them a little bit of a pleasant experience while they're, they're walking around shopping, that's a good thing. It, it moves an enormous amount of product, and it's something that you have to plan for from the very beginning stages, but it makes a huge difference.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett31:02

       It's so interesting, 'cause I was just thinking, as you were saying that, I was thinking, what is an annoyance or a frustration that I've just, I just live with that I've kind of just assumed is the way of the world, and it's just the way it is? And one sprung to mind-

   23. JKJosh Kaufman31:16

       Yeah, what is it?

   24. SBSteven Bartlett31:16

       ... that's very close to home in every sense of the word. We've been doing this podcast a long time, couple of years now, three, four years now, and every single time before we start the podcast, Jack will walk in and Jack will say to the guests, "Please don't bang on the table, because if you bang on the table it comes through the mic." (laughs) We've been saying it for years. We haven't figured out how to solve the problem yet. So if there's anybody out there... But I was thinking, do you know what?

   25. JKJosh Kaufman31:38

       (laughs)

   26. SBSteven Bartlett31:38

       What an entrepreneur would do, (laughs) um, if there was any in this fucking room, um, (laughs) we would, we would make our own mic. We would solve the problem. We could, we could probably solve... But we kinda just assume that someone else will solve it, or it's just the way of the world. And I say this because we could probably fix this. We've been very busy, but we could probably made a new mic with a new base that suspends the mic so the-

   27. JKJosh Kaufman32:01

       Mm-hmm.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett32:01

       ... vibrations don't go through, but I say this because everybody in their lives has those frustrations.

   29. JKJosh Kaufman32:06

       Absolutely.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett32:06

       Things they're just de- living with. And if they're kind of assuming that someone else is gonna solve it or it's just the way the world is.
9. 35:47 – 39:11

   How Do You Find Out If Your Idea Is Good?

   1. JKJosh Kaufman35:47

   2. SBSteven Bartlett35:47

      And this is the early stages-

   3. JKJosh Kaufman35:49

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett35:49

      ... of figuring out how to give value to the end consumer. This is the sort of iterative, experimental, failure-ridden process-

   5. JKJosh Kaufman35:57

      Yes.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett35:57

      ... which everyone has to go through. And I think this is important to highlight, because what often will happen is people will take the first pop at it, I know we've been doing, we've been taking many pops, but just for the sake of this conversation.

   7. JKJosh Kaufman36:10

      Sure.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett36:10

      They'll take the first pop at it, it won't work, then they'll concede.

   9. JKJosh Kaufman36:14

      Uh-huh. Yup. When it's... And a l- a lot of it comes down to how big is this problem? How urgent is it? How many people need something like this? Um, so this is where you get into, like, the, you know-... stand- this, this standard supply and demand sort of economic consideration. Is this a need that only you have, or is this a need that many, many people have? And how, how big of a need is this? Is this something that, for example, um, high-profile podcasters will pay thousands of dollars to solve, or is this something that affects only a subsegment of people and is not valuable enough to, to bother with or to invest a lot of time and energy researching, finding a, a solution for?

   10. SBSteven Bartlett36:59

       How do we- how do you find out if there's a big enough market for your idea?

   11. JKJosh Kaufman37:02

       That's where you, that's where you talk to people. And that's, that's the- this is where value creation and marketing tend to intersect. And so it's, can you identify people out in the world who have a very similar problem, set of things that they're think- thinking about, set of questions that they're trying to answer? And the more of those people you can identify and the more urgent and pressing the need is, um, that's the first thing that you need to, to look for in terms of ide- of identifying viable markets.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett37:35

       So they tell me that they want it.

   13. JKJosh Kaufman37:36

       Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett37:37

       I go out there, I speak to people, they all tell me that they want it.

   15. JKJosh Kaufman37:39

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett37:39

       But that's not enough, right?

   17. JKJosh Kaufman37:41

       Ask them to place a pre-order. That, that's, that's the step two.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett37:45

       Ah, okay.

   19. JKJosh Kaufman37:46

       So it's, it's not... The question isn't do you want it. Is, it's, is this enough of a problem for you to pay money to solve it? Um, there's a, a guy, Des Traynor, who, who founded Intercom, um, has a, has a saying I just love. He's like, "Show me a credit card that has been swiped to solve this problem, and I will concede that the problem is real." And so you're really looking for, like, are people sp- is this big enough, important enough? Are people spending money to solve this particular need? If so, that's a really great sign you're on the right track.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett38:26

       Okay, so what I'm gonna do then is we're gonna, before we spend a lot of money-

   21. JKJosh Kaufman38:31

       Uh-huh.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett38:31

       ... in building out this new microphone system, we're gonna put up a waiting list for other podcasters. We're gonna see how many of them swipe to pre-order it.

   23. JKJosh Kaufman38:38

       Yep.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett38:38

       And then if we get, I don't know, a couple of hundred, a couple of thousand, pr- probably a couple of hundred, couple of hundred swipes w- with their credit cards to pre-order this thing, even though we haven't built it yet-

   25. JKJosh Kaufman38:48

       Mm-hmm.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett38:49

       ... then we're gonna invest in building it.

   27. JKJosh Kaufman38:50

       Yep.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett38:51

       Does that make sense?

   29. JKJosh Kaufman38:51

       It does. And then you ma- do a short run to mitigate your risk first.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett38:55

       Okay.
10. 39:11 – 40:49

    This Is The Wrong Approach When Starting A Business

    1. JKJosh Kaufman39:11

    2. SBSteven Bartlett39:11

       'Cause what's happening a lot out there with aspiring entrepreneurs-

    3. JKJosh Kaufman39:14

       Mm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett39:14

       ... is they're spending two to three years building their company, and it's all leading up to this launch day where everything's riding on this big launch day. They've raised, I don't know, $70,000 for their whatever.

    5. JKJosh Kaufman39:26

       Sure.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett39:27

       Why is that the wrong approach to take?

    7. JKJosh Kaufman39:30

       (sighs) I think there's a difference between doing business and playing business. It's like people who get really, really excited of, "I'm gonna start a company, and so the first thing I need to do is pick a logo and buy my business cards." Like, that's the signaling parts of business. It's playing a role, where the actual doing of the business is the value creation, marketing, sales, value delivery, finance. And so the more you can skip all the early stuff, get to the core of what is going to make the business succeed or fail, figure that out as quickly as possible, and then get on with it, then you're going to have more than enough time and money to, to have fancy business cards and, like, do, do a- do that bit. But yeah, it, it really is, like, at the idea validation stage, it's how can you ask enough people who might be in the market to spend money to solve this particular problem? How can you get something valuable in front of them as quickly as possible? What would that look like? And how can you do that, particularly early on if you don't have a lot of funding, in a way that minimizes time and fan- finance? Because the worst possible, uh, way to go about things is raise millions of dollars of venture capital and build up, buil- up this whole thing only to have no one buy it at the end.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett40:48

       You started with this point

11. 40:49 – 42:35

    Why Should You Start With Value?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett40:49

       of value-

    2. JKJosh Kaufman40:49

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett40:49

       ... giving value to other people. Why? Why is that the, the frame to think through when you're thinking about the idea?

    4. JKJosh Kaufman40:58

       Yeah. I think if you are not providing value to other people in a fundamental way, you have no business. Um, a venture that markets and sells something th- that does not deliver value to other people is a scam. And so really, like, I think there's, there's a way of thinking about business... This is one of the things I find fascinating about it. Business, to me, is, is a generative act. You are going out into the world. You're finding a problem. You're finding a solution to that problem. You're creating something that makes the world better in some fundamental way. And then you're bringing it to the attention of people who care, and you're convincing them that they need to try this to actually solve their problem. And then it works, and then they give you money for it. It's great. So you can just keep that process going, uh, going for, for as long as, as it makes sense to everyone involved. Like, I th- I think, to me, a well-running, working business system is a thing of beauty. You're solving people's problems. You're being rewarded for it. You're doing it in a way that allows you to keep solving people's problems, and it makes your life better in the process. I think that's a wonderful way to live your life. And if you don't start by asking the question, "What is the valuable thing that I am going to deliver to people who care?"... the whole thing falls apart.

12. 42:35 – 44:04

    How To Market

    1. JKJosh Kaufman42:35

    2. SBSteven Bartlett42:36

       What's step two then?

    3. JKJosh Kaufman42:37

       Yeah. Marketing.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett42:38

       Marketing? Okay.

    5. JKJosh Kaufman42:39

       Marketing is fun. Yeah, marketing is, is just who might be interested in this thing. Um, and a lot of it is the, the, the fundamental thing is if no one knows you exist, no one's going to be able to buy your thing. And, and so marketing is, is the process of attracting the attention of people who might be interested in the value that, that you're creating, and in an ideal world, making them curious, wanting to learn more, um, asking for additional information, engaging with what it, what it is that you have. A lot of people conplate- conflate marketing and sales. To me, they're distinct processes. So, so marketing is the attracting attention and generating interest, and then sales is the process of convincing someone to buy and then getting them set up as, as, as a customer. And a lot of marketing comes down to what is it exactly that you're trying to gather attention for and where do those people generally hang out? What are they curious about? What are they already paying attention to? What can you, um, what can you take advantage of or dovetail into in order to attract someone's attention at the right moment, at the right time, and make them aware that you have something that could benefit their life. Here's what it is. Here's how you can benefit from it.

13. 44:04 – 46:06

    Psychology & Marketing

    1. SBSteven Bartlett44:04

       To be great at marketing, do you think we need to understand the underlying psychological sort of core motivations of humans?

    2. JKJosh Kaufman44:11

       Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett44:13

       And do you know what those are?

    4. JKJosh Kaufman44:14

       Yeah. Um, there was a really great book about this, um, published years ago called, um, Drive by Paul Lawrence and, and N- Noria, um, who I think at the time was the, um, the dean of Harvard Business School. And they argued that, um, humans have four fundamental drives. Um, and if I can remember them off the top of my head, the drive to acquire, the drive to bond, the drive to learn, and the drive to defend.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett44:46

       Is there a fifth, the drive to feel?

    6. JKJosh Kaufman44:48

       The drive to feel-

    7. SBSteven Bartlett44:49

       Do I do it again?

    8. JKJosh Kaufman44:49

       ... is, is my addition to-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett44:50

       Oh, your addition.

    10. JKJosh Kaufman44:50

        ... to the description. Yeah.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett44:51

        Okay.

    12. JKJosh Kaufman44:51

        So yeah, and to me, like, so the drive to acquire, you know, let's go out and buy products, you know, eh- enhance my career, things like that. The drive to learn, gather knowledge, understand the world. Um, the drive to bond, relationships, uh, experiences. Uh, the drive to defend, uh, let's protect myself, home security systems, you know, all, all that thing. And for me, like, entertainment is very much a d- a drive to feel. Um, we don't go to the movies to do any of those previous four things. We go to the movies to f- have an experience, to feel emotions. And so I- to me, the vast majority of offers in the market are designed to, to, to hook into or to take advantage of one of those five core human drives. And the more drives that you, you hook into, generally, the more attractive the, the business offer is, is going to be. And so you could make a, a, a pretty straightforward argument that, um, one of the reasons that social media has become so popular over the last decade is because it hooks into at least four out of five of these drives, potentially all five.

14. 46:06 – 48:23

    Creating A Drive In The Marketing Strategy

    1. SBSteven Bartlett46:06

       So give me an example of a business and the drives that it's kind of playing to in its marketing strategy. So if we think about, hmm, Nike maybe.

    2. JKJosh Kaufman46:16

       Sure. Yeah. So, um, the, the drive to acquire is straightforward. I need to put things on my feet, like shoes are great.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett46:25

       Mm-hmm.

    4. JKJosh Kaufman46:26

       Um-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett46:26

       But it's also status.

    6. JKJosh Kaufman46:27

       It is status. So, so I would say the, the, there can be, like, the acquiring status drive. There can also be very much, like, in-group, out-group dynamics or a form of bonding, right? "I'm the type of person who identify or who will wear this sort of thing. I form relationships with people who care about these sneakers, these special editions, these athletes, these whatever." Um, less learning, less defending. Feeling can very much be a part of, of a product experience, like people who strongly identify with certain brands, certain lifestyles, certain ways of, of being in the world. Like, when you put on something that makes you feel good, there can be an emotional component, uh, to that experience that's very, very strong.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett47:18

       It's interesting 'cause I was thinking about Apple as well through that lens.

    8. JKJosh Kaufman47:20

       Yeah.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett47:20

       Apple's a great example, obviously. So if we think about the drive to acquire-

    10. JKJosh Kaufman47:23

        Mm-hmm.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett47:24

        ... very much a status project, product and it always has been. To bond, again, mis- much of their advertising is about connecting people and connection.

    12. JKJosh Kaufman47:30

        Sure.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett47:30

        Learn, again, you know, much of their marketing is about the fact that you can learn on these devices, like the iPad, for example. Defend, they talk about how encryption a lot-

    14. JKJosh Kaufman47:40

        Yep, it's a huge-

    15. SBSteven Bartlett47:41

        ... and safety.

    16. JKJosh Kaufman47:41

        ... focus on security and privacy right now-

    17. SBSteven Bartlett47:43

        Huge.

    18. JKJosh Kaufman47:43

        ... for that reason, yeah.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett47:44

        The drive to feel. I guess most of their marketing, when I think about the Vision Pro, where they weirdly show, like, the dad and his kids, and he's got this massive headset on. I guess that was an attempt to arouse emo- um, the Vision Pro now has this sort of spatial video where you can... You know, one of my team members, when they first put it on for the first time remarked that they wished they had got spatial videos of their grandmother that's passed away because... But that's the kind of narrative that they show with the products as well is that it's gonna... Ev- they really put their heart in the mar- the marketing initiatives-

    20. JKJosh Kaufman48:15

        Mm-hmm.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett48:15

        ... they do. So they really do a really good job at hitting all of these.

    22. JKJosh Kaufman48:17

        Yeah, I would-

    23. SBSteven Bartlett48:18

        All four of these.

    24. JKJosh Kaufman48:18

        ... I would say... Do you remember the early iPod advertisements with, like, the white silhouette person-

15. 48:23 – 50:52

    Think Different

    1. JKJosh Kaufman48:23

    2. SBSteven Bartlett48:23

       Oh, yeah.

    3. JKJosh Kaufman48:23

       ... dancing on a col- Those advertisements were straightforward feeling.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett48:27

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JKJosh Kaufman48:27

       A thousand songs in your pocket. It's how the songs make you feel. This is a way that you can feel that more often or more strongly. It's pure emotion.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett48:36

       Hmm.

    7. JKJosh Kaufman48:37

       And they specifically, you know, so a more, like, straightforward drive to acquire on a technology product is, is like, "How many gigabytes of storage does this thing have?" And they talked ab- they made a deliberate decision not to talk about that at all, 'cause it didn't matter. People didn't care. It was all about, "Here's how you can feel through the experience of using this product to have an experience you wouldn't otherwise have."

    8. SBSteven Bartlett49:02

       I mean, this highlights a really important point about marketing but building products and deciding what to build, which is how important is it to make something that is logically better-

    9. JKJosh Kaufman49:10

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett49:10

        ... versus something that is emotionally more compelling?

    11. JKJosh Kaufman49:14

        Yeah. In an ideal world, you do both. Um, you can go a long, long way with emotion even when you don't have, um, straightforward superior product benefits. You know, going, going back to, uh, our, our discussion of candles earlier. Candles have been around for, what, hundreds of years? Like, you're probably not going to, to make, y- barring material science advancements, you're probably not going to make a, a, a technical contribution to candle science in the process of making something.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett49:49

        Speak for yourself. (laughs)

    13. JKJosh Kaufman49:51

        (laughs) I mean, it's possible.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett49:52

        It's my next business idea, I told you.

    15. JKJosh Kaufman49:54

        Uh, yeah.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett49:55

        (laughs)

    17. JKJosh Kaufman49:56

        Um, but, like, things like the packaging and the marketing and the scent and the unboxing experience and the anticipation of putting it out as, as the centerpiece when all your friends come, and all of that. Like, there are so many emotional hooks to that sort of experience that you could argue that candles are sold almost all on emotion, and that's great. That's the value that's being delivered.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett50:24

        Do you know a better example of that I've came across recently is Liquid Death.

    19. JKJosh Kaufman50:28

        Oh, yeah. It's just water. (laughs)

    20. SBSteven Bartlett50:30

        (laughs) What?

    21. JKJosh Kaufman50:31

        Yes.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett50:31

        They built a billion-dollar business-

    23. JKJosh Kaufman50:33

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett50:33

        ... selling water in a fancy can.

    25. JKJosh Kaufman50:36

        Totally. And affiliation, like there's a little bit of a bonding, or I'm the type of person who wants to present to the world in the, this particular way, so I don't buy Fiji, I buy Liquid Death. Sure.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett50:48

        It's just water.

    27. JKJosh Kaufman50:48

        It's just water. Sometimes it's carbonated or flavored, but yeah-

    28. SBSteven Bartlett50:51

        Oh, come

16. 50:52 – 58:39

    Be Brave To Do Something Completely Different

    1. SBSteven Bartlett50:52

       on.

    2. JKJosh Kaufman50:52

       ... it's just water. (laughs)

    3. SBSteven Bartlett50:53

       I, I saw some s- I thought these stats might be out of date, but it was maybe last year or the year before, I saw that they were selling half a billion dollars of water, and they're like a fairly new market entrant in the grand scheme of things, and, and from what I can observe, it's just a different can.

    4. JKJosh Kaufman51:08

       Yeah. And the packaging matters. The affiliation matters. The story matters.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett51:13

       Why do you think they won?

    6. JKJosh Kaufman51:15

       I think they were first. So that's also, um... You, you talk about in your book the value of doing something big and crazy for the value of doing something big and crazy. I mean, they were the first to do something crazy on the marketing side for water. It was a really boring product category. Very straightforward, very functional. Um, and what their big insight was the way that we talk about it, the way we package it, the way we present it matters, and there's a certain subsegment of customers that would not buy a straightforward bottle of water because they don't care, but if they can signal something about themselves or a group affiliation in, in some way, shape, or form through the packaging of the product, then, then to a certain subsegment of customers, that's valuable.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett52:07

       I've been thinking about this theory for a while, last couple of months, maybe six months now, that brands need to, especially new market entrants in saturated, busy markets, like if you're coming out with an energy drink right now or you're coming out with a can of water, you... The easiest way to market, in terms of marketing, is if you, you do a really good job of making it clear that you are the antithesis of the incumbents.

    8. JKJosh Kaufman52:32

       Yes.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett52:33

       So you are a "or" not an "and" in your customer's decision framework for-

    10. JKJosh Kaufman52:38

        Mm-hmm.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett52:39

        And what I mean by that is, to be very specific, um, I've invested in, in a company called Perfect Ted, it's actually the drink in my cup right now, and when, in one of my first meetings with them, um, when we sat down, I said, "You know, this brand, I think, will win if the consumer walks down that supermarket aisle and thinks to themselves, 'I can be a insert incumbent energy drink brand-'"

    12. JKJosh Kaufman53:01

        Mm-hmm.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett53:02

        "... or a Perfect Ted person. I can't possibly be both.'"

    14. JKJosh Kaufman53:05

        Right.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett53:06

        And we all know that, or I think, a Liquid Death customer doesn't believe they can be a Evian Water customer.

    16. JKJosh Kaufman53:13

        Sure. (laughs)

    17. SBSteven Bartlett53:14

        Because th- it's so clearly, they've stood for something so much so that in doing so, they stand against something.

    18. JKJosh Kaufman53:21

        Mm-hmm.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett53:22

        And, and this is what breakout brands have done. BrewDog is a good example in the UK. BrewDog came into the market, indie punk beer. They literally took Carling beers and stuff like that to fields as part of their marketing and blew it up with dynamite to say, "We are not commoditized beer. We are the antithesis. We are an or. You're either with them, or you're with us."

    20. JKJosh Kaufman53:40

        Yup.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett53:40

        But that takes guts.

    22. JKJosh Kaufman53:42

        It does.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett53:42

        It takes balls, like Liquid Death had balls.

    24. JKJosh Kaufman53:44

        Yeah. Yeah, and there's, there's a whole, like on the psychological side of things, the, the, the studies about signaling and counter-signaling. Like this is, this is how fashion in, in the, the broad scale works. So all the cool people, high status, fashionable people start wearing a thing to signal group affiliation of like, "We are the type of people who wear this."

    25. SBSteven Bartlett54:08

        Yeah.

    26. JKJosh Kaufman54:08

        And then very quickly, you have follow on folks who are like, "Oh, the cool people are wearing this. I should start wearing this too," and that happens a couple generations until that thing is at Marks & Spencer, Target, uh, choose your retailer, and then the people who want to distinguish themselves for, from all of the things that are being sold at the mass retailers will change fashions specifically to signal that we are not that, and so the cycle begins again.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett54:41

        Hmm.

    28. JKJosh Kaufman54:41

        And so tha- that's just like...Social signaling is a rabbit hole that you could spend decades going down and not get to the end of it. But it's all about, who am I presenting myself to be in the world? Who do I affiliate with? Who do I not affiliate with? And counter-signaling is noticing a signal that's-

    29. SBSteven Bartlett55:05

        Mm-hmm.

    30. JKJosh Kaufman55:05

        ... happening out there, there in the world and making a deliberate decision to be the opposite of that, or the, the, the antithesis of that-
17. 58:39 – 1:00:31

    How To Become A Good Marketer

    1. JKJosh Kaufman58:39

    2. SBSteven Bartlett58:39

       If I wanted to be an exceptional marketeer, if I wanted to, you know, I've got a product, an idea, and I wanna make sure that it penetrates a very noisy online market, but e- even an IRL market, what would you, um... What kind of skills and principles or first principles should I really be thinking about to become a great marketeer? 'Cause you know, we can get carried away with the fish. And what I mean by the fish is tactics and strategies.

    3. JKJosh Kaufman59:04

       Yep.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett59:04

       But what is the fishing rod? What is the f- the mindset, the principles that are gonna make me a great marketeer for the next 30, 40 years, regardless of change?

    5. JKJosh Kaufman59:11

       Yes. Fundamentals of human attention, it comes down to psychology. So, so the vast majority of people moving through their lives are busy, stressed, overwhelmed, already have too, too much information bombarding them from all, uh, all points at all times. And so figuring out... I think this is a story you tell in your book actually. So, so Jenny on the side of the road-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett59:39

       I will do that one just to-

    7. JKJosh Kaufman59:39

       ... who, who's, who's broken down having the worst day of her entire life.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett59:42

       Yeah.

    9. JKJosh Kaufman59:42

       Um, it's a little bit of hyperbole, but it's, it's true. Like most of us are just wildly oversubscribed in t- in terms of attention and time and energy. And so figuring out the little bits of being able to, to highlight the thing that's most important, most interesting, most valuable upfront quickly in a way that cuts through, that is the primary skill of marketing.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:09

        Hmm.

    11. JKJosh Kaufman1:00:10

        And a lot of the, the other particulars, the tactics, the strategies are very dependent on what market are you operating in? What scale are you operating at? Like all of that stuff. But fundamentally understanding that people are busy and starved for time and attention. How can you grab it and what can you do to keep it? Um, that's the primary skill of marketing

18. 1:00:31 – 1:04:38

    The Sales Piece In Any Business

    1. JKJosh Kaufman1:00:31

       by far.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:31

       So if I'm, if I'm running that... If I'm thinking about starting my candle business, what is step three in your sort of, I think you said five-step framework of what really matters to you?

    3. JKJosh Kaufman1:00:39

       Sure. Yeah. This is sales.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:41

       Okay. Sales.

    5. JKJosh Kaufman1:00:41

       And so for a candle business, this might look like direct sales online. It could also look like intermediate or intermediary sales, like through a distributor.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:51

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JKJosh Kaufman1:00:52

       And so-It's funny, like, value creation, marketing, value delivery and finance, all of those are the processes where, uh, where money's flowing out of the business. You're spending money to do all of this analysis. Uh, sales is the part where money comes in, which makes it, makes it particularly important. And so some of the early decisions around sales are, um, how are you going to ask for the sale? What does the sales process look like? And are you dealing directly with the customer that, who is purchasing from you, or are you dealing with some sort of independent third party, or sometimes multiple third parties in the process?

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:30

       Like a retailer or distributor?

    9. JKJosh Kaufman1:01:32

       Like a r- exactly.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:34

        Okay. And in order to be exceptional at selling my candles-

    11. JKJosh Kaufman1:01:38

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:39

        ... is there anything that I should bear in mind? Maybe when I'm making the candles, how I'm packaging the candles, the way that I'm, you know, going to those retailers or...

    13. JKJosh Kaufman1:01:47

        Yeah. So I think, um, there's a part of... Because sales is kind of in the middle of the process, there's a part of sales that intersects with marketing in the sense of you're trying to make this maximally appealing to get someone to give you money for it. And so the customer understanding how, how can w- how can we be persuasive in getting someone to say, "Yes, this is for me. Here's my money. I would like one, please"? There's also a part of sales which is somewhat neglected, which intersects with the value delivery part of the process, which is, the point of a sale is not just to get a customer. In an ideal way, it's to get a happy, satisfied customer, someone who not only purchased the thing that you bought, but is happy with the thing that they bought, and is thrilled that they did business with you and is planning on doing business with you again.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:41

        Why is that so important?

    15. JKJosh Kaufman1:02:43

        Well, it's relatively straightforward to make a sale once. Um, usually, the first sale is the most expensive, and so generally, a repeat cus- Repeat customers are the best customers you will ever have. They already know you exist. They already know your stuff is great. Um, you don't have to attract their attention again necessarily. Um, and depending on what you're selling, like, those repeat customers can... The lifetime value of a repeat customer can be extraordinary. And so if you've already done the work to get a customer once, then you should want to keep them happy and keep them around for as long as humanly possible.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:18

        What's lifetime value?

    17. JKJosh Kaufman1:03:20

        Oh, lifetime value. This is, this is a fun one. Um, so lifetime value is the sum total of all sales of a customer with a business. And so imagine, um-

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:34

        Jack, I sell Jack a candle.

    19. JKJosh Kaufman1:03:36

        Yes. Now, Jack, how many candles do you, uh, do you burn a year?

    20. NANarrator1:03:44

        Seven.

    21. JKJosh Kaufman1:03:45

        Seven? Okay. So take the, the profit that you make per candle.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:51

        So I'm selling the candles at $10, and I make $1 profit on them.

    23. JKJosh Kaufman1:03:54

        Yep. Times seven.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:56

        Okay.

    25. JKJosh Kaufman1:03:56

        So the lifetime value... Well, let's say we're just, over the course of a year, $7 profit.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:01

        Okay.

    27. JKJosh Kaufman1:04:03

        We're good. Let's take someone like Jill-

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:05

        Mm-hmm.

    29. JKJosh Kaufman1:04:05

        ... who burns a candle every week.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:08

        Wow.
19. 1:04:38 – 1:06:09

    Customer Service Matters

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:38

       service matters, right?

    2. JKJosh Kaufman1:04:39

       It does, yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:40

       'Cause people, many companies see it as, like, an annoyance. Like, "I've sold you the fucking thing."

    4. JKJosh Kaufman1:04:44

       (laughs)

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:44

       "Why, why are you emailing me?"

    6. JKJosh Kaufman1:04:46

       "Sure, stop bothering me."

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:46

       And they treat you like a, you're a nuisance.

    8. JKJosh Kaufman1:04:48

       Yeah. Yeah, and that's a shame, um, because really, like, those happy repeat customers are not just, like, your high lifetime value customers, the customers that will stick with you, keep spending money with you. They're also a primary source of marketing. Like, word-of-mouth marketing is all happy customers telling other people who might benefit from your product that, "Hey, here's this wonderful thing. You should probably check it out." And so yeah, like, things like post-sale support, um, sometimes customer reactivation. So, like, to your point earlier, there's a very straightforward marketing technique called reactivation. If you can contact Jack and say, "Hey, you bought candles from us last year. Would you like to buy candles from us this year?" and get him to, to pick up just a couple more, more candles. Like, the cost of that promotion is potentially very small. You already know he exists. You already know that he's purchased. Um, can you just get him to do that again? Um, those are some of the most effective marketing sales campaigns that you could possibly run. But it also requires that they had a good experience with whatever it is that you're offering in the first place.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:03

       Is there, like, an, a sales equation of sorts? Is there, like, a, you know... Wh- when I'm thinking about how to close

20. 1:06:09 – 1:13:06

    The Sales Framework

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:09

       a deal, how to sell that candle, is there a skill set or a framework or model that I should be thinking through when I'm trying to sell it to Jack or Jill?

    2. JKJosh Kaufman1:06:18

       Um, there are many, many frameworks. I think the, um, the biggest, most, most popular one, uh, which a lot of people get stuck on is the whole features-versus-benefits conversation. And so, um, in the context of candles, fe- a features conversation would be is, "This candle is made from 100% soy wax." People don't necessarily care. It's not relevant to the reason that people purchase candles. Benefits are the things that people... that get to those core human drives, the things that, that motivate the purchase to begin with. And so-One very useful way of thinking about this is whenever you're doing any sort of marketing or sales, you're focusing on the benefits, the things that you're delivering to people, the things that are enticing. And if you talk about features at all, you use them as reasons to believe that you're going to be able to deliver the benefits that are promised. And so, um, if, for example, you're, you're, uh, taking an, an ecologically friendly approach to your, your candle business, um, the fact that 100% soy is very clean-burning and environmentally friendly might be a reason to believe that this benefit is true, but it's not the primary reason that people are going to purchase.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:44

       Interesting. And a lot of people, I guess, are making the mistake of focusing on the features-

    4. JKJosh Kaufman1:07:48

       Yes.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:48

       ... of their product.

    6. JKJosh Kaufman1:07:49

       Yeah. This is the, the difference between, um, an iPod has a one-gigabyte high dri- hard drive and a thousand songs in your pocket. A thousand songs in your pocket is a benefit. The size of the hard drive is the feature that enables that.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:08

       And why, why is it more powerful and compelling to the customer to focus on the benefit versus the feature? Is there something in our neurology? Is that a word, neurology? It is a word. Is that the right context? In our brain.

    8. JKJosh Kaufman1:08:19

       Yeah. Well, I think this, this gets into, um, some buyer psychology things, which is people generally before making a purchase decision imagine what their life is going to look like if they go down this particular route. If I buy this thing, if I, uh, sign up for this service, if I become a member at this club or gym or, or, or whatever, um, there's, there's a, a mental stimulation process that very often happens of, like, may- maybe buying a new car is a good tangible example of this. Like, before you buy the car, you do the test drive, and you imagine, like, "What my, what wou- what would my life be like if I was driving this every day? If I pull this into, into my, in my driveway, what are the neighbors gonna ... Are they gonna look at me? Are they gonna think I'm cool?" You know, like, there's, there's this, like, with a little bit of information, our brains can kind of extrapolate or start to predict what is likely to happen out into the future to a certain extent. And this is, you know, to, to, to some of the things you talk about in your book about storytelling, this is why stories work for marketing and sales. It helps people engage that part of their brain that can, that can simulate a potential future that looks and feels really great-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:37

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JKJosh Kaufman1:09:37

        ... and start to anticipate it, get excited about it. And, like, when you're selling a car, on the sales side of the, the spectrum, rule number one is get the potential customer in the driver's seat of that car as quickly as possible. Nothing else matters. You want them to engage in the process of driving and imagining as quickly as possible because th- that's when they start to convince themselves that this is something that they might want to have in their life. So, anything that you can do to engage those kind of simulation prediction sort of, of processes, the better.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:15

        If, if you were to try and pin down the very core parts of what makes a company successful, what are, what is, what are the core components of that? What are the fundamental games at, at play in business, in your view?

    12. JKJosh Kaufman1:10:29

        Yeah. So, there, I think there are a bunch of different ways to answer that. Um, we've talked a lot about the five parts of every business.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:38

        Mm-hmm.

    14. JKJosh Kaufman1:10:38

        Those are the fundamentals of what the employees are actually doing.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:42

        Mm-hmm.

    16. JKJosh Kaufman1:10:43

        Um, in general, you want to hire people who are curious, engaged, excellent communicators, and are signing up for whatever, whatever it is, the, the, the long-term objective mission, vision of, of the company. Here's what we're doing. Here's why it matters. Here's exactly who we're serving. Here's why that matters. Here's how we're going to go about doing that. And from there, everything that happens within the company, each of the employees are going to be focused on w- one or more of these five essential parts of the business. In an ideal world, they understand all five and how they interrelate to each other and how something that is done in one, like, say, the marketing end of side, uh, end of things might really make a huge difference on the value delivery or customer service-

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:40

        Mm-hmm.

    18. JKJosh Kaufman1:11:40

        ... end of things. If you have all of those pieces in place, then the question becomes, how large does this business need to be in order to serve its customers as, as, at, at, to the maximum possible extent in a long-term sustainable way? And then, what level of internal organization makes the most sense so people can spend most of their time doing work related to the five parts of, of every business and as little time as possible managing the rest? And so, this is kind of the, the flip side of, of some of the common failure cases of bureaucracy, paperwork, busy work, all of these things. What level of management do you need? Um, how can you minimize that? How can you make sure that ... Um, to me, good management is, is helping remove barriers to people who are doing skilled work. How can you remove as many things from their plate as possible so they can focus on the parts of the business that are, are generating the most value?

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:48

        Mm-hmm.

    20. JKJosh Kaufman1:12:49

        And so, there's a lot, um, I think, this was the founder of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher. It's like, "Hire for attitude, train for skill."... I think there's a lot to be said for that.

21. 1:13:06 – 1:14:50

    How Important Is Hiring?

    1. JKJosh Kaufman1:13:06

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:06

       'Cause, 'cause I'm thinking a lot about that person who is, (sighs) you know, again, they're, they're starting their candle business, and-

    3. JKJosh Kaufman1:13:11

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:12

       ... they're trying to figure out what this game of business fundamentally comes down to in 10 years from now. Is it how smart I am?

    5. JKJosh Kaufman1:13:21

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:22

       Is it how good I am at assembling a group of smart people? Is it culture? Is it the vision I set? Is it the product I built? Is it all of these things? But if we just start with hiring then, because this is, in my experience, where people often succeed and fail, and often where a lot of their biases show up that they don't even know about.

    7. JKJosh Kaufman1:13:39

       Sure.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:40

       Um, how important is hiring to building a great business and becoming a successful entrepreneur?

    9. JKJosh Kaufman1:13:51

       Complicated answer to that.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:52

        Okay.

    11. JKJosh Kaufman1:13:53

        So, it can be more or less important, depending on exactly what you're offering.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:00

        I'm offering candles.

    13. JKJosh Kaufman1:14:01

        You're offering candles. Yeah, so, so to me, like, making some assumptions, if you're handling, uh, if you're selling candles direct on the internet with a small distribution center and mostly online advertising, your team is probably going to be relatively small.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:19

        Hm.

    15. JKJosh Kaufman1:14:20

        And that can be a really good thing. If you're selling candles in distribution and tooling up a manufacturing line and, uh, and going off and, and calling all, all these large customers and potentially producing mass market candles, it's a very different business operation. And so, there's a lot of, like, understanding the necessities of the game that you're playing-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:43

        Mm-hmm.

    17. JKJosh Kaufman1:14:43

        ... and then matching your hiring exactly to what those needs are, but not more.

22. 1:14:50 – 1:19:09

    What Role Does Competition Play?

    1. JKJosh Kaufman1:14:50

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:50

       I think about, um, when I was thinking about this, this candle business that I'm hypothetically gonna launch, one of the things that might stop me from launching a candle business, as it does for many people, is that there are already lots of fucking candles.

    3. JKJosh Kaufman1:15:01

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:01

       And in every industry, you know, when I hear entrepreneurs or I hear sofapreneurs, which is someone who's got an idea on the sofa, one of the reasons they'll give as to why they've not started the business is because they've dis- they've done some market research and they've discovered there is already someone solving that problem.

    5. JKJosh Kaufman1:15:16

       Uh-huh.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:17

       And then they go, "No."

    7. JKJosh Kaufman1:15:19

       Yep.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:19

       "There's no, there's no money to be made there." What role does competition play in this whole picture? Is competition a bad thing, a good thing, a, a signal that I shouldn't?

    9. JKJosh Kaufman1:15:29

       Yeah. There's something really fun here, um, I talk about it in the book. I call it the iron law of the market, which is, um, a way of saying that markets that don't exist don't care how smart you are. It was a Marc Andreessen quote from way back in his Netscape days. And it's the whole idea, like, it's actually a really good thing that there are a bunch of people selling candles in the market, because that means that there's a large market of people who are willing and able to buy candles. It validates the, the, the need. It validates the existence of the market in the first place. The markets you need to be really careful about are the brand new to the, nobody has ever seen anything like this on the face of the Earth, because not only do you need to educate and convince people, you have no idea whether people have, will purchase this thing that you've made. There's a story, a story that I tell in the book, um, Dean Kamen, like prolific inventor, this was the development of the Segway, the like-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:40

        Oh, yeah.

    11. JKJosh Kaufman1:16:41

        ... balancing scooter thing.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:42

        Yeah.

    13. JKJosh Kaufman1:16:43

        I remember, I think this was a Time Magazine article, something like that was like, "This is the, this is the mystery invention, we're not gonna talk about it yet, the mystery invention that is going to change the way that cities are planned." The hype for it was absolutely extreme, and when it came out, it turned out that people didn't wanna buy a $10,000 alternative to walking or riding a bike. And so it's like, those, like, nobody's ever done this before-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:11

        Mm-hmm.

    15. JKJosh Kaufman1:17:12

        ... can actually be, in, in a weird way, a bad sign. Um, you want something that, like, the market exists, the need is there, people are excited about it, people are looking for solutions, and then, like Liquid Death, if you can come in and do it in a fundamentally different way that grabs a lot of attention, that's a really, really great promising sign. But if it's completely brand new, that's, that's more of a, a warning sign than, than many of the sofapreneurs, uh, would, would chalk it up to be.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:44

        So, how should we treat competitors then? If I've got a competitor, should I, should I attack them? Should I block them? What should I do?

    17. JKJosh Kaufman1:17:53

        First, learn from them, buy from them, become their customer, learn as much as you can about what they do, how they do it. Um, customers can be a wonderful source of market research ar- around what's, what's happening in a category, what's important, what's not, what was your experience.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:12

        Competitors?

    19. JKJosh Kaufman1:18:12

        Yeah.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:13

        Oh.

    21. JKJosh Kaufman1:18:13

        Totally. If you, if you're starting a cam- candle company, go out and buy all the candles. Burn them all, smell them all, burn them all, uh, line your, like, buy a bookshelf and fill it with candles.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:26

        Why?

    23. JKJosh Kaufman1:18:26

        Um, because you can learn so much about how people do things. Um, look at their labeling, deconstruct their packaging, look at their price points. Where are they selling? How are they doing their online advertising? Um, and the wonderful thing is, aside from your time and maybe a little bit of budget, all the market research is free. You just get to go out and, and learn from what people are doing, and then combine that with your own research, going out and talking to customers on your own, having your own experiences, your own ideas, and that's where you get your unique take, your taste, your twist on, on that particular way of, of doing things.

23. 1:19:09 – 1:24:17

    Let's Talk Money

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:09

       What else do I need to be thinking about? So, I've done my market research on the candle business. We've got the marketing done. I'm- I've n- I understand the- the sort of sales framework that I should be thinking through. I've bought every candle in the market now.

    2. JKJosh Kaufman1:19:22

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:23

       Is there anything else that is really important to be thinking about as I go forward and launch this company?

    4. JKJosh Kaufman1:19:29

       Oh, yeah. We haven't talked about dollars and cents at all yet.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:31

       Dollars and cents?

    6. JKJosh Kaufman1:19:32

       Yeah. Finance.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:33

       Okay.

    8. JKJosh Kaufman1:19:34

       So, you know, as you're doing all of... So, development takes money. Making products, uh, requires money. Um, customer service requires money. Manufactur- like all of these thi- you're spending a bunch of money making this product. You have, at this point, since this is a startup, you have a price that you think is supportable. Hopefully, you're cor- c- collecting pre-orders, you're getting some market information about, like, how much you'd potentially be able to make here. Financial analysis is the part where you're taking a look at all of these decisions and trade-offs that- that you've been making. Where am I spending how much? If I have to make a choice between A or B, which one am I- am I going to make? And then the finan- f- finance is basically just a systematic way of making decisions around monetary considerations. Um, in the case of a manufacturing business, you might have raised some- some early capital, friends, family, loans, investors, credit cards, whatever. How much do you have at your disposal? How much runway do you have? If you've hired people, how many months do you have left before you really need to be bringing in more than- than your outflows, or else you're gonna be in trouble very quickly?

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:20:49

       I've got a corporate job and I've got $2,000 of savings.

    10. JKJosh Kaufman1:20:52

        Yeah. T- okay. So- so relatively small. So then, like the financial decision making might be, how many candles? If I make a small batch, like maybe of that $2,000, how much am I going to allocate to making the actual physical product, packaging, shipping, distribution? How much am I going to set aside for marketing and sales, sorts of thing? That's an allocation decision. And so your early decision making is, how much do I have at my disposal? What are the- the critical things that need to be met? I have to have product to sell. I have to get people's attention somehow. I have to be able to deliver this when people buy it. And then you start making lots of decisions, lots of trade-offs about, "We're gonna put this here, this here, this here, this here."

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:41

        What if you're bad at math? 'Cause a lot of people-

    12. JKJosh Kaufman1:21:44

        Yeah.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:44

        ... th- I think they're put off business because they hear about gross margin and net profit and revenue, and they go, "Oh, God, I was bad at math in school, so I'm never gonna be good at business." And/or I meet a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in The Den, but just in life generally, who basically avoid the finances of their own business-

    14. JKJosh Kaufman1:22:01

        Yeah.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:01

        ... because it's just not their strong area. So, I think they think they can just... And maybe they're right, because I did meet Richard Branson and he told me that, you know, he's not very astute with finances.

    16. JKJosh Kaufman1:22:13

        Mm-hmm.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:13

        And he said to me, "You just basically need to know three numbers in business." Um, and he also said to me that he was sort of 50 odd years old when he was in a meeting where his directors were talking about net profit and he had no idea what they were talking about. So one of them pulled him out of the room and drew a picture of a ocean and put a net in it and said, "The fishies in the net are your net profit." And at the time-

    18. JKJosh Kaufman1:22:33

        (laughs)

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:33

        ... he was running one of the biggest groups in Europe.

    20. JKJosh Kaufman1:22:34

        Sure.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:35

        You just go-

    22. JKJosh Kaufman1:22:35

        Yeah.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:35

        So what r- h- how important is this thing called finance and money and accounting?

    24. JKJosh Kaufman1:22:39

        Yeah. I mean, most of it is common sense and simple arithmetic, really. Like we're talking addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. Um, some of the- the definitions, when you really get down to it, are relatively straightforward. Um, so how much are you gonna sell it for minus how much does it cost to make, how much does it cost to market, how much does it cost to deliver, is your profit. Um, and then, you know, how much, on the things that you have to spend, um, every month, so in the case of an online business, uh, your website, your shopping cart, credit card processing, all the way up to if- if you have a physical business, how much are you spending on salaried employees, office space, electricity, utilities. Um, there's some very straightforward, uh, concepts like amortization. Like, can you take something that would be a- a larger pool of money, how much does that cost you per month as an equivalent? Can you build that into your budget?

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:23:43

        How do I learn this stuff if I didn't go to school?

    26. JKJosh Kaufman1:23:46

        That's why I wrote The Personal MBA.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:23:48

        Okay. So-

    28. JKJosh Kaufman1:23:48

        Yeah.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:23:49

        ... wha- wha- wh- can you, will you tell me about all of this stuff if I get this book?

    30. JKJosh Kaufman1:23:52

        Yes. I- i- uh, so the- the whole idea behind Personal MBA was to take all of these concepts like amortization, like net profit, all of this, and explain it in the clearest, most direct, most straightforward, plain language that I possibly could.

Episode duration: 2:06:58