Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You ByWP Engine

Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting.

Start getting more from your site today!

Rainmaker.FM

The Digital Commerce and Content Marketing Podcast Network

  • Home
  • Shows
  • Hosts
  • About
  • Home
  • Shows
  • Hosts
  • About
  • Member Area
  • Log In
Menu
  • Log In
  • Free Training
7-Figure Small with Brian Clark
Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer
Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing
Get More Clients With Smarter Email Marketing
Hack the Entrepreneur
Members Only
Rainmaker.FM Elsewhere
Site Success: Tips for Building Better WordPress Websites
StudioPress FM
Technology Translated
The Digital Entrepreneur
The Missing Link
The Showrunner
The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience
Youpreneur with Chris Ducker
Zero to Book
Hack the Entrepreneur
hosted by Jon Nastor

How to Take Action Before Knowing All the Steps

  • Social:
  • Link:
  • Embed:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/hacktheentrepreneur/8620HTE20086_20How20to20Take20Action20Before20Knowing20All20the20Steps20w_20Mike20Belsito.mp3
Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes
Previous Episode:Ruben Gamez on Staying Focused and Shipping Your Product More Episodes Next Episode:How to Learn From High-Quality Failures

All Episodes:

September 19, 2016

Marinate in the Problem Space, with Chris Lema

September 12, 2016

Be Humble Enough to Ask

September 8, 2016

Should You Trust Your Gut or Follow Your Mentors?

September 1, 2016

Focus on What Needs to Happen

July 19, 2016

Prioritizing and Getting Things Done

July 14, 2016

Achieving Entrepreneurial Maturity

July 12, 2016

Looking Back on 35+ Years Working Project-to-Project, with Kevin Kelly

July 7, 2016

Building Something Out of Nothing

June 23, 2016

Driven to Create

June 20, 2016

Work Like You Are Going to Lose It All

June 16, 2016

Why You Need to Do Work That Matters

June 14, 2016

Money is the Outcome of Success (Not the Cause)

June 13, 2016

The Scientific Process of Building a Business

June 7, 2016

Why You Need to Touch the Entrepreneurial Fire

June 1, 2016

The Power of Constructive Impatience

May 31, 2016

The Curse of Specialization

May 26, 2016

Business is a Team Sport

May 25, 2016

The Reluctant Path to Becoming an Entrepreneur

May 24, 2016

Learning How to Make Things Better

May 19, 2016

The Natural Evolution of an Entrepreneur

May 17, 2016

Why You Can’t Say Yes to Everything

May 16, 2016

Entrepreneurship: It’s Never About the Money

May 12, 2016

The Transformation from Musician to Entrepreneur

May 10, 2016

The Value of Working in Systems and Processes

May 5, 2016

The Power of Unlimited Thinking

May 3, 2016

Learning to Lean Into the Competition

May 2, 2016

Why You Should Stop Waiting to Do Work That Matters

April 28, 2016

The Compounding Effect of Daily Improvement

April 25, 2016

How to Expand Your Thinking

April 21, 2016

Understanding the True Value of Playing the Long Game

April 19, 2016

Leaving the Known for the Unknown

April 18, 2016

How to Become a ‘10% Entrepreneur’

April 14, 2016

Becoming a Student in the Game of Entrepreneurship

April 12, 2016

How to View Entrepreneurship as a Microcosm of Life

April 11, 2016

Developing the Mindset of Constant Improvement

April 7, 2016

How to Stop Being Your Business (And Start Running It)

April 5, 2016

How to Find Your Focus

April 4, 2016

Business is Like a Rubik’s Cube (But You Need to Earn Your Next Move)

March 31, 2016

The 7 Essential Steps to Getting From Idea to Product

March 29, 2016

Why You Should Set Goals That Scare You

March 24, 2016

Why You Should Go ‘All In’ On Your Next Project

March 22, 2016

We All Start As Employees, with Brian Tracy

March 17, 2016

A Two-Year Journey From $0 – $500k

March 15, 2016

How to Ask Better Questions

March 10, 2016

Learning To Fly By the Seat of Your Pants

March 8, 2016

Building Authority In Your Market

March 3, 2016

Hug Your Haters, with Jay Baer

March 1, 2016

Why You Should Strive to Become a Category of One

February 25, 2016

Walking the Unexpected Path to Full-Time Food Blogger

February 23, 2016

How to Learn from a Mentor

February 18, 2016

Have an Entrepreneurial Vision and Make It a Reality

February 16, 2016

Learning to Fulfill an Unmet Need, with Liz Picarazzi

February 11, 2016

Why You Need to Have an Incredible Sense of Urgency, with Michael Port

February 9, 2016

Start the Company that You Wish Existed

February 4, 2016

Understanding Business As a Human-to-Human Interaction

February 2, 2016

From Public Radio to a Groundbreaking Media Startup, with Alex Blumberg

January 28, 2016

How to Independently Earn a Living (Using Only Your Wits)

January 21, 2016

The Charm, Danger, and Thrill of Entrepreneurship

January 19, 2016

How to Level Up Your Life, with Steve Kamb

January 14, 2016

How to Use S.M.A.R.T. Goals to Accomplish Big Things, with John Lee Dumas

January 12, 2016

Why Being Passionate About Your Business Is Absolutely Essential

December 10, 2015

Understanding the World as One Global Business Community, with Belinda Coker

December 7, 2015

How to Become a Bulletproof Entrepreneur with Dave Asprey

December 3, 2015

Entrepreneurship as a Cause for Change with Corbett Barr

November 30, 2015

Be the Best Teammate You Can Be with NFL Quarterback Mike Kafka

November 24, 2015

I’m Always Happy, But I’m Never Content

November 23, 2015

Starting a Record Label in the Era of Digital Media

November 16, 2015

I’d Rather Fail as a Writer Than Succeed as a Lawyer with Gretchen Rubin

November 12, 2015

How Your ‘Pain Index’ Can Determine Your Success as an Entrepreneur

November 10, 2015

How to Determine What Works (and What Doesn’t) with Laura Roeder

November 9, 2015

Why It’s Not Always About the Money

November 3, 2015

Why You Need to Start Before You’re Ready

October 26, 2015

Brian Gardner on ‘Hitting the Wall’ and Pushing Through

October 22, 2015

Heather Armstrong (Dooce) on the Art of Dealing with Online Criticism

October 20, 2015

How to See Business Opportunities Everywhere

October 19, 2015

How to Determine the Lifetime Value of Your Idea (Before You Start)

October 15, 2015

How to Decide Which Ideas to Follow (and Which to Ignore)

October 13, 2015

How to Find Your Unfair Advantage with Derek Sivers

October 8, 2015

The Key to Finding Your Company’s Highest Value Processes

October 6, 2015

How to Accidentally Start (then Scale) a Business

September 29, 2015

The Extraordinary Value of Sharing and Being a Connector

September 28, 2015

The Easiest Way to Know if Your Has Project Failed

September 24, 2015

The Entrepreneur’s Path to Building a Real Business

September 22, 2015

How to Market Almost Anything Online: A Conversation with Neil Patel

September 21, 2015

How to Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome

September 17, 2015

How to Maintain Well-Being While Building Your Business

September 15, 2015

Why Content is King (and Promotion is Key)

September 14, 2015

Mentorships, Delegation, and the Difference Between Managing and Leading: A Conversation with Chris Ducker

September 10, 2015

How to Consistently Take Action (and Allow Your Business to Emerge)

September 8, 2015

How a ‘Scatterbrain Creative’ Became a Full-Time Blogger

September 7, 2015

How to Take Extraordinary Action (on Ordinary Things)

September 3, 2015

A Crash Course in Entrepreneurial Self-Awareness

September 1, 2015

How to Become an Expert in Your Field and Love What You Do

August 31, 2015

How to Map Out the Business That You Want to Build

August 27, 2015

The Real Value of Creating Value

August 25, 2015

One Product Does Not a Business Make

August 24, 2015

The Value of Crafting an Entrepreneurial Vision (and Sticking to It)

August 20, 2015

The Evolutionary Process of an Entrepreneur

August 18, 2015

How to Get Great Advice

August 17, 2015

How to Ditch Your Perfectionist Mindset

August 13, 2015

How to Scratch Your Own Itch and Build a Successful Business

August 11, 2015

How to Eliminate Options and Find Opportunities

August 10, 2015

Benji Rogers on Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

August 6, 2015

Uncover an Idea, Find a Co-founder, Build a Business

August 3, 2015

How to Find Your High-Leverage Outputs, Build Products, and Choose Your Own Path

July 30, 2015

How to Find and Tap into Unmet Demands

July 29, 2015

How to Let Your Business Thrive (By Getting Out of Its Way)

July 27, 2015

Guy Kawasaki on Understanding the Math of Success

July 23, 2015

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Investing in Yourself

July 20, 2015

Valuing Your Connections and Optimizing Towards Happiness

July 16, 2015

Sol Orwell on Being Relentless and Not Giving Up

July 13, 2015

How to Build a Business That Lets You Live The Life You Want

July 9, 2015

Here’s the Key to Turning Your Failures into Opportunities …

July 7, 2015

How To Be a Terrible Employee, Build an Audience, and Travel the World

June 29, 2015

How to Determine if Your Business Idea Sucks

June 25, 2015

What it Takes to Leave the Corporate World (and Not Look Back)

June 22, 2015

The Art of Working Between Your Comfort Zone and Your Panic Zone

June 18, 2015

Building a Business at the Intersection of Art and Commerce

June 15, 2015

How to Make Your Business a Painkiller, Not a Vitamin

June 11, 2015

Carl Smith on Hiring the Best People and Creating a Better Business Story

June 8, 2015

Making the Leap from School Teacher to Full-Time Food Blogger with Lindsay Ostrom

June 1, 2015

Yanik Silver on the Transformation to Maverick Entrepreneur

May 29, 2015

The Journey From Travelling Poet to Online Entrepreneur

May 26, 2015

Josh Pigford on Shipping, Hiring Smart People, and Not Being Epically Wrong

May 21, 2015

How to Learn From High-Quality Failures

May 18, 2015

How to Take Action Before Knowing All the Steps

May 7, 2015

Ruben Gamez on Staying Focused and Shipping Your Product

May 5, 2015

The Compounding Effect of Daily Content Creation with Stephanie Halligan

April 30, 2015

Greg Hickman on Working Backwards and the Journey to $20,000 Per Month

April 28, 2015

How to Avoid the ‘Idea of Entrepreneurship’

April 23, 2015

One Simple Step to Attracting More Business Opportunities

April 21, 2015

Jeff Goins on Creating Amidst Chaos

April 16, 2015

How to Find a Multiplier Effect For Your Income

April 14, 2015

Starting Small, Thinking Big, and Becoming Unemployable

April 13, 2015

Immaturity, Impulsiveness, and the Art of Becoming an Entrepreneur

April 9, 2015

Building a Business Around Your Passions

April 7, 2015

How to Find Your Entrepreneurial Creative Essence

April 6, 2015

Seth Godin on the Difference Between Failure and Your Struggle With Failure

April 2, 2015

How to Turn What You Know Into a Business

March 31, 2015

How To Use Your Fears To Grow Your Business

March 30, 2015

Here’s How Pat Flynn Grew an Audience of Raving Fans

March 26, 2015

How a Bus Commute Helped Build a Speaking Career

March 24, 2015

Making Time For Your Online Business in the Fringe Hours

March 23, 2015

Brian Kurtz on Avoiding “The Entrepreneurial Gap”

March 19, 2015

Most Things in Business and Life Fail (And Why That’s OK)

March 17, 2015

Scott Oldford on Becoming Transparent and Finding Authenticity

March 16, 2015

How to Find and Follow Your Inner Voice

March 9, 2015

Brian Clark on Partnerships and the Creativity of Limitations

February 27, 2015

Get Over Yourself and Get Things Done with Steven Aitchison

May 18, 2015

How to Take Action Before Knowing All the Steps

My guest today is an entrepreneur who enjoys creating something from nothing. In fact, he has been creating products (both digital and physical) for the past 10 years.

He is currently the Director of Product + Strategy for Movable, a company focused on improving personal well-being by inspiring movement in groups.

My guest was the Co-Founder of eFuneral.com, a funeral planning resource that was acquired in 2014.

He is a featured speaker and author on building products, startups and funding. His latest book Startup Seed: Funding for the Rest of Us is now available on Amazon.

Now, let’s hack …

Mike Belsito

In this 34-minute episode Mike Belsito and I discuss:

  • How being naive helped him grow his business
  • Overcoming the impostor syndrome
  • Why you shouldn’t think too much about the “up’s”
  • Why two partners must have the same level of passion
  • How and why to remember your accomplishments

Listen to Hack the Entrepreneur below ...

How to Take Action Before Knowing All the StepsJon Nastor
  • Social:
  • Link:
  • Embed:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/hacktheentrepreneur/8620HTE20086_20How20to20Take20Action20Before20Knowing20All20the20Steps20w_20Mike20Belsito.mp3
Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes

The Show Notes

  • eFuneral
  • Movable
  • Outside of the Valley
  • Mike’s Bio Page
  • Startup Seed Funding for The Rest of Us Book
  • Mike on Twitter
  • Jon on Twitter
Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You ByWP Engine

Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting.

Start getting more from your site today!

The Transcript

How to Take Action Before Knowing All the Steps

Jonny Nastor: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at HacktheEntrepreneur.com/Rainmaker.

Voiceover: Welcome to Hack the Entrepreneur, the show which reveals the fears, habits, and inner battles behind big-name entrepreneurs and those on their way to joining them. Now, here is your host, Jon Nastor.

Jonny Nastor: Welcome back to Hack the Entrepreneur. I’m so happy you decided to join me today. I’m your host, Jon Nastor, but you can call me Jonny.

My guest today is an entrepreneur who enjoys creating something from nothing. In fact, he’s been creating products, both digital and physical, for 10 years. He’s currently the director of product and strategy for Movable, a company focused on improving personal well-being by inspiring movement in groups. My guest was the co-founder of eFuneral.com, a funeral-planning resource that was acquired in 2014. He’s a featured speaker and author on building products, startups, and funding. His latest book, Startup Seed Funding for the Rest of Us, is now available on Amazon.

Now, let’s hack Mike Belsito.

Let’s thank our sponsor, FreshBooks. FreshBooks is easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing, and get paid faster. Expense tracking, time tracking, estimates, quotes, reports — and when you can’t figure something out, they have absolutely phenomenal award-winning customer support. You could actually call them and get somebody on the phone to help you.

Stay on top of your business with a clear picture of its financial health. Try FreshBooks for free today. Go to Freshbooks.com/Hack and enter ‘Hack The Entrepreneur’ in the ‘How did you hear about us?’ section.

Welcome back to Hack the Entrepreneur. We have another awesome guest today. Mike, thank you so much for joining me.

Mike Belsito: Thank you, Jon. I’m glad to be here.

Jonny Nastor: My pleasure. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Mike Belsito: I am looking forward to that, Jon.

Jonny Nastor: Are you? Nice. All right, Mike. As an entrepreneur, can you tell me, what is the one thing that you do that you feel has been the biggest contributor to your successes so far?

How Being Naive Helped Him Grow His Business

Mike Belsito: I think being naïve, in a way, is one of the things that’s helped me, and I’ll give you an example of that. Very early on in my career, I was a part of a startup where I actually wasn’t one of the co-founders, but I was the very first employee. I was employee number one. I came on board and was really brought on board to do a number of things. In fact, the company was called Findaway. My title was ‘Findawayer.’ To talk about how broad it was, I was supposed to focus on a number of things. Back then we were creating a digital audio book, a physical digital audio book, this product called Playaway. All it was is a pre-loaded digital audio player. You plug headphones in, but the content was already on there.

I knew nothing about the publishing industry. I was learning about the digital download industry at the time, but this is back in 2005. It’s something that was still relatively new. If I had had that publishing experience, if I had had deep experience in downloadable audio — downloadable audio books in particular — I don’t know if we would have taken some of the risks that we took. I don’t know if I would have approached certain customers the same way.

I think there is something about being a little bit naïve that anything is possible. It helps you realize that you can actually do anything. I’ve been appropriately naïve, I’d say, in each one of the ventures that I’ve been involved in. The nice thing about it, is there is not anything inside of you telling you that you can’t do something because, “Hey, it’s always been done in a certain way.” That’s one of the things that has actually helped me.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, I like that. There are different ways of looking at this — being naïve and therefore not being afraid to make the mistakes — but how do you deal with trying to publish this digital, physical, digital product, and you’ve never done it? How do you deal with the fact that you don’t just sit at your desk overwhelmed like, “Why am I doing this? I have no idea how to do this. I’ve never done this before.” Do you know what I mean? There is one thing, which is being overwhelmed. Do you know what I mean? How do you overcome that?

Mike Belsito: For me, it is so easy to feel overwhelmed. But I think the best way to set that aside is to just do stuff. For me, back at that time, if I had any time at all to think about what I was doing, and yeah, we had some time. We strategized. We had a plan in place, and then we’d attack that plan, but there just wasn’t time to really sit there and be so overwhelmed. I actually had to get out there, start talking to customers. I think that’s the best thing that you could do is actually start doing things, especially anything that involves being out there with customers. I’ll give you just one thing that comes to mind with that company in particular.

Very early on, our whole business model was really built around selling to retailers — Borders, Barnes & Noble, Walmart — and that’s an overwhelming venture in itself, to try to get into those retailers, have them start selling. I was starting to think about, “What are some outside markets?” What are some non-traditional markets that we might be able to get our foot in the door at, given that those bigger retailers, we actually already had an in. But some of these other non-traditional markets, like for instance, public libraries, that was not in our business plan at first.

Now, I knew nothing about libraries. I could have done the research, and actually, the more research I would have done — and we did a little bit — but probably the more overwhelming it would have felt. I ended up calling a librarian, and I ended up sitting with a librarian in our local city, in our local market, just asking questions. When you’re doing that, when you’re in that moment, sitting there with a potential customer, all those feelings of being overwhelmed kind of melt away. If you’re asking the right questions, that can be such a telling thing in itself, and for us, it was.

Actually, that whole company changed completely. Within three years, we actually stepped out of retail altogether, and we solely focused on libraries and schools. That ended up being about 99 percent of the entire business, and that company ended up becoming about a $20 million company. I mean, we grew. We were able to get the product out there, get people using it. If we spent so much time thinking and strategizing and didn’t get out there and talk to customers, we would have never even known. I would say, if we did it in a way where we weren’t being creative, too, would have not even thought about the library industry, we might have went out of business within a year and a half.

Actually, that meeting that we had with that librarian, I would say in many ways, that single meeting saved our business. We were solving a big problem for them that we had no idea about.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah. I love it. Would you agree or disagree that nobody knows what they’re doing until they do it?

Mike Belsito: I would definitely agree with that, at least in my own experience. It’s funny, because I actually think about another business that I had later on. It’s a startup that my friend Bryan and I co-founded called eFuneral. The whole business was an online platform that connects families with funeral homes in their area. Really, what we were trying to do is we were trying to bring transparency to funeral planning.

In the very beginning, we felt inferior in a way. We felt very much like we couldn’t be the experts. We said, “Wow, we’re starting a funeral site, but if we want to put content on the site, we have to find experts. Those experts, they could be the ones to write an article, and we could publish it. We can’t do that ourselves because we’re not the experts.”

I realized over the course of the next couple of months, that is the wrong way to think about it. Basically, as soon as you’re doing something, as soon as we launched eFuneral, people are looking at us as the experts. Now, we felt like we didn’t know what we were doing, but it doesn’t matter. If you’re a family in need and you end up finding eFuneral online, you don’t know personally what the inferiority complex is, what the person is feeling. You just know that this is a service that potentially is solving a problem that you have.

Overcoming the Impostor Syndrome

Mike Belsito: It’s actually an interesting thing I think that a lot of founders go through. A lot of my friends have started businesses before. They have those same feelings. I think there is something called ‘impostor syndrome’ everybody feels, especially the more success that somebody has or the more success that the media is writing about all these things. The people I know that are actually great entrepreneurs, they’ve done amazing things. They feel like, “I don’t deserve any of this. I don’t know what I’m doing. What happens when people find out that I don’t know what I’m doing?” I felt like that over the last 10 years of my whole life in startups. I think you’re right on with that.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, I like that. It’s interesting to talk about friends and yourself, but when you’re in it, you’re kind of like, “Whoa, it’s like all of a sudden, I’m considered this expert. I know all of this stuff.” Then, from the other side, you look at other people, and you’re always like, “Man, that person is so good at creating apps,” or “That person is such a great public speaker.” There is one point where they literally have never done it. They just start it, and you didn’t see all that stuff, but now, yeah, they’re really good at it. But we’re not innately born knowing how to do any of this stuff at all.

It’s just something where we have to step up. I guess it’s being that naïve at the beginning to just think, “I can do it. Just do it. Just do it.” You have to get through the first stumbles in doing stuff, and then all of a sudden, “Wow, now, I know how to do it.” Then, you never really forget how to do it. It’s like riding a bike, I guess.

Mike Belsito: Yeah, I can’t remember who this quote belongs to. I think it might have been Alexis, one of the co-founders from Reddit. It was that “sucking at something is the first step at being great at it.” I might have butchered that quote, but the sentiment, I totally agree with it. If you don’t take that first step, and even in that moment when you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll never get to the point that you’re actually going to be great at something.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, exactly. All right. Let’s go back, then. There is just this time, Mike, in every entrepreneur’s life, when they realize one of two things. Either they have this calling to make something, make a difference in the world, or they simply just cannot work for somebody else. Can you tell me which of these two you are and when you discovered this about yourself?

Mike Belsito: Yeah, it’s definitely the first. I don’t want to say that I could never work for somebody else. One of the ventures I am in right now, it wasn’t my company to start up with, leading products for a company called Movable. But I’m working alongside one of my mentors who started the company. It’s a lot of fun being back with him. I will sit, but I could go right back to the very moment when I knew I love creating things. This was back in 2003., I was just starting the MBA program at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Before that, all of my professional experience had been in sports business. It was all internships at that time.

I was just coming off of graduating with my undergraduate degree but I had eight or nine internships with pro-sports team, college sports organizations, sports agencies. I was getting to Case to start my MBA program almost full time. I approached the athletic director there, and in my mind, I thought, “Well, hey, I’m going to be here for 2 years.” I just came off this internship working corporate sponsorship for this large sports agency, IMG. I thought, “Well, hey, if I’m going to be here, I might as well get involved with their athletics department. I like the corporate sponsorship angle. I want to learn more about that.” I approached her and pitched her on the idea of me joining her corporate sponsorship group.

I’ll never forget it. I’m on the lawn in front of the Veale Center, which is their big athletic complex. She took this meeting with me and we’re just standing there. I’m going through the whole pitch. She says, “Well, Mike, all this would be great, you seem like a good guy, but we don’t do that. We don’t have corporate sponsorship group. I don’t know if you noticed from the website that we didn’t have anything like that but we’re a Division III school. We don’t have all the money to hire somebody to do it. We don’t have the time to take somebody who already works here and divert their attention away from what they’re doing. I don’t know how you could really help us if we don’t do that.”

I just wasn’t expecting her to say that. It’s not like I had the plan of starting this, but I just sort of blurted out, “What? That’s great. Let me start it.” I pitched her on the idea on the spot of me creating this corporate sponsorship program from scratch. They wouldn’t need to pay me anything except maybe a percentage of whatever I’m able to raise. What I didn’t realize at the moment was, when I set this meeting up with her, her name and face was on the website but she hadn’t started yet. That day — that was her first day on the job. It was awesome timing because in retrospect, she probably wanted to put her stamp on something right away. She let me. She said, “All right. Well, let’s take a shot.”

At first year, I sold probably $20,000 to $30,000 worth of corporate sponsorships, which at a Division I school, a place like Ohio State or Miami University or Florida State, that would be nothing, a drop in the bucket. Case Western Reserve University, Division III, that’s a football coach. That’s meaningful to them. The program went really, really well. We made it all up from scratch, and it was just me. I didn’t have a department. It was just me, kind of figuring out, “Well, what inventory could we create? What sponsors would even make sense? How do we fulfill these sponsorships?” What I didn’t realize at the time was, that was my first startup.

I was creating something on the go, and by the time I had finished the MBA program, I still enjoyed sports even to this day. Sports wasn’t the career track I wanted to take. I started asking myself the question, what if there is a career out of just like making stuff, whether it’s physical things, whether it’s a program like this? I wish that could be a career. The whole startup career, that wasn’t trumpeted as much back then. That wasn’t as sexy as it is today. But I started opening up my mind. I started meeting entrepreneurs. That’s when I met those founders of that company, Findaway, that I was talking about before. That was the moment I realized I love creating things.

Whether it’s a physical product, I’ve done that, whether it’s, again, an online product, I’ve done that too. I just love being involved in a place where I can create things. At the end, it was back in 2003, that’s where it all started for me.

Jonny Nastor: It’s a great story. I guess that goes back to being naïve again, because if you would have known that she had just started that day, you wouldn’t have made this pitch. I had to laugh, because I just pictured this poor lady her first day, and she’s just trying to just figure out where to go and you’re like making this pitch of “We just started this whole new program, what?” Part of that.

Mike Belsito: Right.

Jonny Nastor: We love it.

Mike Belsito: In retrospect, it probably was weird timing, but what I’ll say is, I probably became the highest paid intern that they ever had there because of the way we structured that where I got paid a percentage. And I got to work from home. It was actually like the cushiest internship I would have ever had, but it was hard work, too. I mean, I was creating everything from scratch, but I give her credit.

I actually just reached out to her not that long ago, and she remembers it. I don’t know how it sits in her memory, but that’s the moment for me. That whole moment right there. I mean, that’s really what was responsible for me taking this path as an entrepreneur over the next 10-plus years.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah. You love being able to make stuff, create something out of nothing. You’ve done a lot of it, looking at your bio. You’ve done a lot of different things, which is really, really cool. Mike, how do you decide now, where you are, what the next project is? No matter how big or small that project is, but that it’s something that you want to now, either do yourself or be a part of a team to create or make this next something out of nothing.

Mike Belsito: Everybody is different. Everybody approaches this differently. There are definitely some people that are looking at, “What are the big money-making opportunities?” And “What’s the hot new market? How can we get our foot in the hot new market?” That’s not me. I’ve never approached things that way. For eFuneral, I could tell you right now, I did not think about, “Well, hey, what are sexy new markets that we could get involved in? Funeral services. Nobody is doing that.”

Jonny Nastor: The sexiest market of all.

Mike Belsito: Yeah, I mean, but in that particular case, it was because my cousin died, and it was a very real problem that we were experiencing as a family: the ability, or inability, I’d say, to quickly get the information that we are looking for to make an informed funeral-planning decision. For me, it is one of those things where I know it when I feel it.

I will say, I’m really fortunate to be in a position where I see a ton of ideas all the time, and I’m friends with a lot of entrepreneurs. I’m friends with people that have ideas for businesses. I don’t have like, “Hey, an idea has to meet these three metrics for me to want to get involved.” Whether it’s as personally starting a business or even advising a business.

It’s one of those that I know it when I feel it. Then, on the advising front, which is funny because again, going back to what we were talking about before — the whole impostor syndrome thing — I’m at a point where I’m getting asked to advise different startups. In those situations, it’s a lot more about the person I’m working with than even the idea. Ideas come and go. They change. I want to work with people that I like and that I get along with well. On that front, that’s the way I look at it.

On the other front, I’m agnostic to the whole like, “it has to be tech,” or “it has to be a billion-dollar opportunity.” I just have to feel really passionate about it. That’s the only barrier for me. It’s pretty vague, but that’s the way I look at things.

Jonny Nastor: It is a little vague. Let’s see, can we in any way, make it not more concrete, but you know it when you feel it? What do you feel? What is it that sets you off, do you think? Or is there something?

Mike Belsito: Well, I only can really try to dig in more by thinking about the experiences that I have had. I’ll tell you about one of the more recent ventures for me, which is a conference. It’s not even a technical product at all. It is a conference that we’re planning this fall called Industry. It’s a product-focused conference. It’s a conference for people that build, scale, and launch world-class products. I never thought that I would be organizing a conference before. If I were to make a list of “Here are the next startups that I want to get involved with,” that wasn’t one of them. I didn’t even think of building a conference as really a startup before.

I was approached by Paul McAvinchey, who is here in Cleveland, Ohio. He ran this conference for the first time last year, but it was a much different theme. It was just about entrepreneurship in the rust belt. Again, maybe it’s a situation that it’s more about the people, because the more I met with Paul, the more I realized I wanted to do something with him. The more we started talking a conference like Paul was starting to envision, it didn’t exist here as it relates to products. When I say ‘here,’ I don’t mean Cleveland. I mean the Midwest or just any place that’s in between New York and San Francisco.

We don’t see events like this happen here that often. It’s usually on the coast that we have to go to. It’s one of those things where I was thinking about it in the shower. I was thinking about it as I was relaxing with my wife at night. The more I started doing normal things, the more I found myself thinking about that specific conference, that specific opportunity. When I feel that way about something, I have to get involved. I have to figure out a way to get involved. Again, how can we dig in more on that? Again, maybe it does go back to people, because for me, here is what I do now.

Why You Shouldn’t Think Too Much about the ‘Up’s’

Mike Belsito: Any startup, there are going to be probably more downs than ups. That’s just what I’ve learned. The ups can be very high, and they could feel real good. The downs are inevitable. At the end of the day, if you’re going to get involved in something that will probably have a lot of downs, who is going to be around you? Who is going to be the one supporting you? Who do you want to be in the same room with? For me, Paul was that person as it relates to that specific conference, but the same goes for Bryan at eFuneral. I couldn’t have started eFuneral without my co-founder Bryan. That was somebody that I felt just as strong about starting a business with then.

Why Two Partners Must Have the Same Level of Passion

Mike Belsito: Even the idea itself, we were both really passionate about. It’s hard for me to dig in. I mean, I hadn’t really thought of it in that respect before, and we could keep digging if you want, Jon, but I think for me, those are the types of things I think about when I start considering getting involved in a new project.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, I really like it. I like when you say, when you’re deciding specifically who to work with, don’t just think of the ups. Because I think that’s what a lot of us do. It’s like, “Whoa, if we build this startup then sell it for a hundred million dollars,” well, you could basically, at that point, do it with anyone. It’s really easy to get along when everything is done and going great. It’s the hundred times that things fail in front of you that you don’t want to continue. That’s when you need to know how these people you’re surrounding yourself with are going to be.

Mike Belsito: Right.

Jonny Nastor: It’s a smart way to look at it.

Mike Belsito: Yeah, and I want to make sure that that I’m just as passionate as that other person and vice versa, right? We have to have that same level of passion. Otherwise, it’s just not going to work out. Expectations will be misaligned from one person, whether it’s me or the other person. I guess that’s the way I look at it.

Jonny Nastor: Excellent. Okay, Mike. There is this sort of idea that I’ve been working with, that I’m calling ‘the entrepreneurial gap,’ which, especially when we still have so much time ahead of us to do big things still, we are constantly looking and walking towards the horizon. We’re setting goals three months, six months, a year, five years down the road. As we get close to those goals, usually before we even hit them, we set five more loftier goals. “I’ll always be happier, I’ll always be more successful, I’ll always be more satisfied with myself and what I’ve accomplished in the future when I do this.”

We fail to stop and turn around and look at all the accomplishments we made to this date. We never really just stop today and be like, “Man, Mike, like I’ve done a lot. That’s impressive. If I would have known 5 years ago, where I would be today, I’d be really, really shocked with myself.” We’re always looking forward, never back. Mike, could I get you to stop right now, look back, and tell me how you feel about what it is you have accomplished to right now?

How and Why to Remember Your Accomplishments

Mike Belsito: I’m incredibly proud of the things that I’ve accomplished. You’re right in that I rarely take a look back in that context. I rarely take a look back to say, “Here are the things that I’ve accomplished,” but I do try to leave little reminders for myself about some of the things that I have done. An example is that I created a product with a friend of mine. It was a small consumer accessory for the iPhone. It’s called the App Stand. Basically, it’s a picture frame for your iPhone. This was not a big giant company that we created. It was simply kind of a two-person side gig type of product. We challenged ourselves: can we come up with an idea? Can we just execute the idea? Can we bring this idea to life on our own?

We did it in seven months’ time. But one reminder that I set for myself was that, “Hey, we could do that. I can take an idea, and I can actually create it into something tangible.” I have that App Stand, even though it was really designed for the first version of the iPhone. I have it in my dining room, along with all sorts of other pictures of family. I have a picture of me and Kurt, that person, in the App Stand. The App Stand kind of was I think is just a regular picture frame, not even picture frame for my iPhone.

When I look up at that, it’s just a reminder of myself, not only for the fun time that Kurt and I had designing and developing that specific product, but just a fact that if I find myself in a time where I am hitting my head up against the wall or I’m doubting myself, I could look up there. It’s proof right in my house that I can take an idea and do something with it. For me, I think it’s cool to have those reminders. I think any time we can think of ways to kind of set those reminders up for ourselves that, “Hey, as much as you want to do in the future, you have made an accomplishment. Look, here is that accomplishment.”

For other people, it might not be a physical product, but for me, that’s one way I try to look back and take a look at some of the success. I mean, just take a look at some of the things that I am proud of.

Jonny Nastor: Nice, I love it. Well said, Mike. Mike, we’ve got to talk about you and about businesses you’ve started in passing, but could we leave by you telling the listeners specifically where they could go find out more about you please?

Mike Belsito: Yeah, there is a few places in particular. I’m on Twitter. You could find me @belsito, and I’m on Twitter fairly frequently, or you could go right to my bio page. It’s MikeBelsito.com.

I actually wrote a book. It’s called Startup Seed Funding for the Rest of Us. It’s more about the process of finding seed capital if you’re not in a place like Silicon Valley. That’s at SeedFundingBook.com. And then people who want to reach out, they have a question, just want to email me directly, you could email me at mikebelsito@gmail.com. Those are probably the best places to find me right now.

Jonny Nastor: Very cool. Twitter, MikeBelsito.com, and SeedFundingBook.com, plus email direct access to Mike. That’s awesome. I have a link to all of those in the show notes for everyone so they’re very, very easy to find. Mike, thank you so much for you taking the time to stop by with us today. I really do appreciate it. Please just keep doing what you’re doing, man, because it’s really awesome to watch.

Mike Belsito: Thank you. I appreciate that and thanks for the chance to tell my story, Jon.

Jonny Nastor: Absolutely my pleasure, Mike. Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to join me. That was a lot of fun. I think we really hit it off. I guess it’s that small-town, outside-the-Valley type thing. Still in startups, still trying to create cool businesses, but not stuck in that whole Silicon Valley thing. It’s relatable to me, Mike. I liked it. Thanks so much.

What do you think? Mike is a smart guy, isn’t he? He is. He said a lot of smart things, didn’t he? He did. He said one thing. One thing. Did you get it? Did you hear it? Let’s do it. Let’s find the hack.

Mike Belsito: … Alexis, one of the co-founders from Reddit, but it was that “sucking at something is the first step at being great at it.” I might have butchered that quote, but the sentiment I totally agree with. If you don’t take that first step, even in that moment where you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll never get to the point where you’re actually going to be really great at something.

Jonny Nastor: That’s the hack. Yes, Mike. Thank you. You know what? I just have to mention it, but it’s awesome that the quote is about sucking at something, and then you even completely butcher the quote. I didn’t look up the quote, but who cares. I am no good at quoting things right now, but Mike is going to keep quoting stuff, and he’s going to get good at it.

The sentiment is right. The sentiment is absolutely right. Steli Efti — early on, around episode 20 or so — I’ll link to it in the show notes for you. But it’s an amazing conversation with him, and he said something I’d never thought of before as the metaphor of, when we’re kids, we don’t know how to walk, and we keep falling and falling and falling.

We don’t just stop and say, “I’m never going to walk.” We have this idea when we’re kids. We learn how to write. We learn how to speak. We learn how to draw. We learn how to play different games and do different stuff. We don’t care that we suck at it when we start. We don’t care that we constantly fail and hurt ourselves. We just keep trying it. Why do we lose that ability? We shouldn’t. We have to get that ability back.

You need that ability. You need the ability to completely suck at stuff and not care and be willing to do it, knowing that it’s sort of the process of getting good. It’s just how it works. Go back and listen to … my first episodes of this show aren’t that bad. I’ll give myself that credit.

I have other podcasts out there. Some of them are terrible. Terrible. I didn’t know how to speak into a microphone. I got all muddled and freaked out, but what did I do? Did I stop? No, if I would have stopped, I wouldn’t have had Hack The Entrepreneur. I wouldn’t have you listening. That’s amazing. It’s only because I didn’t give up.

Mike, that’s so true, and thank you for the quote. I will look the quote up, and I’ll put it in the show notes for people, because it’s a great quote. The idea is absolutely right. You have to suck at something before you can be good. It’s just the way it is. Just enjoy it.

Be happy sucking, and just laugh at yourself. Laugh at it, and know that you will be awesome one day, as long as you don’t give up. It’s awesome. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for coming on, man, and thanks for that hack because it was cool.

All right. This has been a lot of fun. It’s earl, mid-May right now. The end of May, the last week of May to June, I’m actually going to be heading out with my family. We’re driving from Ontario, so if you’re Canadian, or we might actually go to the States, down to Minneapolis and then across to Seattle. If you are somewhere between Minneapolis and Seattle or Ontario and Vancouver, you should email me or hit me on Twitter or something.

I’d love to stop in, have a coffee with you, and I’ll buy you a beer or something. I’d like to meet you. We’re driving. We’re pretty slow. It’s going to take us a week to get there because we’re not really in a rush. And if you’re in Vancouver, I’m going to be there all summer, spending three months out there with my family, hanging out, doing some work. I’ll still be doing episodes. Don’t worry, I’ll be recording out there. I got myself a nice office and stuff. It’s going to be fun, but I’ll be there, Seattle and Vancouver, hanging out for a few months. Reach out. I’d love to take you out for a coffee or whatever your drink is you like to drink. I’m up for any of them. I’m cool. It’s fine.

All right. Thank you so much again for everything, and for joining me today. I really do appreciate it. I know you have a lot of options, and I appreciate you taking the time with me. Until next time, please keep hacking the entrepreneur.

Never Miss New Shows and Episodes on Rainmaker.FM

Get the best of the Rainmaker.FM network in a single weekly email, along with two weeks
of free training that will change the way you think about online marketing ...

Free Registration

You might also like...

The Digital Entrepreneur

How Jay Baer is Navigating New Waters With His Latest Digital Product

Listen to episode
The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

How Oscar Nominee Emma Donoghue (Screenwriter of ‘Room’) Writes: Part Two

Listen to episode
Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing

The Surprising Truth about Earning a Profit from Your Content

Listen to episode
Rough Draft

100 The Episode That Explains the Future of Rough Draft

Listen to episode
The Showrunner

No. 011 How to Deliver a Better Audio Experience to Your Audience

Listen to episode
Rough Draft

043 The Oddest Story About Overcoming Obscurity You’ll Ever Hear

Listen to episode

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You ByWP Engine

Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting.

Start getting more from your site today!

Copyright © 2023 Rainmaker Digital, LLC. Powered by the Rainmaker Platform.

Privacy Policy  ·  Refund Policy  ·  Cookie Policy  ·  Terms of Service  ·  Contact