How to Make $40K Per Month in Your 20's: Building a Side-Business

Ex-Google Tech Lead talks about building a side-hustle and making $40K/month in your 20's.

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Video Transcript

(Note: This transcript is auto-generated by YouTube and may not be 100% correct.)

00:00

alright hey tech elite here and welcome

00:02

back to another episode today we're

00:04

going to be talking about how to start

00:06

and grow a small business and we're

00:08

going to be talking to somebody somebody

00:10

in their 20s who has founded a

00:12

multi-million dollar business a company

00:14

and that person is going to help us get

00:17

all started and/or gentleman what are

00:20

you doing here I'm not talking about you

00:22

Gemma what do you mean well maybe you

00:26

should go to sleep then gather here go

00:28

to bed it's past your curfew time not

00:30

talking about you either and start a

00:32

multi-million dollar business yeah here

00:36

let me get over here climate climate hey

00:41

Clement now Clement here has started and

00:44

grown a very successful business in his

00:47

20s Clement is going to tell us all

00:49

about how he got this started what were

00:50

the logistics and how to practically get

00:53

a business going and why it is so useful

00:55

for young people to be starting small

00:57

businesses he's going to take us all

00:59

through the steps what was this business

01:00

that you started and tell us all about

01:02

it

01:02

our business is called Aldo expert algo

01:04

expert gallo it's basically targeted at

01:07

software engineers who like you and I

01:09

who want to prepare for their coding

01:11

interviews especially a big tech

01:13

companies big startups and we provide

01:15

curated questions like the ones you find

01:18

these coding interviews and we give

01:20

video explanations for those questions

01:22

of coding work space etc etc so you can

01:24

go to algo exper do a slash tech we'd if

01:27

you want to check it out that's right

01:29

you want to make sure you use code

01:30

technically get discount check them out

01:32

now start your business sounds cool and

01:34

we are here all the time well just our

01:36

business list our business I'm gonna

01:38

start business but how exactly do you

01:40

start a business what are the steps that

01:42

you have to go through what are the

01:44

challenges and how do you concretely get

01:46

this off the ground yeah so the first

01:49

step I think is coming up with the idea

01:50

and to be honest I think a lot of ideas

01:53

can work it's just about finding a

01:55

problem and then coming up with a

01:56

solution to that problem and building it

01:59

and executing it and so in my case I was

02:02

prepping for coding interviews and I was

02:05

using a bunch of resources textbooks

02:07

websites online YouTube Wikipedia and I

02:10

thought there's got to be a better way

02:11

that's how I came up with the idea

02:13

sounds simple enough do you do it by

02:15

yourself do you have a co-founder do you

02:17

set up like a LLC do you incorporate

02:20

start partnership you can do it alone

02:22

I think alone is a bit tougher I ended

02:25

up having a co-founders so I contacted

02:27

one of my best friends who happens to be

02:29

a software engineer as well I pitched

02:31

him the idea and he was on board and we

02:34

got it up and running so we ended up

02:35

going with an LLC the reason being is it

02:38

fit our needs the best we wanted from a

02:41

tax point of view to have things be

02:43

simple we want to only be taxed once

02:45

right so now we'll see was good for us

02:47

from that point of view as opposed to

02:49

corporation for instance but we also

02:52

wanted that limited liability that a

02:55

partnership a general partnership may

02:57

give you yeah that's right because as I

03:00

understand that you have a sole

03:01

proprietorship and that is where anyone

03:03

can actually start a business you just

03:05

start making money and that's a business

03:07

already you're a sole proprietorship now

03:09

is that beyond that you can actually

03:10

form a partnership say with multiple

03:13

people but that's still pretty much ax

03:15

very similar to like a sole

03:16

proprietorship the level above that is

03:18

you for my OLC which acts more like a

03:21

corporation where you can pay yourself a

03:23

salary you get limited liability such

03:25

that if anyone sees you they don't have

03:28

access to your personal assets is simply

03:31

the company standing alone on its own

03:33

and then the company has its own bank

03:34

account its own social security number

03:37

for tax purposes

03:38

everything is very separate and then

03:40

it's easier in a way to separate your

03:42

business and personal expenses now how

03:44

do you go about forming an LLC isn't it

03:47

very complicated aren't there all sorts

03:49

of paperwork that you have to go through

03:51

so it's a little bit complicated there

03:53

are a few services like stripe Atlas

03:55

Legal Zoom Rocket Lawyer that'll give

03:58

you like services to make the LLC for

04:00

you or help you along the way we ended

04:03

up is doing it ourselves it's sort of

04:05

like old-fashioned rent

04:06

oh wow so you just filed the audit

04:08

paperwork on your own yeah we went to

04:09

the State Department and did all that by

04:11

ourselves how complicated was that to do

04:13

on your own it's intimidating but not

04:16

actually that complicated okay

04:18

interesting now I have formed a few

04:20

LLC's myself as well and generally I

04:23

just use a service like lemon mint

04:25

and that's an arrow it's very simple and

04:27

easy to get this all set up you just

04:29

fill out an online web application press

04:31

submit button and don't get a LLC all

04:33

set up for you what are the fees

04:34

involved in it I'll see here so you have

04:37

an incorporation fee it's escaping me

04:39

right now but it's roughly two hundred

04:42

to a thousand dollars something like

04:44

that might vary from state to its eight

04:45

hundred dollars in California and as I

04:48

understand that you choose a state to

04:50

incorporate in and then you can actually

04:52

operate in any other state yep

04:55

which state did you choose we ended up

04:56

giving New York we just fit well for us

04:58

okay cool

05:00

generally I will actually register in

05:02

Delaware which is very well known for

05:05

its business friendly laws and then you

05:07

can operate as a foreign business in

05:09

other states yep not working now once

05:11

you have to say I'll see you all set up

05:13

how did you fund the company so we

05:15

didn't need too much money at the

05:16

beginning so we just put $2,500 each up

05:19

front me and my co-founder and that was

05:21

it the company has been self-sustaining

05:23

ever since did you ever have issues

05:24

choose iam co-founder I find that they

05:27

say co-founders are often almost like

05:29

having a marriage because you get to

05:31

work with the co-founder so closely and

05:33

you have to work out so many different

05:34

issues how did you know that you could

05:36

trust your co-founder what would happen

05:38

if your co-founders decided to just stop

05:40

working at some point this is where I

05:42

totally agree I think choosing the right

05:44

co-founder is probably the most

05:45

important thing you can do me and my

05:48

co-founder are lucky in that we're very

05:51

good friends and we just have that trust

05:53

on top of that we have very

05:56

complementary skill sets and we also

05:58

have different sort of like goals so we

06:00

don't overstep on each other and it just

06:02

works out really beautifully we're able

06:04

to work remotely pretty seamlessly with

06:06

no personal issues no work issues

06:09

fighting someone who has a complementary

06:13

skill set it's probably gonna be one of

06:15

the most important things because so

06:16

that you it's actually useful to have

06:18

multiple people and then probably just

06:21

making sure that you have open

06:22

communication if you have open

06:24

communication and trust you will be able

06:26

to work together and you can maybe even

06:28

be creative instead of things where you

06:30

have to work a certain amount of time or

06:32

produce a certain amount until you get

06:35

your equity in the business so is your

06:37

business purely online

06:38

do you have office space yeah so we're

06:41

purely online that means that we don't

06:43

have an office space we can work

06:45

remotely from wherever we are in a

06:47

coffee shop on a beach if we want that's

06:49

one thing that's really cool about the

06:52

era that we live in where we can build

06:53

fully online businesses and not have to

06:58

deal with the difficulties of having a

07:01

physical product having to have an

07:03

office space or a warehouse or hold

07:05

inventory of course not everyone has

07:07

luxury to do this not everyone has a

07:08

purely online business but you can't

07:11

have that these days yeah I think that's

07:13

one interesting thing when that was

07:15

running the online businesses it

07:17

actually allowed me to take time off

07:18

work between jobs there wouldn't be like

07:21

a huge resume gap because I could say

07:23

well I'm working on this business during

07:25

that time I can do some traveling during

07:27

that time as well and I just get more

07:29

flexibility and freedom in what I'm

07:31

doing well at the same time still being

07:33

productive and living how I might choose

07:36

to live I remember I would work from

07:38

Hawaii sometimes or work on cruise boats

07:40

now you're painting a really good

07:41

picture of running your own business

07:43

what are the cons of this what are the

07:45

challenges of running the business yeah

07:48

I think that there there are three big

07:50

challenges but in some sense they are

07:53

also positives if you like this if you

07:55

have that sort of entrepreneurial itch

07:57

the first one is there's a lot of work a

08:00

lot of the work is gonna be stuff that

08:01

you don't like

08:02

like for instance forming the LLC

08:04

marketing I'm not the biggest fan of

08:06

running ad campaigns and all that but I

08:09

have to do it challenge number two is

08:10

that sometimes you're putting in all

08:12

this work and you're not getting much in

08:14

return especially like in the earlier

08:16

months or earlier years of your business

08:18

you might not be making that much money

08:20

you you might be losing money right

08:22

that's a challenge to stay motivated and

08:24

number three this one is really critical

08:27

it is that everything that goes along in

08:30

the business is your fault everything

08:33

that goes wrong is your fault and even

08:36

beyond that if you do something wrong

08:39

and you break something in the business

08:41

there's no one on the other side that's

08:43

gonna be able to fix things when you're

08:45

at a normal job and something goes wrong

08:48

for instance in software engineers some

08:50

system breaks even if you don't know how

08:52

to fix it you have this sort of mental

08:54

piece that oh some other expert here is

08:57

gonna be able to fix it here that's not

09:00

the case it's only me and my co-founder

09:02

and maybe you know one other person no

09:04

one's gonna fix it for you you got to do

09:06

it that's right you have to really be

09:08

accountable and have a good work ethic

09:10

and understand that it doesn't matter

09:12

how much time you put in in the normal

09:14

job it's just about putting in the hours

09:15

and many times people would just go in

09:18

and work and they're not going to worry

09:19

about being terribly productive all the

09:21

time but when you're running your own

09:23

business

09:23

you really need to make sure that the

09:25

effort that you put in translates into

09:27

real impact into the bottom line and

09:29

oftentimes it's not going to be that's

09:31

something that you really enjoy doing

09:32

sometimes you're going to find out that

09:34

all you want to do is maybe code but it

09:36

turns out that you know that marketing

09:39

is going to be what your company really

09:40

needs at this point and then you have to

09:42

spend all your time studying about how

09:43

to do Facebook advertising or Instagram

09:46

advertising or something like that

09:47

that's a key thing like it especially as

09:50

software engineers we have this tendency

09:52

to want to code code code want to build

09:54

sometimes you got to stop building and

09:56

you got to start maintaining and don't

10:01

sneak up on me like that now I hope

10:02

you've enjoyed part one of two of this

10:05

interview for the stunning and epic

10:07

conclusion to this interview head on

10:09

over to Clements channel is going to be

10:11

great link in the description below and

10:13

I'll see you over there

English (auto-generated)