WHAT DO YOU NEED TO START A BUSINESS There’s 5 things I believe that you must have before starting any business. 1. A Niche It sounds really simplistic and over used, but that’s because it’s true. Without a niche you have no focused audience and your gonna be too broad and all across the board with your marketing. If you have a central focus for your desired audience then you’re easier to recognize as a brand, you have a unique area that you can triple down on, and it just makes something that’s already incredibly difficult a lot easier. Say you wanted to be a social influencer in the world of fitness, but you have no specific niche. Now you’re floating in space, because you can’t pick a planet. Find something that you can just be on fire at 24/7. Something that you just don’t have SOME passion for but something that you can work on 16 hours or more a day, 5 days a week, no problem. If you dread it, then it’s not worth it. If you drag your feet during it even for a minute, it’s not the right niche. Find something you can live for and kick everyone else’s asses at, and not just because you’re more talented than them but because you out work them. 2. Product Think of it like archery. Your niche is your bow, your products or content are your arrows. Take your niche and think of as many things that relate to that one particular market of fitness. Or music. Or pottery. Or whatever it is that you do. All of those “things” that you come up with are potential products or potential content for your business. Not everything you come up with is a viable product. Not everything can be sold, or resold, easily in today’s market. For instance, if your business is to buy and resell phones. Buy iPhones. Don’t buy those fucking brick Nokias from the dark ages. Today’s market doesn’t want them. But let me give you a less simplistic example because I think it’ll give you more value. Let’s use the same example to a certain extent. Your buying and reselling phones. You decide you understand iPhones the most and they’re the best seller for your market. Things are going well and you decide you want to incorporate phone cases into your business. That are some aspects to consider about what phone cases to sell. What colors sell best? Are you selling iPhone 6 or 7 cases? There’s no need for you to invest your money in cases that are iPhone 5 or less because they aren’t on the shelves of AT&T, Apple, T-Mobile, etc. meaning the market doesn’t want your phone cases either. 3. Content, Content, Content Now that a niche and a product are established you have to market it, or no one will see it. It’s 2017 almost 2018. If you aren’t using social media, then you’re behind. You must take 5–6 platforms and make then work for your niche and product and put out content that will attract the right audience. You also must make sure that the content your posting on periscope, Facebook, medium, instagram, YouTube or whatever is respectful to the platform. What I mean is that people surfing on Facebook are going to have a different perspective then people on Pinterest. For instance, if a 43 year old woman named Jessica is on Facebook she is looking to keep up with all of her friends and family’s lives, and you going to market differently to her then if she is on Pinterest because on Pinterest she is looking to shop or redecorate. Same person different mindsets. The other side of the coin is engaging with your audience after creating the content. I wouldn’t worry too much on aesthetics of the content of the content is made to be educational for example. However if your a model and your instagram account is to promote you as a model then aesthetics are everything because it’s the center piece of all of your content. Let me move back to engagement though. If you’re putting out content but not engaging your robbing yourself of an audience. If you engage in comments more people will comment, but also more people will feel connected to you and therefore look for more ways to engage with you. Engagement is crucial to putting out content. And use all the platforms that your “art” or industry can leverage effectively. 4. Engagement This is essential. Content matters, direction matters, but without a community you won’t see success. So, build a community on instagram, twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Do it. All the time. Everywhere you go. Build your community on every platform you can leverage. The key to this being a success is by adding a thousand times more value than you ask for in return. Let’s say you want to promote your buddy, who is a rapper, by running his social media accounts. Okay, first start putting out content. Then engage with his current audience and grow a new audience and scale. Simple right? But it takes a lot of work. Hours and hours of engagement and grinding. Then after you have given given given, you ask them to pre-order his new album that drops in 2 weeks. Jab, jab, Jab… right hook. 5. Drive Drive is my quirky way of saying motivation. But I don’t just mean motivation. I’m talking about something internal not external. Motivation is when you watch a video and it makes you feel good, and then you do work for an hour or 2 and then go home. DRIVE. That’s the fucking premium gas that you need to succeed. It’s internal. It’s obsessive. It’s nearly uncontrollable. It’s that feeling you get when you wake up at 3am to go to Florida for the week and you can’t think about anything else. Or that feeling when a girl you’ve been talking to texts you to come over late at night. Nothing. Else. Matters. That drive. And when you’re drive is directed and aline with your purpose then you will be a legend in your business. If you have a drive then every minute matters, and nothing will stand in your way. No one’s opinion of you matters anymore, all that matters is work. No external drug or substance matters anymore, all that matters is work. No one potential or current relationship will matter anymore, unless it has to do with work because all that matters is work. This is my opinion on this topic. I’d love to hear yours. But to quickly some up what I’m trying to deliver here with this post is this: figure out what you’re supposed to do and why you’re gonna do it, and then go fucking do it. Work your fucking face off.
