What’s up y’all. Welcome to The Shontavia Show, where my goal is to help you start a business based on your life’s vision. This ain’t gonna be your daddy’s business advice. I’m laser focused on entrepreneurship in the 21st century, vision and breaking the traditional mold. If you can get with that, you can get with me. Be sure to visit shontavia.com for more episodes, blog posts, and other content. Thank you for listening. The show starts now.

What’s up everybody? I’m Shontavia and this is The Shontavia Show where I want to inspire you to build a business based on the vision you have for your life. Today’s episode is a topic that is near and dear to my heart because this is me all the time, every day. The topic today is starting before you are ready. I love, love, love this topic because I am never ready for anything and I’m starting things all the time.

So we’ll talk about starting before you’re ready, particularly starting your business, starting to build your brand and all of that stuff before you are ready. And without question, this is one of the most common responses I get. One of the most common questions I get about, you know, why do I start now? How do I start when I really don’t know what I’m doing?

And I guess my answer almost always is hardly anybody knows what they’re doing. We’re all out here figuring it out. And I mean obviously nobody wants to be out here, you know, in danger or, or you know about to… Nobody wants to be out here in danger, right? But we don’t have to be in danger just cause you don’t know what you’re doing. I am here to help you. The internet has a wide variety of resources that I am willing to pull together and curate for you. Do all the hard work for you.

So let’s start before we’re ready and I want to give you a couple of examples of when I’ve started before I’m ready. Starting with this literal show that I’m recording right now.

I wanted to wait for so many things to happen before I started doing this show. I wanted to lose some baby weight. I wanted to write my book first. I wanted to get my nails done. I didn’t do that. I didn’t have time this week, but I’m still out here recording this show and providing information because at the end of the day, what is way more important to me than, you know, any of these superficial things, is getting my message out so that I can help people, growing my business so that I can be of service to people like you who are thinking about starting businesses. It is my passion, y’all, to help other people create things that they love, create lives that they love and create businesses that will change the world and help other people.

So silly things like, you know, me having my nails done or not. I just finally said, you know, there will never be a perfect time, so I’m just going to get out there. And do it. Even when I went to law school, I was not ready for law school at all. I actually went to undergrad at Clemson University. I was a bioengineering major, so I got my undergraduate degree in bioengineering. For 21 years of my life, I thought I was going to medical school. Literally my whole life, I thought that was my path to go to medical school, become a medical researcher and do that. My summer before my senior year, I went and worked in a research lab sponsored by the National Science Foundation, where I was doing bioengineering research. And, I loved the people. The work was really interesting. I just could not see myself doing it everyday.

We had to sit through, this was the moment I knew medical research was not for me. We sat through a total knee replacement surgery. If you have never seen one, don’t Google it, don’t go watch on YouTube. They’re the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen in my life. And the sounds and the blood and the smells and like the sawing and hammering and all of that. I knew in that moment, I was not going to medical school. I was not going to be a bioengineer. And this was literally like the summer before my last year in college. So I had to figure out another plan. Did not know what I was gonna do at all. And at the time I had a person, so the person who is now my husband was then just a friend of mine was applying to law school with, one of his line brothers was applying to law school to my, my husband is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated.

He and his line brother were applying to law school at the same time. And I was looking at them like, Hmm. I mean if they can go to law school, surely that’s something I can try to.

I didn’t even really know anything about law school. I just did not, frankly, have any great options and this was something like my dad had said to me several times, “you know, you ought to think about law school.” I never gave it really any serious consideration. I just didn’t really know what to do next. So I went and bought a book. I did not literally know the difference between, like, a plaintiff and a defendant. I didn’t know any lawyers. I didn’t know anything. I bought a book to study the LSAT, which is the test at least in the U.S. that you take before you go to law school. Didn’t do that great obviously cause I didn’t know anything about law school or about the LSAT or anything else.

But you know by the grace of God I ended up the law school. Absolutely loved it, learned about intellectual property law and, kind of like, the rest is history. So I created a whole career starting before I was ready. Starting before I really knew anything at all. I actually started this business long before I was ready. I’ve talked in other episodes and on my website about how I quit the job I was working at as a lawyer and went to South Africa for almost four months or so. Really did not know what I was going to do when I came back to the U.S. And at least not long term. And one of the things I noticed when I was in South Africa was everywhere I went, I always bought from like the local artisans, the women who were selling stuff on the side of the road, all of these like micro enterprises or micro businesses.

I would always go and patron the entrepreneurs and it really got me to thinking, you know, I really am attracted to people who are out here creating things and not just like the cookie cutter model of going out and buying like really expensive stuff at the mall. And it made me wonder, you know, is there a way that I can work with entrepreneurs?

Is this something that would really interest me and connect like the work I was doing for really big companies with entrepreneurs. And I came back to the U.S. Was still kind of thinking about it and my mother’s friend had an issue that she needed legal help with, completely unrelated to entrepreneurship, completely unrelated to, to intellectual property law or anything. But she needed help and she insisted that I help her. She insisted that I start a business so that I could help her with this specific issue she was having.

And I’m so grateful to her because she was my first client, completely unrelated to the things I’m doing now. But that opportunity gave me the confidence to realize, “Hey, even if I don’t know this stuff, I can figure it out.” I helped her, she got the results she wanted, and we were able to, you know, come to a resolution for the challenge that she was having and the issue she was having.

And that was my first client and it was a client I didn’t even want. And I really didn’t even know anything about that particular type of law. I just got online, got some books, learned enough, read enough called the court enough where I could come to a resolution for her. So I made it happen. I started before I was ready, and I’m not the only one.

So there’s this philosophy, I think that we look at these really, really successful people and think, wow, I could never do that. That person must be brilliant. They must be a genius. They must be so completely focused and blah, blah, blah. And I just have not seen that to be true.

And I think there are enough examples out here now that we know this is not true. If you’ve ever read Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming, there’s a part in the book where she talks about how she has been in all these high level meetings. There’s so many important tables and all of that, and all these, quote, “successful people” that she’s with in some of these spaces, she said they really aren’t that smart. And so I won’t speak to whether or not anybody’s that smart, but what I do know is that I’ve worked with and for enough people who started million and billion dollar enterprises to know that a lot of those people couldn’t even write the word billion in their bio at the time that they were starting.

So take for example, Richard Branson, very successful billionaire, who’s founded all kinds of companies, and one of those companies is Virgin Airlines. And he literally started his airline, lik,e on the fly to get to a woman. So I read this story online and then I saw some videos about it on YouTube.

He tells this story about how when he was in his late twenties, he had a business but nobody knew who he was and he was headed to the Virgin Islands to go meet a girl, a very pretty girl. There was a girl in the Virgin Islands. He was going to travel too. So he was really, you know, determined to figure out a way to get to this girl. And he was at the airport trying to get on the last leg of his flight to the Virgin Islands and it was canceled for some reason. Maybe it was maintenance or weather, who knows.

But it was the final flight of the night and he was so upset that his flight was canceled to get to this girl, he went and chartered a private plane to take him to the Virgin Islands. But, he didn’t have enough money to actually do that. So he got a Blackboard, wrote “Virgin Islands, $29” on it. And then he went to the group of people who’d been on the flight that was canceled and sold the rest of the seats on the plane to those people. So he used that money to charter the flight and then go to the Virgin Islands later that day. And that was the beginning of Virgin Airlines. So I don’t think anybody could have been less prepared to start an airline or to start anything, frankly, than Richard Branson was in that moment.

Virgin Atlantic to that. So Virgin Atlantic is kind of like the larger subsidiary. Virgin Atlantic today had, has revenues of like three, almost $4 billion. And, they just entered into a deal at the end of 2019 worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

So yes, it is great to have a plan. Y’all know, I believe in vision. Nobody wants to crash and burn, but you don’t have to have everything figured out. As I, I quote Marie Forleo all the time, who is one of, you know, my favorite entrepreneurs probably of all time. And one of the things she says often is “Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.”

So what I’d like to do in this episode of the show was offer you some suggestions on how you can start when you feel like you’re not ready. And there are so many different things you can do to start before you really feel like you’re ready.

So I really want to talk about three things. So the first thing is make it official. So rip the bandaid off, make it official, and by make it official, what I mean is create a separate entity, get a tax ID number and start a bank account.

The second thing is know who you’re trying to reach. So identify your ideal customer.

So then the third thing, create content and sell stuff that addresses your ideal customer. So start before you’re ready by doing those three things.

(1) Make it official, meaning get a business, a tax ID number and a bank account. (2) Second thing, identify your ideal customer. (3) And the third thing, create stuff. Your ideal customer wants. Create content. If you’re not ready to sell anything, but you have to sell something, create content.

So first with making it official, register that LLC, incorporate that corporation. Get that nonprofit with the appropriate office in your state of choice. That will make it official. There is a thing that happens in your mind when you flip that switch and actually become a business owner, especially if you’ve been thinking about it for a while. And this isn’t terribly complicated.

There are a couple of episodes of this show and a couple of articles on my website about choosing business entities, getting tax ID numbers and that kind of thing. I’ll link to those in the show notes.

This stuff is not terribly complicated. In many States, you can register your business, get a tax ID number, and maybe even open a bank account or business bank account on the same day.

I mentioned to you all when I did this earlier in this episode of the show, I had no clue what I was doing. I opened my business bank account with like, I think it was like $25 maybe $50. And at the time that was a stretch for me. So I had just started a new job. So when I came back from South Africa, well, so let me back up a little. When I started practicing law, it was a so-so experience that got really bad really quickly.

I quit that job, left and went to South Africa for three or four months or so, came back to the U.S. with a completely new kind of vision and view on life. And I took a job that was paying me $100,000 less than what I was making, just you know, maybe six or eight months prior.

So to open a new business bank account and to do all this stuff was a stretch for me cause I was making a lot less money. I was, uh, paying rent in a new city cause I actually moved halfway across the country. So I was paying rent in a new city and paying the mortgage on the house I had before–the house I had bought when I was working in this place. I really didn’t like, so $50 and incorporating a business at the time it was like $150 that was a stretch for me.

But when I did those things, when I incorporated the business, well when I registered the LLC with the secretary of state, got my tax ID number and opened a bank account with that $25 or $50, it really did flip a switch for me. It felt good. It felt like, okay well I actually am making some progress. And progress is the goal. Big or small ,progress is what I hope I can help you do through this show and through my work. So that’s the first step. So making it official, just rip the bandaid off and do that.

The second thing, and gosh, this part is so important, know who you are trying to reach. And that ain’t everybody. You do not have to be all things to all people in your business. You have got to get crystal clear on who you want to connect with in your business and who in your business you are going to sell products to.

And even more importantly, not just who this kind of broad target audience is, but who is your ideal customer? Not just the general audience, but the absolute best person out there for you to buy from. You could be trying to sell the most amazing product ever created on this planet, but if you’re trying to sell it to the wrong person, you are not going to sell much of anything at all.

So like with me, the thing I hate most on this, well one of the things I hate most on this planet, are like horror films. Uh, like horror shows, horror games, video games. I don’t like at Halloween even going to those like, you know, Halloween scary houses or whatever, or the pumpkin patch where you walk through or ride through, people jump out at you. That is like not my thing. So I don’t care what you have. I don’t care how great it is. If you are in a horror genre, I’m not buying anything literally nothing from you. So I am the wrong customer for that kind of business.

So when you have to do is find that ideal customer, that ideal client, identify who that person is and create things for them. When you really, really get to know who that target audience and ideal customer are, you can start to create things that will resonate with those people, with that person. And not just generally or more broadly.

So many people know when they start a business they say, Hey, I’m out here to help everybody. Anybody who wants to buy from me. And I sort of you know, understand that. But along those same lines, to start, you just are not going to have the time, capacity, energy, or reach to be able to reach everybody all the time for every specific thing.

So make sure you identify who it is you’re trying to reach, that ideal client, ideal customer you’re trying to reach.

And then the third thing, create content, sell stuff that addresses that ideal customer, using all of the things you worked through in that second part of identifying who that ideal customer ideal client is.

You know who’s really good at this, who’s really good at starting before you’re ready and knowing who that ideal customer is, who the, I mean this just actually happened not too long ago from the time that I’m recording this. Who’s really, really good at it is Disney. Disney is amazing at identifying who their ideal customers are, throwing something out there and figuring out if it was going to work. They did it recently, so in November of 2019 Disney launched Disney Plus, which is that subscription, video on demand streaming service that they came out with. So they’ve got content from Disney, from Pixar, from 20th Century Fox, Star Wars, Marvel, National Geographic, and they launched really just in three places in November of 2019—the U.S. Canada and the Netherlands.

And when it launched, there were so many problems like there were some people couldn’t log in. There were some people who couldn’t access certain content. There were certain streaming services people couldn’t use.

And then when you tried to call and get somebody on the phone, you were left on hold for hours on end. And obviously there were things Disney had not thought about or had not addressed before launching the product.

There also have been tons of complaints once it launched with specific shows. So like The Simpsons being one. So I’m a huge fan of the Simpsons. Lots of people are. And if you try to watch The Simpsons right now in Disney plus you don’t get the full image because of the aspect ratios of the show. So you’re missing out on a lot of the really good visual jokes that The Simpsons is known for, that show is known for. And so Disney has even had to come out again and not just deal with the broader issues, but with The Simpsons in particular and say, “Hey, we’re going to fix this in the next, you know, couple of weeks or months and you’ll have a better quality of program for The Simpsons.”

Even with all of these challenges and all of these problems. Disney got 10 million subscribers on the first day. I didn’t subscribe on the first day, I subscribed a little bit later, and I signed up even knowing all this stuff was happening.

And so if, if Disney can do that and have all of these issues and can still continue to push forward, and who knows how huge Disney plus will grow. I mean, 10 million subscribers on the first day is astronomical compared to what some of their competitors are doing.

But, you can, I can. We can, as entrepreneurs move quickly to start before we’re ready in our businesses and with our brands.

I hope this episode has illustrated for you that you can make starting your business and growing your business and creating a brand a little less scary.

If you still have questions about this, about what’s still scary about starting a business, whether you, you know, feel like you can’t or won’t start before you’re ready, please head over to shontavia.com. Leave a comment, ask a question, engage with me and other entrepreneurs about this episode.

Read more on the topic of starting a business before you’re ready and starting a business in general and you can find other resources there too. Thanks.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Shontavia Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like subscribe and leave a comment wherever you’re listening. You can find me on social media everywhere, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and wherever else @ShontaviaJEsq.

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The information shared in this podcast and through my other platforms is designed to educate you about business and entrepreneurship and I love to do this work. While I am a lawyer, though, the information I provide is not legal advice and does not create or constitute an attorney client relationship.

The Shontavia Show is a LVRG Inc. original. The show is recorded on site in South Carolina and produced at Sit N Spin Studio in Greenville, South Carolina. Original music and sound design is by Matt Morgan and Daniel Gregory. Mixing and mastering is by Daniel Gregory. And the video is by GVL Media.