Rebel Entrepreneur

A New Podcast Delivering the PopUp Business School Directly to Your Ear

What is the PopUp Business School?

The PopUp Business School exists to help you build your own business to making money doing something that you love so you can get going, earn income, and have fun. They teach people to build a business around their passion without going into debt to get started.

Why is This So Important?

I teach four paths to wealth (equities, real estate, entrepreneurship, and alternatives) most people only teach three but I have made so much money in alternatives that I can’t help but include it. I should do an article about how alternative investments provided me continuous income during the Corona crash but that is an aside. For now, I want to focus on the MOST POWERFUL asset class, entrepreneurship.

The Entrepreneurship Asset Class

This asset class has the most significant potential for income and the fastest potential for income. Many businesses that survive see profits that hockey stick (rapid expansion in growth and profits) statistically between 3-5 years. In addition to that, you have the potential to work on what you are genuinely passionate about rather than what your boss tells you that you need to get done before you can go home for the day.

What the Wealthy do

I have studied the affluent for years now and I like to look to their example. A great summery comes form a fell name Tom Corley. He studied 233 wealthy individuals who had a minimum annual income of $160,000 and an average of $3.2 million in net assets. He wrote a book on that study which I highly recommend called “Rich Habits.” He found that he could categorize their approaches to wealth building into four distinct paths.

1. The Saver-Investors Path – People with a middle-class income and high savings rate >20% (Most FIRE practitioners)
   1. Percent of the study group: 22%
   2. Average net wealth: $3.3 million
   3. Average time to net wealth: 30 years
   4. Difficulty: Easiest
      
      
2. The Dreamer’s Path – requires the pursuit of a dream, such as starting a business, becoming a successful actor, musician, or author. (entrepreneurship)
   1. Percent of the study group: 28%
   2. Average net wealth: $7.4 million
   3. Average time to net wealth: 12 years
   4. Difficulty: Hardest
      
      
3. The Company Climbers Path – Climbers are individuals who work for a big company and devote all of their energy into climbing the corporate ladder until they land a senior executive position.
   1. Percent of the study group: 31%
   2. Average net wealth: $3.4 million
   3. Average time to net wealth: 22 years
   4. Difficulty: Second-hardest
      
      
4. The Virtuosos Path – Virtuosos are among the best at what they do in their profession. They are paid a high premium for their knowledge and expertise, which sets them apart from the competition.
   1. Percent of the study group: 19%
   2. Average net wealth: $4 million
   3. Average time to net wealth: 20 years
   4. Difficulty: Second-easiest
      
      
      

What’s Holding us Back

If that is true, why don’t more people pursue the entrepreneur asset class? Four letters FEAR, particularly fear of failure. Most people are afraid of the judgment of trying something that could fall flat on its face and fail. That feeling or fear of that perception about them is what keeps most people from growing into the next wealth class.

Now to be fair most businesses do fail in the first few years. But there is some great news. If you follow Alan’s advice and start for free and fail fast and fail forward, you get unlimited attempts at trying another approach or another business. If you start for free and fail fast imagine how many businesses you could attempt in a few years. With all you learn along the way, how many attempts do you think it takes before you knock one out of the park?

Focus on Success Not Failure

Enough about failure lets focus on how to succeed. It’s also helpful to see this statistic in terms of how many American small businesses survive. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Business Employment Dynamics.

Percent of businesses with employees that will survive.

• Year 1:  ~ 80%
• Year 2:  ~ 70%
• Year 5:  ~ 50%
• Year 10: ~ 30%
  
  

I have always heard that most businesses fail in the first year. From reviewing dozens of business plans, helping guide startups, and later following up with their success, anecdotally it feels right to me that most businesses fail in the first year. So what is the discrepancy between my gut feeling and the data above? Well, notice it says businesses with employees. I think the accountability of a partner or an employee makes all the difference in the world.

The Power of Partnership

Many of the most successful businesses I can name (including most mentioned in this article) have benefited from the accountability of a business partner (or employees). I know you don’t want to split profits but if it could double your chance of success, and profits and network power… well it sounds like a wise more even for the most shrewd.

Consider the comments of most angel investors or shark tank investors. They like to see partnerships too. Consider that you will have someone else that can bounce new ideas off, be a reality check, second guess problems you may have missed, keep you focused on profitable tasks, and generally, keep you grounded….  Let’s leave this topic at that, before I talk myself into considering marriage one day.

Concur Thy Fear

Most people don’t admit that fear is what stands between their current lifestyle and their dream life. They instead offer up many excuses like too risky, or you can’t beat ‘the man’. Imagine that the man wasn’t real. Einstein said, “Understanding reality is imagining life without coincidence.”

Alan is a strong proponent of making failure FREE. That right, if it cost you nothing, what have you really lost? A little time? But you likely learned so much in the process that you are forced to file the time spent under education, not failure.

If you are successful in this area you can design the lifestyle you want and only work on the task that you enjoy with the people you choose to work with while the tasks that you don’t love are executed by other employees in your profitable business.

Attending the PopUp Business School

The PopUp Business School recently put on a workshop course in Charleston, South Carolina. Having familiarity with that charming old-world town from previous travel, I decided to take the opportunity to attend one of these events. Years ago, I caught the co-founder of the PopUp Business School Alan Donegan on a podcast and have hoped one of these events would align with an opening in my schedule. Finally, the stares aligned and I took advantage of my chance.

Over the two weeks course I attended various sessions of the Pop-Up Business School with Alan Donegan and many other awesome facilitators. I wasn’t able to attend every day because I still hold down a day job in the cubical jungle 😔 and honestly that is a huge vacation time commitment for a corporate wage slave like me. (OK, to be fair, I am on my way out but that is a different article.)

As Sean McHugh says “Action provides other information.” You have to do, to get. Any action can be blessed but you must take action. I gleaned so many nuggets of wisdom and mindset revelations that it was totally worth my time and travel not to mention well worth the cost. What is the cost you ask?

How Much Does it Cost?

First, if you’re not familiar with Alan Donegan’s work I have to warn you he is a very outside the box thinker. He offers this workshop for FREE. He is able to get sponsorship for the course so it is free to each participant. He is able to fund the entire course from organizations that have an interest in growing business and entrepreneurship in the locations he puts these workshops. Through those relationships, he’s able to fully fund the course so that is free for any participants that sign up.

Is the Value There?

So did I find value in the course? Absolutely! It was worth every penny… Obviously the monetary value is there being that the course is free but also cost a bit of time, vacation, and travel for me. However, it was absolutely worth my time in fact after experiencing a partial course I’ve committed to going to another workshop and making up the sessions that I missed. In other words, I definitely found it was well worth my time and effort.

Who is This For?

If you have ever written a detailed business plans that went nowhere, this course is for you. If you want to start a business but have no investors and no capital to start with, this message is for you. Don’t want to be stuck in the cubical jungle forever hastily responding to every order from a boss you don’t even like?

This course is good for anyone interested, even slightly interested, in starting their own business, being an entrepreneur or exploring developing some ideas that they had that they think might make good business or product. If you’ve ever had an itch to run with an idea that you know it in your heart is good, I would highly recommend this course.

To steal a line from Alan “If your dream job doesn’t exist, created it.” I heard an excellent example of this on a favorite podcast of mine.

A Match Made in Heaven

So why am I saying all this, and promoting a workshop in the midst of a global pandemic when most people around the world are sheltering in? Why, to set up the next heading of course.

Don’t live in a major world city to connect with a workshop in your area? Not able to dedicate two weeks of vacation to addend and event? Stuck at home thanks to a pandemic? No worries…

Once upon a time, Alan was speaking with Mr. Money Mustache and he asked Alan this question: “Do you think Mr. Money Mustache would be where he is today and have reached the people he has if he went city-to-city holding workshops for 50 people at a time?”

Introducing the Rebel Entrepreneur

For you math lover types I have something for you.

PopUp Business School + Choose FI = Rebel Entrepreneur

Two titans have joined forces and combined the powers of financial independence with entrepreneurship to bring you a new podcast called the Rebel Entrepreneur. Alan will be taking all of the benefits I spoke about above and bring them to you lesson-by-lesson and example-by-example in bite-size steps to concur your fears, overcome your obstacles, and answer your question about how to start your own business.

Check out the first episode available now.  >>  Listen Here

Keep the FIRE burning my friends.