90 days ago, I decided to start a new business. I invested $0 on purpose in this business, and I want to teach it to you for free. In this video, I'm going to walk you through how I did it step [music] by step, and how you can apply the blueprint to any business of your own.
What's your why? So, you've got to dig really deep. You've got to find where your pain is in life, because in pain, there's purpose.
I'll give you an example of my own business with Dram Brew. It supports dreams. That's why I'm doing it.
On top of that, and this is really important for you to think about. Some of that profit should go to the people that actually bought the product. And then you've got to have a real pain.
So, in my case, I was 15 years old when I left school, and I realized the education system did not equip me for the real world. I felt with all my heart that the school system 25-30 years later would be fixed, and it's not. We're still not giving people the knowledge they need to have the life they want.
We've been teaching people how to get a job, not how to live their dream. Hopefully, you've now got your why, but if you haven't, we can come back to this a little bit later, and the rest of the steps I'm about to go through might even help you with your why. So, number two, what's your brand?
It's really important to psychologically feel like your business is going to be born. Too many people use the language of I would like to one day do, or I would like to one day be. Instead, say you are.
I am a coffee company. When I first started this channel 5 years ago, I just thought I was an idiot who knew business. I didn't think I was a YouTuber.
And I was telling myself, "One day I'll be a YouTuber. " And as soon as I start saying to myself, "I am a YouTuber. " Here I am, doing it.
And that's what you need to do. You need to name your baby, and by naming it, you'll believe it's going to be born. You have to see it as real.
So, what are you going to call your business? Now, when naming a business, this is a whole psychological thing on its own. There are two types of naming.
First is a direct practical name, like Dram Brew. It's two words together. It almost describes what the product is on the tin.
You know exactly what it is, right? It's coffee, cuz it's brew, and it's a dream. It's going to pay for people's dreams.
It makes it clear. You can also name a business in an impractical way. So, Google, for example, they created a word.
A completely made-up word can also be really easy to trademark. It can be really easy to get the URLs, but you're going to have to work a little harder to identify what it is for the public. Or you can do what I've done, which is put two words together that describe the business.
But you need this foundation to make your dream become a reality. Now, step three on the surface of it, grab all your social handles, might sound easy. It's actually not.
There's an art to it. And you might want to come up with a name, but then also have a slightly different social media handle. So, me, for example, I did Simon Squibb eight when I first started because someone actually stole Simon Squibb.
So, what I had to do was go buy the trademark for Simon Squibb, and then go back to these social handles and say, "Someone has actually taken my trademark, Simon Squibb. " And all the social media platforms then had to give me my social media handle. So, that's one way to go about it.
Go get a trademark sorted out. It's not that expensive to get trademarks. It's not cheaper than you might think.
But then you can have the same social media handle on every single platform, and that make your life so much easier. >> Another important step when building a business is securing your place online, and that starts with a good domain and a website. Because when someone hears about your business and goes looking for it, what they find next either builds trust or kills it.
That's why your domain name matters more than people think. It's often the first thing people judge, and it's where trust and transactions actually happen. The problem is, most good dot com domains are already gone.
So, people either overpay for one or settle for something that doesn't feel right. That's where dot online comes in. Dot online domains are clean, modern, and tell people exactly where to find you.
Over 3. 5 million businesses have already made the switch. And because the word online gets searched over 500 million times a month, it can actually give you a visibility edge, too.
You can grab yours through GoDaddy, Squarespace, or Namecheap. Or head to get. online/simon and use the code Simon to get your first year for 99 cents.
If you're building something real, securing the right domain is a smart first step. I've left the link in the description. Now, step four is a little bit of a tricky one because get samples relates directly to what I'm doing at Drambrew.
I had to literally go get samples of the product and see what product sample matches what I want it to be and what the brand values are of the company. In your case, it might be quite different. Sometimes, like yesterday, someone told me they wanted to actually write a book.
So, you have to literally go write a book. So, write one page a day. That's your equivalent of get samples.
Start creating stuff. I think a lot of people when they're starting a business, they make the get the product bit way more complicated than it needs to be. So, I know someone launching a clothing brand, for example.
Maybe that's something that you're doing. Then just go get one t-shirt and you can go buy it from a shop and then add your bits on it. It doesn't have to be the perfect sample from day one, the perfect supply from day one.
Just get one sample to get feedback from your potential investors. You don't need to overthink the sample process. Again, this stops a lot of people's dreams dead in the tracks when they think, "Oh, I've got to have the perfect sample.
I've got to have a thousand, two thousand, ten thousand pieces. I need a million dollars to even begin the business. " You've got to use the tools that you've got that mean no cost at all.
Stop thinking you need ten thousand samples and start realizing you only need one. That's all you're going to need and later on I'll get into how to get an investor in a minute, but that's sometimes all you need to show an investor that it's real. Figure out how to get it and use AI.
Go and beg one supplier to give you one product. Go buy it from the shop and stick your own on it. It doesn't matter, but get one sample in your hand.
So, again, you've got the name, you've got the social media handles, you know exactly why you have to break through and make this happen. You've got the why. So, what's stopping you?
Step five is what stops a lot of people following through on their dream. Finding a partner. I didn't make it on my own.
No one can. When anyone ever says self-made in their bio, they're lying or they're ignorant or they're stupid. No one has ever been successful on their own.
This is a subconscious belief that the school system teaches you that you need to delete right now. They tell you to sit down and do an exam on your own. That getting an A and a D is about you doing it on your own with a bit of paper in front of you sitting at a desk with a pencil on your own.
It's You need to get help. In my personal opinion, the best way to do this is find a partner. A partner can literally be the person who you are going to marry one day, or who you're dating.
It can be the person that supports you every single day and says, "You know what? I'm going to run a job while you build this business. Or I'm going to support you in this crazy venture.
I'm going to be there for you. Even if we go broke, it won't matter. " You've got to find the right partner.
But the partner can also be a co-founder. Someone you're willing to share the equity with. There's so many people are stupid about this point.
I know so many people that have failed because they wanted 100% of the business. What is the point of having 100% of something that doesn't work? I want 50% of something I love to work on that has a purpose and a why and a mission.
And that ultimately, my 50% can be worth a billion dollars instead of 100% that's worth nothing. There are two types of structures you need to understand when finding the perfect partner. First is, you need to list all the things that you love to do and all the things you hate to do.
You want a partner who is exactly the opposite to you in this. You want someone that loves to do the things you hate and doesn't mind you doing the things you love. So I love being in front of camera.
Now luckily, my wife hates being in front of camera. So she's good at everything else except being in front of camera. And that's great cuz we're not fighting for the camera space, right?
You literally want to have exactly the opposite skills ideally, but you need to make sure you have the same why. And that's how you find a good co-founder. You look for someone.
Now, it's not easy to find a co-founder, but I'm telling you right now, if I said to you red car, you're going to see red cars everywhere. You need to be looking out for this person by writing down exactly what it is they do, what experiences have they had that can relate your problem or thing you're trying to work on? Finding a partner will literally 10x your chance of succeeding.
Don't do it on your own. 1 + 1 = 11. Please learn this.
Remove the subconscious belief that you have to do it on your own that school taught you that isn't true. Now, how did I find a partner with Dram Brew? That takes me on to step six.
Now, it's important when looking for an investor that you act like you don't need an investor. I know psychologically this is hard. If you're trying to build a business, you might think to yourself, "Gosh, I can't scale it without money.
" You can, you just need to be patient. Nearly every single business example, even if you're launching a clothing brand, you can sell one t-shirt, make a profit to then buy two t-shirts to sell two t-shirts to make profit for four t-shirts, and you can keep repeating this cycle until one day you're selling 10,000 t-shirts. Many people have done this.
Many. Gymshark, Ben Francis, he did this. He worked at Pizza Hut, and then he built a billion-dollar company selling one t-shirt at a time.
Patience can lead you to success, and you don't need an investor. But, I'm going to teach you quickly how to get an investor. The number one rule is don't need money if you can.
If you're patient, you can actually sit with an investor and not ask them for money, but ask them for advice. If you ask for advice, you'll get money. If you ask for money, you'll get advice.
You need to be patient. You need to posture yourself, create a feeling and a vibe naturally in you that says, "I don't need this money. You as an investor want to be involved in this because it's so exciting.
My why is powerful. My team is powerful. We're going to make it happen.
We're going to change the world. You as an investor are going to miss out. " Make sure you structure things so you don't need money.
So, part of getting an investor is ironically getting your costs down, making your day-to-day expenditure both in your personal life and in the business as low as possible so you've got the longest runway. Because if you turn up and say, "I'm about to run out of money. Please give me money" to an investor, these people have made money.
They're not stupid. They will see a weakness in you and take more equity off you than they should. And so, once you find the right partner who really believes in what you're doing, they're going to push all the buttons they can to help you.
And remember, the people with money, we don't have any power because we have money. We have the power to invest in ideas and we're nothing without ideas. We're bored without ideas.
So remember you've got the power and you'll get an investor. Now once you got an investor, getting a co-founder to join you is a lot easier because a lot of people do have risk. They're fearful of not making their rent payments or feeding themselves.
So if you can take away the basic risk and give people enough to feed themselves and pay their rent and then you give them a purpose and then you give them equity, you will easily find a co-founder. Someone that's actually going to join you day-to-day in the business. So you can take away the basic human needs of accommodation and food by having some money in the bank from an investor, but be careful.
Only do this if you really need to and ideally you want to not need it. Then you'll get an investor much easier. We're running the world's biggest business competition.
We're giving up to a million US dollars away and free help. The link's down below. Join.
It'll be fun and we'll help you make your dream reality. Step seven, test the market. Too many people build a big business and then go into market and hope that people are going to buy it.
So when I was saying earlier one t-shirt, put your own >> [music] >> on it and get people to buy one, it begins to test whether or not there's actually a market for what you're selling. Now I have started many businesses myself including this one now where my presumption might be wrong. So I can go into the market and say I think you want coffee.
Dram Brew is a coffee brand. All you need to do is ideally find 10 people that could be your customers and then show them that AI image. Show them that one t-shirt sample, that one shoe sample, that one sock sample, that one thing that you want to sell, show it to them.
If you do this right, you are going to save yourself years of pain cuz I have seen people build businesses and flog that product into the market because they bought 20,000 pieces and they have to sell it. They never once went up to their clients and didn't actually ask them what they actually want. And it doesn't have to cost you anything.
Test the market as soon as possible and keep testing it. Another way to test the market is literally create a waiting list. Ask people to sign up.
I did this when I launched helpbank. com which by the way is a 55 million pound business from nothing in 2 years. So, all of this stuff I'm teaching you now, I have done time and time again.
Basically, I went to the market and said, I'm going to launch a platform where you can go and get free help. Would you like a product like that? And we had 12,000 people sign up in 2 days.
So, I knew there was a market for that pitch. You can buy a website address for next to nothing, and you can say the product description of what it is, with a little box that says, email address drop in here if you're interested. It's literally zero cost, and you can get a mailing list on top as well.
You can validate whether people want this idea, and you can get a mailing list for when you launch. Now, there are examples where customers don't know what they're talking about. Steve Jobs used to talk about this.
If he'd asked them whether they wanted to get rid of the keyboard, BlackBerry, and then Steve Jobs came up with a phone with no keyboard. If you went and asked customers whether they wanted to get rid of the keyboard, they would have said no. There's always going to be exceptions to the rule I've just given you about testing in the market, where you just know better than the customer.
But, nine times out of 10, you don't. Go check if your customers want it. Now, the final thing that you need to do to make your dream a reality, step eight is the hardest.
Bloody launch. Go out there and start telling people you're doing it. Tell everybody, your partner, your family, your friends, anybody you meet.
Literally, if you're walking your dog, you tell another dog walker about your business. Tell everyone it's happening. Talk as if it's already launched.
Explain what you're doing, be all in, because commitment is the key to success. Every business I've ever had that's failed is only because I stopped, because I gave up. I had a comic book business, I lost a million US dollars in it.
I still hold the comic book in my hand. You know why it failed? It wasn't because I didn't run it properly, it's because I stopped promoting it.
I stopped caring about it. That product wasn't my why. Tell me in the comments what your dream is, and let's launch a business.
