When I decided to be an entrepreneur at first, it scared me. But, in the next second breathe I instantly thought of many things, let me list some of them. To give you an idea of where my head was at:
Do I have what it takes?
Wow! How amazing would it be to IPO a company?
Will I be able to get customers?
If anyone can do it, I can.
Will I have enough money?
What are the first steps?
But here was the biggest thing I thought of… If I want to reach MY true potential, I have to do it. I am going to document daily on my social platforms, but weekly I wish to document the journey on this blog. Why? Because of TWO reasons. 1. I want to show you that it can be done. An average guy grew up in a small Midwestern town. Didn’t graduate from college. I Started at the bottom of the totem pole of a company. But, had a belief in himself few could comprehend. 2. I want to show my grandkids in 30-40 years how hard I had to work to get it done. This is deep, but it is how I think. I want to leave a legacy and show them I wasn’t afraid to go after my dreams and that they can do absolutely ANYTHING they set their mind too... even chase their wildest dreams.
So, let’s get into it. I want to talk about in this first post briefly the six months leading up to launch my own business. Some of you may be wondering, “Kody, what are you doing? What kind of business did you launch?” I have two businesses that are in perfect harmony with each other. One is a digital advertising company that produces ads for companies as well as creative branding to achieve one goal - drive revenue and sales. The second is a major technology push in the insurance industry. Why these two? I am passionate about sales/marketing as well as I see so much potential for technology in the insurance industry to disrupt and advance.
Let me take you back to July 2018. My idea sprouted for the insurance tech startup. But, I had no idea how to build ANYTHING. All it was was, was a nice idea. But, ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution, now that is the secret. Most people don’t know how to execute.
Lesson #1 - You need to be able to execute and do the daily tasks and actions that can bring your idea to life. In total so far I have probably put 1,000+ hours into the insurance technology startup. Now, that is action! When my friend and I connected he gave me so many ideas for how to go about building this. This got my mind thinking MASSIVE.
Lesson #2 - People know everything you don’t. If you have an idea go to other people in different domain areas of expertise. This put me on a 3-4 months journey of planning, thinking, drawing, documenting, researching, investing time, and spending money - All the things MOST people don’t want to do. But, I was serious. As all of this progressed, I started to make progress. I began to hit a lot of traction. Then, I got REALLY serious, I invested a lot of money to start building the technology.
Lesson #3 - Nothing happens until you COMMIT and put TIME and MONEY behind something. Quite frankly, again speaking transparently, I am all in. Why? Because I am super confident and I had the feedback that this was going to make a huge impact. This takes a lot of belief in yourself to do - I’ve been developing this mindset for 7 years. When I went on my path of personal development.
Now, let’s fast forward to today. I resigned from a job about 3 weeks ago that I made six figures at to chase my dream and after one week (Which isn’t shit btw this will take years) I could not be happier. I achieved more in one week that exceeded my expectations in a major way. Here are the biggest lessons I learned in week one:
Your life DEPENDS on the actions you take - In week one if I would not have made the phone calls, sent the emails, Etc. then NOTHING would have happened. My advice? Develop your sales skills before you become an entrepreneur, if you can’t sell… good luck
Ask one more time - There was an instance where I reached out to a guy and he said he wasn’t interested through email. I said, give me 5 minutes to persuade you over the phone. He emails back verbatim, “You got it. Cell phone number xxx-xx-xxxx. Call me at this time on this date, you got 5 minutes.” We talked for 20 and referred me to two other individuals as well. - ASK ONE MORE TIME. Sometimes it’s a test.
One more call. Email. LinkedIn message. Smoke signal (LOL). ANYTHING. Right when you tell yourself, “I think I am done for the day.” Do one more thing to push your business forward.
Will it just stay a dream? Or, will it become a reality? So far, the thing I am most proud of is I had the courage to start, now I have to finish. No matter if it takes 5 years or 50.
Lastly, you WILL have demons, fears, and doubts. This is completely normal. I would be cautious if you are thinking big enough if you didn’t.
BRING THE FIRE! I had no less than 5 people say they were extremely impressed and loved my passion to really advance an industry.
Go after your dreams. Here is my biggest question I ask myself daily. “Who wins when I win?” Ask yourself, who wins when you win? Who is watching you? I know people are watching I really care about. Not the people watching to see if it “fails or not” but heck, sup folks. I’ll show ya, don’t worry, I know you are watching. Kissy face/wink. ;) Stay tuned.
But, more importantly, it is my Brother, Sister, Mom, and Dad. As well as my whole extended family and my girlfriend Meredith. THESE are the people I don’t want to let down. Not that I could - I just want to inspire them to live a better version of themselves as well. Here’s to doing big things.
KF