How to Turn Your Passion Into a Business

11/02/22 • 13 min

First Class Founders: Creators | Solopreneurs | Personal HoldCo

E1: How do you turn your passion into a business? Today, we discuss frameworks that might help you identify your passion and turn it into your next side hustle. And who knows? Maybe it might grow into something much bigger than you imagined.
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TOPICS:
Concept of Time & Money (0:49)
Time and money are the two most influential forces in our daily lives. Changing our perspectives on these two concepts can stretch our minds and reevaluate what we're doing on a daily basis.
Reframing Money (2:30)
Someone mysteriously wires you a cool $10 million. How would this change your life?
Reframing Time (3:31)
There's been a major scientific breakthrough and now anyone can live forever. How would this change the way you live? How would you be spending your time?
How Urban EDC Started (5:41)
I pulled out my credit card statements from the past 30, 60, 90 days and looked through to see if there were any patterns. I noticed that I loved spending my hard earned cash on small, pocketable, well-made goods such as leather wallets, fancy bottle openers, titanium pens, even desktop toys like spinning coins. This gave me a clue into what niche and community I could get into.
Exercises for Identifying Your Passion (6:19)
Jot down any trends or spending categories that you notice going over your credit card statements. How are you spending your time? You can audit your own time and see if there's overlapping interests between your spending habits and how you're spending your time.
The Hedgehog Concept (7:48)
This concept is from Jim Collins, arguably one of the most impactful business thinkers today. Draw three circles overlapping one another: Your Passions, Your Strengths, Your Economic Engine. Once you find yourself in the middle of all 3 circles, you're golden.
Real World Examples Using Hedgehog Concept (11:18)
You're a big wine lover. If you enjoy writing and have a knack for great writing, you can become a wine critic and start reviewing different wineries. You're a Fantasy Sports fanatic. You could create an app or start a podcast.
Using Hedgehog Concept for Employees (12:15)
Ensure that each one of your employees is in a position they're good at, in an industry or company that they're passionate about, and the role should make sense financially for the company.

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First Class Founders is a show for indie hackers, bootstrapped founders, CEOs, solopreneurs, content creators, startup entrepreneurs, and SaaS startups covering topics like build in public, audience growth, product marketing, scaling up, side hustles, holding company, etc.
Past guests include Arvid Kahl, Tyler Denk, Noah Kagan, Clint Murphy, Jay Abraham, Andrew Gazdecki, Matt McGarry, Nick Huber, Khe Hy, and more.
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Trailer: First Class Founders

Welcome to First Class Founders!
So why should you listen to FCF? Well, if you're an entrepreneur, you know how valuable concepts, mental models, and frameworks can be when faced with a complex problem or decision.
It's like being able to phone-a-friend (name that game show!) and ask them how they would deal with this situation. Well, just imagine if you had not just one friend, but many friends who you could call on to guide you through all types of difficult decisions.
In fact, the most successful business minds like Charlie Munger, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk all have a collection of mental models that they call upon when needed. They are able to reframe situations and see the world through a different lens than most of us.
And that's where First Class Founders comes in. The goal of this podcast is to equip you with a menu of mental models and frameworks so that you too can master the art of decision making and become a better problem solver in your business and personal life. But wait, there's more.
These concepts, mental models, and frameworks may look good on paper. But they aren't very useful when you don't apply them in real world scenarios.
That's why on each episode, I introduce these frameworks and mental models and apply them in the real world. Whether that's in business or personal life, it's important not only to know these models and frameworks but know WHEN and HOW to use them.
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Next Episode

How to Achieve Success in the Face of Adversity

E2: Can you guess what the single most important indicator of success for companies is? Let's take a deep dive into the concept of the 20 Mile March from business thought leader Jim Collins and how it can become an absolute game-changer for your company.
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TOPICS:
Intro to 20 Mile March (1:03)
Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, while others do not? The most important character trait that every 10X company exemplified was discipline: being able to hit certain key metrics on a consistent basis.
Characteristics of 20 Mile March (2:03)
20 Mile March has two important types of self-imposed disciplines: commitment to hit your goals even during the most difficult conditions, and the ability to hold back during times of exuberance even though it might be tempting to extend further.Short Story of 20 Mile March (3:17)
Roald Amundsen vs. Robert Falcon Scott: 1911 expedition to become the first men ever to set foot on the South Pole. Which team made it?Weekly Drops for Urban EDC (5:47)
We have a weekly cadence on Wednesdays called the Gear Drop as our 20 Mile March.
Increasing Accountability for Team (6:52)
Our 20 Mile March also increased the level of accountability for the entire team without much management overhead. Also, our team is distributed and our 20 Mile March keeps everybody accountable to each other, and to the success of the company. Everybody is on the same page on what their responsibilities are each week so we don't skip a beat. Our 20 Mile March is the heartbeat of our company.
***
LINKS:
Great by Choice by Jim Collins

First Class Founders: Creators | Solopreneurs | Personal HoldCo - How to Turn Your Passion Into a Business

Transcript

What's going on everybody? Welcome to the very first episode of First Class Founders, the show where we dive into concepts, frameworks, and mental models to help build your problem-solving toolkit. My name is Yong-Soo, and I'm the founder of Urban EDC and GrowthJet. Today we're going to be discussing a couple of different frameworks that might help you identify your passion and turn it into your next side hustle.
And who knows, maybe it might grow into something much bigger than you imagine