Episode 336: Are you a BJJ Entrepreneur? Do you run a BJJ related business? Both JT & Joey have spent more than 20 years working for themselves and have learned a lot through much trial and error! They share the huge mistakes and the unexpected wins that have helped build them into the entrepreneurs they are today running the Bulletproof for BJJ App, podcast and growing a community. Go behind the curtain and get deep into what it takes to make a successful BJJ business. They also unpack what can go wrong and what to avoid. You need to make an action plan, understand the systems that will help you survive and ultimately thrive. This is a deep dive into making your dream a reality- and not have it bankrupt you!
Get Stronger & More Flexible for BJJ with the Bulletproof For BJJ App- Start your 7 Day FREE Trial: https://bulletproofforbjj.com/register
Stay Hydrated with Sodii the tastiest electrolytes in the Game! Get 15% OFF: BULLETPROOF15 https://sodii.com.au/bulletproof
Parry Athletic - Best training gear in the game... Get 20% OFF Discount Code: BULLETPROOF20 https://parryathletics.com/collections/new-arrivals
Episode 336: Are you a BJJ Entrepreneur? Do you run a BJJ related business? Both JT & Joey have spent more than 20 years working for themselves and have learned a lot through much trial and error! They share the huge mistakes and the unexpected wins that have helped build them into the entrepreneurs they are today running the Bulletproof for BJJ App, podcast and growing a community. Go behind the curtain and get deep into what it takes to make a successful BJJ business. They also unpack what can go wrong and what to avoid. You need to make an action plan, understand the systems that will help you survive and ultimately thrive. This is a deep dive into making your dream a reality- and not have it bankrupt you!
Get Stronger & More Flexible for BJJ with the Bulletproof For BJJ App- Start your 7 Day FREE Trial: https://bulletproofforbjj.com/register
Stay Hydrated with Sodii the tastiest electrolytes in the Game! Get 15% OFF: BULLETPROOF15 https://sodii.com.au/bulletproof
Parry Athletic - Best training gear in the game... Get 20% OFF Discount Code: BULLETPROOF20 https://parryathletics.com/collections/new-arrivals
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Speaker 1:Bjj entrepreneurship the hustle that makes BJJ businesses work. Now we have talked about running academies and what it takes to get a gym going and make it successful, but recently we have had questions asking us about our business and more about like, how do you make that bad boy work, how do you set up and run a podcast and how do you support an app and how do you support a community? And, without getting boring about it, like, what does it take to do what we're doing? Because we've been doing this thing for a little while, yeah, yeah, it's coming along. It's been a while now. It's growing and I guess we're fortunate in.
Speaker 1:You had been running a gym business for how many years before we started? We started kind of 2019, nine years, eight years. You'd already been in business. Yeah, doing those learnings like early in the not early, but established in the entrepreneurial journey of system and process and fuck ups. Yes, and I had also run my own business. We kind of not that well for probably the first 10 years, but then definitely better the next kind of five, 10 years, like learning systems and processes and automating things, whether it be payments or which. Pt yeah, pt. And also assisting in setting up gyms yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So seeing my friend's gyms either be more successful or less successful for different reasons yeah, as well as being, I dabbled a bit in equipment sales, so I got to see that side of the business. That's right. Iron Edge yeah, iron Edge. And then also I worked for White Label Fitness, which is the brand behind MA1. Oh, yeah, simon Carson, shout out, he is really the mastermind behind Absolute MMA, right on.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's interesting, isn't? Because there's all these lessons, all this information you're not privy to before you're in the fucking trenches. Yeah, I think being like a personal trainer is absolutely a business, right? Yeah, it's just usually run very poorly. Yeah, and I say that having run my own poorly run personal business and gym business for a long time until I learned some shit. But, um, personal training is a great example because you're into fitness and then you become a personal trainer and then you are training people. Sharing this is mad. This is what I'm into yeah, but you actually don't. You neglect to realize that, that it's. There's a whole business behind it. Yeah, sales, marketing, sales marketing systems and processes, right, ongoing education, product delivery, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Now, when you're in a business like a I don't know, I think if I started a, no, I probably would have made this. I was going to say, like a cafe, oh, okay. But let's say you do something that's way less exciting. Let's say you do something like I want to buy there something that's way less exciting. Let's say you do something like I want to buy. There's a factory down the road that uses this particular plastic to make their product. Yep, I'm gonna go and buy this plastic from china, yep, and I'm gonna sell it to them. Supply, and I'll do that because I know that they're paying x with x and I know that I can sell it to them cheaper, but I can make 20. Nice, right now.
Speaker 1:This is an unsexy business. Commodities, yep, and this is what so many fucking people do. Right, this is. This is like business for a lot of people. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to. To people like us who are driven by an entrepreneur, like a, by a passion, yes, right, but in any case, margin.
Speaker 1:So when you do a business like that, you're not like, yeah, I just fucking love plastics, man, so I'm just slinging these plastics, so it's the best. I'm down there talking to them. We're looking at the plastics, composites, extrusion amazing. It's like, yeah, no, so I got to manage my margin. I got to make sure that the price from the supplier is good. We lock that in ahead of time. I got contracts with the buyers. You're already looking at numbers and margin and costs and expenses. Yeah, you're already like looking at numbers and margin and costs and expenses. Like, yeah, right, and that's for what I'm leading to here.
Speaker 1:Is that for people in a like, usually a passion-driven thing, like I just love fucking helping people get strong? Yeah, and so I built this training app and whatever. Yeah, that's what you're into. You're not into numbers and shit, and so you usually neglect all of that stuff. So much stuff and that's. I think that's where the real like fuckery comes about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess I think of personal training almost like a trades person, because you do learn your trade over time and you know some people out there. Maybe they did their trade 20 years ago, but they've just been in the business that long. They've got people working with them. They're not necessarily doing the best job, but people just know them, so they get the work, yeah. And then you've got new up-and-comers who've learned the new style, the new thing, and they've got better and new business practices. They have a face, you know. They have a social media presence. They're oh, we're on linkedin. They, yeah, they well, they do seem very reputable. They, they shower. Uh, you know they don't keep they sweep up after they've, like, smashed concrete in your living room. Exactly, they're not just smearing concrete through the shower.
Speaker 1:No, it's interesting because I there's this van. I always used to walk past this van. It's this plumber and all the receipts were stuffed in the dash like it was crazy. You know what that is that? Well, it's an old school strategy, though for parking tickets. Oh, you can't see. Because it's like, if you just cover, like quilt, your dashboard with parking tickets, when the inspector comes to check for the ticket, they're like oh fuck, which one is it? And they're like, ah, no, I'm from Melbourne, you don't go to buy tickets anymore. No, you're getting a ticket. If no, you're getting a ticket. If it's Melbourne City, you're getting a ticket.
Speaker 1:But no, it's interesting because obviously there is those tradespeople who they don't care, like they can do the job. If they get the job, they're going to do the job well, but the business practices are fucking sideways, yeah Right. And I would say the same is true of trainers and the same is true of BJJ coaches. You meet a coach and they're like they're so good at jujitsu, they run a great class, the students love them, and then they're like sleeping on a hammock out the back of the gym and they've got tuna cans everywhere.
Speaker 1:You're like what the fuck is going on here? Is this like this? Is like homeless people live better than this. You know homeless people more hygienic than this. You live better than this. You know homeless people are more hygienic than this. You know, yeah, I just keep getting staff. Do you have a shower? Oh no, I just go for a swim in the ocean once a week. What the fuck, come on, man. You know, and here's the thing I think, if I think about this has evolved over time.
Speaker 1:But you know, when we started Bulletproof, joey and I actually went to the park and we had a bit of a, just a bit of a walk and a sit down and a chat and Joe's like, well, what's this look like? Like, what do we want Bulletproof to be? Like, what are the programs? And like, put some structure around it, other than, yeah, we're going to train people to help them get strong and fit for BJJ. And that was.
Speaker 1:That was quite good, because me, being the over enthusiastic person I am, I was like, yeah, let's just get it going. And Joe's like, no, no, hang on a second, let's put some structure together straight away. And I was like, okay, cool, I'm cool with that, cause I actually love writing programs and I I do like my favorite thing to plan is an exercise program. That's my thing, right, it's, it's, it's uh, I, I do, I love it, it's probably the thing I do better than most things. But and I do like process and order but often my enthusiasm, my enthusiasm overwhelms my ability to maintain a 17 year program. Bro, you should see the periodization on this bitch.
Speaker 1:But then you know, you know the way it started was we started with we need to film a certain amount of content and we had a website and it was okay. You know, it wasn't like best website ever, but good enough. And then there were things to consider like do we have a blog and do we have this? And we didn't have a podcast at that time. You know this. That came later down the track.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of other things that had to happen before we even really had a business. Like, oh, have we registered our business name? Yeah, do we have a fucking website? Yeah, have we paid tax? Have we paid tax? Like, what does our agreement look like? Yeah, you know, and even though between us it was fairly straightforward to have the discussion, it's like all right, well, now you have to go do that, you know? Oh, okay, yeah, reply to my email. Log into this account? Yeah, you know, have you checked on this?
Speaker 1:And the funny thing about this I've come to realize is that you don't budget in the amount of time it takes to do all the other shit. You're just like nah, man, we'll just film videos and put them on youtube and it's fucking gonna be great. Yeah, like, that's not a business. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I think the thing that I've learned more and more because I listen to a lot of business podcasts is a business, is its systems like, really, even though obviously there has to be profitability and all this other shit, if you haven't set up systems for things, you don't really have a business. Yeah, that's right, you got a job. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess, like the, you know, we, we were fortunate, you know. Well, no, we just had an opportunity right, which was the bjj fanatics thing, and it was the dvd, and and it was like, oh, okay, well, we've got this opportunity to release this thing. Um, and I, the way I see it, is that we just went like, let's just take another step. Then, all right, let's just put that onto a website, right, let's put that behind a paywall and people can become members and they can access it, sure, and then we're like, oh, let's put some more programs, you know, put more. And then it was like, hey, let's. And then you're like, let's do the podcast. It's like, yeah, okay, seems, you know, seem like the instagram seems a bit popular and people are using the program. So, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1:And and so it was like this step-by-step thing, and then I think you get to a point where you realize, all right, this, this sort of project that we've been deliberate about, sure, but we've been kind of just testing the waters in a way. Yeah, this is now a thing, yeah, and I think at that point then you're like all right, we have to. We got to make this more official, yeah, and so you know a bunch of things for that. But it was like we made a company yep, so I call its company now, so it's like a legally binding thing. That's a.
Speaker 1:You know, it's not just jt and my like us as sole traders. Like bulletproof is its own entity. We have a system around meeting each week, we do, we have an accountant, we talk to them, we pay taxes. You know, yeah, that's right, and I think as soon as you do all that stuff, you then you have to like and we, I think we've done a good job of it. You have to take it seriously, oh for sure. And you got to be like all right, this is, this is a machine now that if I'm not giving the inputs that it requires, yeah, it's going to collapse. Yeah, and I've got to keep it. I've got to keep it alive. I, I took yeah, I agree, and a lot of those systems come from joey.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest, like um, he has much more of a. His approach is more systematic than mine and also, whatever you put it down to, I get bored of things very easily, just so quick. I'm just like, yeah, okay, that's cool, but like fucking jujitsu robots. That's what I'm fucking onto right now. You know, because the thing for me is like I get very enthusiastic, like I get a tidal wave of enthusiasm for something, and then once I feel like I've gone through it to a certain point, I'm like I just I don't give a shit about that now. So I was like fucking update the trello mate. Like the tasks are on there. You know what I mean. Like I'm like, ah, fuck, adult responsibility. You know, there's a, there's a degree of maturity that has to go with it, and it's not even discipline. It's just like if you want the fun, creative opportunities, then you have to do the other stuff that everyone else has not seen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is the fucking emails, and it's the meeting with the devs, and it's the customer complaints and the you know refunds and all the other shit, which is just the nature of running a business. But you don't necessarily factor that in when you think, oh, I'm gonna run a bjj related business. No, no, you know whether it's a, a apparel company or anything, yeah, and I mean, I'm sure a lot of the entrepreneurial listeners can vibe with this. But it's kind of that classic thing of you get a business idea and then a week later you've got business cards, you've purchased a domain, you've maybe got a logo that, yeah, someone's drawn up for you and you know you seemingly have this business. You might have even registered the business name, yeah, but you don't actually have any customers. You don't know how you're going to get in touch with them. Yeah, maybe you have an idea for a product, but you don't actually have a product yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like, I've made that mistake myself a few times. Yeah, definitely in the gym biz, we did that Like within certain things in the gym. But I did, did that like within certain things in the gym. But I did that with like a, a fucking dongle thing that I fucking in tried to invent years ago and I purchased stock and designed all this and website and blah, blah, blah, and then was like oh cool, how do I sell this now? Distribution, yeah, and I ended up having these boxes of these dongles, just like, carried them with me for like eight years. I was like, no, I'm gonna make something of this. And then one day I was like bin, yeah, but so disappointing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, like that's the with the product development thing, that's the. It's so fun, it's so exciting, it is, and it's so exciting to print business cards or to fucking build a website. You're like, fuck, look at that, I can a website. You're like, fuck, look at that, I can hold it. It's real, yeah, it's tangible, yeah. But yeah, you've got some experience with that too, right, I do, I have a lot of experience with that, because I do tend to want to do lots of different things, and the difficulty is this if you are going to make something a business and when we say business we mean it makes money now we're not going to talk about like a tech business which is well finan-financed but not profitable.
Speaker 1:But if it doesn't generate revenue, it is not a business, it is a hobby. So for me you know, I've published two books now I have a card game and I have a journal production business. Here's the thing All those things need their own individual attention. The thing All those things need their own individual attention. But my full focus is on bulletproof, so I cannot give those things the attention they require to be successful. So I have to make the concession they're not moving forward right now, and that's okay. It doesn't mean they're never going to happen, but it's not happening right now, it's just not, and that hurts.
Speaker 1:You don't have that much time, you don't? Yeah, you don't. And I'm not a halfway kind of person. I'm either like all in or I'm all out, and so, even though I get all these different creative inspiration like running multiple businesses, you're very unlikely to be successful. So it is important. I mean, everything needs an economic engine. So I think when you first start a business, it may only be a part-time thing, it might only be a quarter-time thing, and then you have your main thing that generates your income, and this is one of the things you know. Like they talk about, oh, you know, follow your passion yes, for sure you do need but selling plastics is profitable. The factory needs your plastics. No, I don't know about that. But whatever it might be, everything needs to be economically sustainable, otherwise it just fucking dies. This is just the thing. Where's BlackBerry now? It doesn't matter that it was market cap of however many billions of dollars, it wasn't sustainable.
Speaker 1:What I have come to learn, at least from, like, what we're doing? You know, this happens every time. Like Joe, we should do fucking eight podcasts. We should do seven. We should do a podcast every fucking day, man, like seven a week. And Joe's like dude, what happens when one of us is sick? Like all right, yeah, that's a great idea, right? So how do we bank some? So let me, I actually love that you mentioned this because, like no, I'm happy we have that conversation a bit, but we probably only had it last week and you're like no, we need to do it, we need more. And I'm like bro, fuck me. And it's good to know that you reflect on it. No, of course I do See.
Speaker 1:The thing is, joe doesn't think I listen to him. I think he listens to me less than I listen to him, because he's just trying to defend his mind from clutter. Take what is useful, reject what is useless, discard what is useless, add what is entirely your own, question yourself. No, so I will take inspiration from various things and I will try and spot a trend, blah, blah, but let's talk about our podcast.
Speaker 1:Okay, so when we started, a very useful thing because Joe already ran a podcast was he's like we should have some episodes in the bank before we start, because there's always going to be an interruption right you have to put in a margin of safety. Whatever business you're in, you've got to factor in there might be a week where you're sick, or there might be, you know, things come up. So we started recording probably two weeks before we put it out. So we had like eight episodes in the bank and then we worked hard, didn't we just do? I think we were six weeks ahead, didn't we do one episode a week back then? Yeah, it might've started that way, but we had a bunch in stock, yeah. And then I think we did six weeks of recording, though, and then we started publishing. That's right, yeah. And so, yeah, we had that margin of safety. Just one a week, yeah, god pussies, not even professional, but a lot of podcasters just do one podcast a week, right.
Speaker 1:And what I came to understand is even from my own podcast consumption. Sometimes you want to listen to just a. I got 10 minutes in the car 15. I don't want to listen to joe rogan five hours getting drunk with his mates and talking about fucking ufos. I don't want. You know, I haven't got a time for that today, yeah, and there's other times where you're driving for an hour or two hours. You need something longer, yeah. So then over time it evolved that I said, hey, we should do a shorter one and a longer one, and then you know it's evolved to the point it is now.
Speaker 1:But the important lesson from doing that from an entrepreneur's perspective and this is something that gets talked about a lot just in business podcasts is this margin of safety, because you know if you have no margin for error, you're going to fucking. You know, yeah, you want a buffer. You need a buffer because, just because otherwise you cannot be consistent, and the reason why I not only did we get asked a question about this directly by one of our supporters of the show, the paid subscription, the inner circle it was also that if it's not sustainable, then it's. That's also not a business. It just won't be here in a year. Yeah, that's right, and I think it's easy to get, to be energized and just do whatever is required.
Speaker 1:When that inspiration is at its peak, yep, you're like, fuck, yeah, let's do a podcast, let's start today, you know. And then you're like sick, let's. And then like, inevitably, it's kind of like with a partner, you know, you, that honeymoon period ends and you're like, oh, this is, I don't really feel like doing it today. Like, the inspiration isn't quite what it was in that first couple of months, but you know. So, if you get to that point and it's like you know you got a busy week and every week it's like living paycheck to paycheck. Every week, that episode has to go out today. Yeah, because we fucking don't have one. Yeah, it's really easy at that point to just be like let's, we'll do it in a couple of weeks. Man, we're super busy, you know. And then, before you know it, that project's dead.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I find, like I know I've just done that so many times and I think in content creation, right. So instagram, youtube, tikt, podcast, whatever the fuck writing If you can be like, if you can have that buffer, so that you have a week where it's like man, I'm fucking swamped, like Can't do it, yeah, I can't come in, I got a family emergency, but you don't have to stress about the fact that you didn't get to create your piece of content. I think that's such a. It's a nicer way to live. Yeah, whereas that stress of like and I do this even still with instagram, where I'm like it's 10 pm and I'm like I've got to get a post out today. Yeah, I don't have anything else. Yeah, and you're like that's not a nice place to be.
Speaker 1:No, you know the amount of stress you put that life puts on you, regardless of the amount of stress that life puts on you, regardless of the amount of internal stress you put on yourself, that's like a bunch of forces, right, but you can control. Like there's only so many things you can control and there's so much in life you can't. So you know, and this is something that we talked about early on with Instagram, let's talk about Instagram for a second here. Early on with Instagram, let's talk about Instagram for a second here, because you gave me a sheet when we were first planning out, like Instagram content, which was the content schedule. Yeah, yeah, right, like I don't know if that was actually the name of the sheet yeah, like the month planner, the month planner, and it's like right, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing, too, which you guys might not be aware of, is that there is a familiarity breeds trust in a brand. We talk about Instagram, but we, because it's important for algorithmic reasons, but let's talk a little bit about brand that it's got to be consistent, right? This is the image. That's where the person appears. The text lives here. I'm, oh, nineties hip hop, right. Oh, that can fix my shoulder, cool.
Speaker 1:All these things are actually subconscious when you see them, but because it's consistent, you trust it. You're like, yeah, yeah, I'm cool with this, even if you didn't like it the first time you scrolled past it. You're like, oh, hang on, what's this? I got a bad wrist, what the fuck? Oh, yeah, I could do that Sweet. And what is amazing to me is that I've met people who are like no, I just I copied that thing you guys did on the Instagram. It worked for me, it was great. It's like, yeah, okay, cool, we're not just, we're not just trying to appease the almighty, you know Instagram gods. We were actually like helping people with this information.
Speaker 1:But you do not get the algorithmic love, you do not get the trust from people, you do not build an audience without it being fucking consistent, like I think that is the thing that people probably underestimate and you know this isn't to make it boring or anything, but in the same way you're lifting your jujitsu, you're anything else it has to be sustainable because it has to be consistent. You can't just it's not like a Rocky-esque story of you do a montage of fucking effort and now you're fighting the world champion, yeah, and now it's just self-sustaining, and now you're a super successful business person. Like it's just. It's not like that. Let me tell you, as someone who had my Oprah moment, I met my hero in business. I fucking had that billionaire moment. Nothing changed. The information and feedback I got was awesome, so that's helped us. But it was like, okay, go do work now. Yeah, it doesn't matter. You think where's the magic dust? Where's the magic billionaire dust? Like, don't I get money in my account now? Can you just transfer me a couple of Bitcoins? Jesus, bruh.
Speaker 1:Every part of it's a discipline. Yeah, right, it's absolutely a discipline and it's. You know. People talk about it with meditation, we talk about it with jujitsu, with the strength training, and it's like sitting down to publish the podcast three times a week that's a discipline. Yeah. Sitting down to fucking create an Instagram post yeah, I don't feel like doing it today. It's a discipline. Yeah, do it.
Speaker 1:I think that's the learning for the young entrepreneur is that you usually get hit at some point with that lesson and many will not heed the lesson and their business will cease to exist. Yeah, but when you, when you get to that point. You're like oh fuck, I don't really feel like doing this shit. It was super fun, you know. But now I'm like, and you're like ah, okay, this is how it is. Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1:It's like my sister said to me. I was talking to her about training or something the other day and she said something. My sister doesn't really exercise and she said something about like yeah, but you'd love that or something. You'd love exercising, you know. And I was like bitch, no, I don't Not every day. Yeah, I'm like, you think, when I get up at 20 past five in the morning and drive to the gym, like that's where I want to be. No, I'd much rather be sitting in the cafe or in bed still, or eating a fucking toasted cheese sandwich. You know that would be nice Fucking. Yeah, but I'm like.
Speaker 1:But it's the feeling I get after training. Of course, you know, it's even like, yeah, like, I'm not saying that 90 minutes is not enjoyable too, but sometimes it just sucks. No, because some days your back's sore. Yeah, you're like You're fucking wrist jacked up. You're like why the fuck am I? Man, I even feel that way during a workout. Yeah, I was like doing a workout the other day and there was a lady across from me doing deadlifts and she was fucking struggling Like she was lifting big weight, but every rep was, and for me, I was doing heavy dumbbell rows and I was like fuck, this is wrecking my hands. And we both kind of finished at the same time. We were both like gah, and we looked at each other and we were both like what are we doing? Like we just had this moment. You want to get a cheese sandwich? Yeah, fucking, let's blow this pop stand. But it was just.
Speaker 1:But people think that, like people imagine people who are not in that world they're on the outside that you just love it, and so it's the same and it is fun, right, it's fun, and it's a privilege to to sit and talk and that to be a value to people. You guys, publishing the podcast at midnight because you didn't do it, because you had a busy day, that's not fun. No, doing the monthly report and going through fucking bank statements like that's not fun. No, you know, but that outcome, the thing that it's creating, is awesome and rewarding, so it's worth it. Yeah, and that's why you do it and you, you know, and then, yeah, it's exactly that, right.
Speaker 1:And then you do have these times where you can really enjoy the fruits of that labor, like, say, when we went to ADCC. Yeah, it's incredible to do something like that, because that's the shit you're going to remember. Yeah, you, something like that, because that's that's the shit you're going to remember. Yeah, you're not, you're not. And that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't all of that work. Yeah, you know, even though that was a fluke kind of thing, but just, we wouldn't have been in that situation to have that experience. That's right.
Speaker 1:And and they say that, you know, hard work increases your surface area. For luck, you know, like you know, if you it's a really good way to put it hard work is a given doesn't necessarily pay off, no, but it's a given, you don't. You don't think any of the other shit happens without the hard work. No, get fucked. That's not the case.
Speaker 1:Anyone you see doing exceptionally well is doing a lot of stuff that you're not seeing, whether it's a rapper or an influencer or an athlete. They're doing heaps of shit that you're not seeing so that you can enjoy the fruits of their labor, which is the performance. Later and you know, I'm a rap nerd I started going deep on Andre 3000 and big boy. And those guys are like, not, not Andre 3000 now, but this is probably 10 years ago. They are always doing something. If they're not doing their own music, they're helping other people make music, they're working on movie scripts. They're like always doing shit. And I was like, wow, okay, I had no idea they had their hand in so many other things which wasn't their own shit.
Speaker 1:And so, circling this back around to our business, you know, this is what I had come to learn, like why I was so passionate about the podcast was because I listened to so many podcasts that helped me and I thought you know what we could find a way, because what we do is we kind of talk for a living. I had a guy say to me I was listening to a Genghis Khan podcast and I said to this guy he was like making fun of me. He said I was like a Bogan PT from Penrith or something. This guy's from San Francisco, he's mocking me. I said I'm Genghis Khan, motherfucker. And he was like dude, genghis Khan fucks, you just talk. And I'm like dude. I was like dude, I'm fucking.
Speaker 1:You know how I fuck? By talking. I take over the world by talking. That's my superpower. You know how I conquer the steeps on horseback with a fucking bow. The bow is the mic. You know. The arrows are my fucking words. I'm a rapper, no, so that's the thing You've got to know also, where your strengths are. My strengths are not in systems and process, but I have discipline. So if I learn a system and a process, I can stick to it. Like, I know that of myself. I know that if I make a deal with myself, I'm going to do this fucking thing and I do this thing. Yeah, that's important to me. It doesn't mean I have all the resources, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Now, looking forward, you want to project. You've got to like what are you planning to do? What do we know about what happened before? Like it's not. Like suddenly the future is going to be magically different. You know it's it's not. It's going to be reasonably predictable about what will happen. So There'll be a lot of hard work and the growth won't be as fast as you wished, no, but challenges will arise. It's always the way.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I said the joke, man, when we get to 10,000 followers on fucking Instagram, bro, when we get that blue tick dog I was with you on that, I was like, bro, when we're at 10,000, we're good, we're made and paid in the shade. And then I was like what? No, hang on, damn. But that's the thing too. The game changes.
Speaker 1:So I think having a flexibility one is the sustainability. So we're very lucky that we can share tasks. So you, as an individual entrepreneur, you may not have that, but it's good if you've got a mentor or you've got someone who you can speak to, who can share the load or share the burden of your business. Also, I am not great at keeping track of taxes. That's nothing I want to do and that is something I will pay someone to do. And so I said to Joe I would like us to have a bookkeeper, even though Joe's administrative, administrative gun for us, he's like, yeah, cool, it would be good to have someone. Yeah, that shit's above my head, yeah, but, but it's good, right, you need to find someone who's an expert and you trust them and there's a system in place, yeah. So you say, what do I need to know? And they go do this and this. You go, okay, done. And great entrepreneurs and business people surround themselves with experts to make up for their deficiencies. And I think that this, this is really helpful, whether it's your business partner that helps you, or whether it be your wife or your boyfriend, someone who has some skills like a complimentary skillset. But then also, we needed help, so we enlisted help, and that's how a business grows.
Speaker 1:Like delegation is another part of business. Like trying to do everything yourself is another way to crash and burn. It is. But then there's also a period, too, where you have to do everything yourself, isn't there? Early stages, yeah, and I think, like, even now for us, there's heaps of things we do that. We're like fuck, it'd be great for someone else to do that. But the reality is we just couldn't afford that. And you're like okay, we're not there yet, but there are plenty of things that we have managed to outsource, which has given us time for other things it has.
Speaker 1:So I think that that's a delicate balance, isn't it as you go? Because in the beginning, you're going to spend a bunch of money and you're not going to make any, and when you're at that stage, you're like I have to just survive and you have to know where your horizon of like, where your break-even point, is, which is the point where your income at least matches your expenses. Then you're like, cool, I can breathe now because this ship is like balancing, it's not sinking anymore. And then the next horizon is profitability. Whether that's okay, I'm going to pay myself a little wage now or I'm gonna pay myself something and put some away.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I would say, like this kind of you know for for folks listening, like there's two ways you can go about it. You can do it on a shoestring, which is what we just described, yep, where it's like pull together some money, make shit happen, don't pay yourself, keep your expenses low and, over time, reassess. Or you capitalize and you get money. You might have the money yourself, or you borrow money from someone, yep, and you go I'm dumping, you know whatever 150 grand into this thing to build this machine and that money is going to give me the runway to get this, this profit machine, turning over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've never done business in the second way, right and it's. It's always been a bit. I've always done on a shoestring, so that's what I know and feel comfortable. Yeah, sure, um, but it's absolutely not a better way to do it. Right, like there's it's in. You learn different things. Yeah, I'd say you learn more and it's, but it's also more traumatic and it's, you know, like it really is. You're gonna light harder, yeah, and your life will be affected by it, right? Yeah, um, whereas if you knew 12 months from now I'll be selling enough sheets of plastic to this fucking factory down the road, that I will be making $8,000 of profit, then it makes sense to go well, I'm going to borrow 100K so I can still live my life and cover my expenses for this next year, and then, once we've got profit, I'm paying back the loan and I'm For sure.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, it's a big gamble, right, because everyone thinks their idea is going to work. It is, and it doesn't always work, and that's okay too, because there's so many examples of people who were determined to be entrepreneurs and their first idea didn't work, and that's that's fine, like, that's that's fine, as long as you survive to then do the next thing yeah, and some people don't, and it hurts your heart because you have the heart of an entrepreneur, but then you end up working for someone else and maybe your dreams just live in your chest, and that's a hard weight to carry on your chest, right? So, I think, for anyone out there, if you're hearing this and you want to start a business. I definitely encourage you because I've started multiple businesses.
Speaker 1:But the concession I've had to make is, if I really want this business Bulletproof BJJ to be as successful as I believe it can be, which is to help change jiu-jitsu around the world, I have to park my other projects Like I can't. I would not be doing proper service to this business by trying to chase three or four other things, and I've had a few people tell me that, and it's a hard pill to swallow because I've always said no, no, no, no, no. With enough energy and enthusiasm I can overcome this. But when you realize how much goes into making one thing successful, no human has enough energy or life to make four things successful. You might be able to do them over time, sequentially Sequentially but not simultaneously, yeah, and so, and doing them sequentially too, like you can leverage them right, yeah, and you can leverage everything you've learned.
Speaker 1:And I think about, like I think that what I went through with Jungle Brothers, like I'm leveraging that now with us, right, and it's like fuck, that's cool because couldn't have done it at the same time. No, you know, but I'd been through that experience, gotten the gym to a point where it's now more or less sufficient without me, it's absolutely sufficient without me to clarify, but it's like, okay, cool, well, there's so many mistakes that we made, I can apply that to the next business. Yeah, and that's like and I think that's where people can get caught up when you see someone who is a serial entrepreneur and you're like, oh, look at this person, they sit on the board for these two companies and they got, you know, they got these seven things. I mean elon has been able to do it right, done a lot, but that's one guy, yeah, even, I mean even bezos, from what I can tell, he's got like he did amazon, got that, but now he's like all in on the spaceships, yeah, but the thing that people don't appreciate is also, elon is a psychopath, has six ex-wives and however many children, trauma. You don't want to be that guy, necessarily. But just to that point that like in an extreme, like that's an extreme example of but people always point at, oh, but probably could do more than one thing. But look at Elon, but you have to be willing to spend millions of dollars. But're not elon. You're not elon because you're not michael jordan. You don't want to be michael jordan, you would have no fucking friends like. I used to have michael jordan as my hero, right, and I started to learn about him like a short, thick white dude. With michael jordan, yeah, why, damn, it be just like you, mike, no, but I just thought I admired how, what an intense competitor he was. Shane Hill actually, shane Hill Talk about short white guys man Andrew Gaze won a championship from the bench dog what?
Speaker 1:He was a big, tall guy, andrew Gaze, yeah, but he was one of Australia's greatest players. But he ended up playing for the San Antonio Spurs. The last year they won Did he From the bench? He got a fucking NBA championship ring. The last year they won Did he From the bench? He got a fucking NBA championship ring. Wow, it didn't come off. No, shout out to him. But Luke Longley right, luke Longley, yeah, he was part of that Jordan era. Yeah, he didn't get a look in on the fucking docker. Oh, that was fucked. Yeah, that was fucked. And then Jordan actually admits later that was a bad moment. Yeah, friends, they didn't get along. Nah, fair enough.
Speaker 1:But this is what I want to say when you look at your entrepreneurial heroes and you're oh Elon, oh Jeff, fuck, whatever. You've got to know that they had certain unfair advantages before they started what you see them as now. And so that's not to say you can't be successful in business in a big way. But if someone is a trust fund kid, they don't have the fear of going fucking broke because they're from a rich family. You're not that trust fund kid. If someone worked for a Fortune 500 company or is in finance and could just go back to that 200, 300 million job a year, they're not scared about running a business and it fucking up. They can just go back to that job.
Speaker 1:But if you're a tradie and you're like, oh, I want to branch out in the floristry, I see an opportunity. It is harder because you don't have the margin for safety right. And I'm not saying this because I'm a conservative person. I'm not. But what I have learned and my mistakes have been, my multiple mistakes have been and I've been lucky to survive because I live in Australia and I have a lot of support, I've been bailed out countless times from my mistakes is that when you do start, it is worthwhile to keep it as a side hustle before you make it a main thing. That would be my personal advice to any given person and then, when you do decide to make it a main thing, make sure that there's enough systems in place that you are a business owner, not a business runner, right, and this is a mistake a lot of people make where they cannot take a day off. Yeah, you run a business, but you're not the owner.
Speaker 1:What I came to appreciate over time is meeting people who are business owners. They have people who run the business for them over time, right, whatever stage that's at. But if you haven't been able to delegate, manage or do these other skills that you need to as you kind of rise up in a business, if you don't have a path to that, then you will forever be working on this business and you'll never get a break, and that can be a bit of a prison and that can take something which was your passion and make it a bit of a burden. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think like, yeah, I think that's important to realize. I think that you can still.
Speaker 1:Some people you know like say, my side hustle is like making knives, yeah, for sure. I'm thinking of, like, our boy Cam. Yeah, cam, and that's become his. Yeah, that's his thing. And I don't even I, just he comes to mind, but I don't know his scenario. But say you love making knives and you're like I just fucking love making knives and I want to sell knives on the side. That, potentially, if that's your passion, that's not a business that you would necessarily want to scale to the point where you don't make the knives anymore.
Speaker 1:No, because making knives is why you got into it. Yeah, you know. And so there's, I think you can make that. You know you got to sort of keep in mind like why am I doing this thing? What's it for? But yeah, it's not nice to be stuck in a thing and think, like man, this business could have so much more impact if I could just get some time away from managing these, yeah, administerial things. And I think, if that thought has ever crossed your mind, if you're like I'm too busy to give the business the time it needs to grow, that's when it's like delegate, find someone that you can train up, that can take some shit off your plate on a regular basis, set up the system so that they know what to do. And it's pretty much, um, like it's, it's pretty much going to remain consistent, even with though you're not doing it anymore, so that you can then have the time to go and work on that shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know, like I was in that place for a long time on the business is supposed to be in the business and that's the hardest. That is one of the hardest gaps. I even see it with my sister. Shout out k white. She's such an entrepreneurial hustler and she works so hard and you know she edits this podcast as well as running her own wedding entertainment business and all the other things she does, because she loves the business so much, like it's. Her favorite thing is to perform at weddings and create a great experience for people. She still does all the admin and she still does everything else, but she can never not be on the tools. Yeah, and we all get sick, we all have problems. I believe for everyone. If you're listening to this and you do want to have a business and you want to be successful, there must be a way for you to be able to step back, not permanently, but just sometimes. Yeah, that's super important. And shout out to our boy, cam. It's sacred blades, sacred blades was using his knife over the weekend to forage for mushrooms.
Speaker 1:How was it? Yeah, matt, it's a great. It's such a beautiful thing. Yeah, I got, no, yeah, not the kitchen knife. I use that for cooking. Oh, no, no, cool. I posted that I was using it. Oh fuck, I love this knife and I posted it to my Instagram stories and I just didn't even think it was a stabbing attack here in Sydney. A few people died. It was awful, and a couple of people were like bad timing, bro, and I was like, fuck, I didn't even think about it. It was a need to win thing. I wanted to let JT know that I love this knife he got for me. But yeah, there's a lot in it. I wanted to say there's been.
Speaker 1:I've seen a couple of good jujitsu businesses come and go in our time. One that went recently is Roll Clean Soap. Oh, no, yeah, they shut down and I don't know them personally Like we never met personally but they send us some shit. Right, yeah, it was beautiful. They send us some awesome soap. It was beautiful. Yeah, the Kimura soap and the armbar soap and shit. I'm still using their cleaning products. Yeah, they got. The laundry powder was really good and I just saw on their instagram that they're like hey, you know, um, product prices have gone up and shipping and stuff, and it's just made it untenable for us. So we're gonna wind this thing down.
Speaker 1:Oh, so sorry to see that, um, and you're like fuck, yeah, like that hurts, right, and in a way, like you want to be, like, hey, guys, don't give up. But then you also got to keep in mind that there's a trade-off to doing your own thing. Like we said, there's time, and that means time that you're not doing other things. Right, there's the trauma of just like the stress of, like you know, your paycheck being dependent on your business, fucking making money or not, and so I think it's also really noble to go how. I'm going to pull out at this point. You know what I mean. It's not what I want and it's not working for me and I could be doing a better job elsewhere, you know, and I think it's totally cool to do that, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:But flip side, yeah, if, if you got an idea and you want to do something, I can have a think about it. Sit down, try, be systematic. Like, set yourself up for success. Sit with someone who's done a business before. Yeah, like that would probably be my biggest one.
Speaker 1:Is like, go and buy lunch for someone who's who, who is an entrepreneur and has set up and run their own thing successfully, and ask them for their advice and be open to what they tell you, cause I know a lot of people gave me good advice and I just I wasn't hearing it cause my just ears weren't open. And I look back now and I'm like someone so told me that that person told me that here's the thing. You got to go there to come back. All the advice in the world. You know we could be saying this to you. And then you hear it and you're like, yeah, whatever, boys, I'm doing it. And then two years later you're like, fuck, the boys were right. You know there's a lot of different. Obviously there's a lot of different advice out there. You do have to learn for yourself.
Speaker 1:But just to wrap it up, all I'd say is this is that really you have to know the cost for what you want, and one of the worst things is most people do not actually understand the cost for what they want. Yeah, you want your own business. Yeah, you want to be your own boss. Yeah, you want all these things, but the cost of it might be you spend less time with your kids. The cost of it might be you're fucking broke a lot. The cost of it might be your fitness isn't as good. The cost might be you don't do as much jujitsu and you only learn that by doing it and going oh my God, I didn't know this. In the same way, when people say to me, hey man, I want to deadlift 250 kilos, I'm like, oh yeah, cool, it's a cool project. What are you prepared to do for this? Because there's a fucking cost that comes with that. Want, yeah, so make sure that you get clear on that.
Speaker 1:So, similar to what joe's saying, like, speak to someone who's done it before or someone who's in a kind of an adjacent field. They might be able to tell you some pitfalls before you, before you get there. Yeah, that's right. There it is, folks, a bit of BJJ entrepreneurship. Yeah, I hope that was enlightening for someone out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I think we could probably do a round two where we talk more about some different stuff relevant to the biz. Yeah, maybe, if that sparked some questions for you, because I'm sure it did for some listeners throw those questions at us. Either throw them at us through the voicemail on our website, bulletproof of BJJcom podcast tab, record a voicemail or just like email it through to info bulletproof of BJJcom, because it would be cool to know kind of what you know. There's people out there that are in that are on this journey, that probably have something specific and it'd be good to talk on that. Yeah, and if like because I get this sometimes like, oh, you wrote a book, how do you make that happen? Or didn't that? How do you do that? It's like, oh, how much time you got. You know that those things are trauma, speaking of which I gotta go to see my psychologist. All right, thanks, guys, cheers.