The Restart Podcast

Day 5: How I'm building a business with zero dollars (ep. 52)

Arthur Toole Season 7 Episode 5

Welcome to Growing a Business with Zero Dollars! I'm Arthur Toole, and I’m here to share my raw, real-time experience of building a business from scratch—without any initial investment. This daily series is designed for aspiring entrepreneurs who might be struggling in silence, unsure where to start, or feeling overwhelmed.

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Speaker 1:

All right, good morning. This is day five of the growing a business with zero dollars and starting with zero dollars. So the task yesterday was to create a draft of the presentation for the upcoming pitch competition that's starting in two weeks. That's gonna be for $10,000. So for this pitch competition and like I said before, it's a lot more detailed than anything I've ever experienced before, even with the ones that I've hosted, like this one they want a business plan and they have very specific things and the way they view things is different. Like you know, a statement of cash flow is pretty straightforward, but they want a cash flow statement that has some other kind of nuances that I really hadn't seen before. And you have to do an investment summary, like you're going to. Like you want to go to a bank or an investor to apply for a loan or get an investment, which is fundamentally against what I want to do. But the $10,000 will allow me to not have to invest in Grave the Net anymore and it allowed me to actually go ahead and do ads that we've done in the past, but hopefully now more efficiently. So, even though it has some pros and some cons, the net effect is that by this time next year I can really scale Meg relief. So that's so, you know we'll do with that. So that's that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, they also had some challenges, because you know Lauren, you know my youngest, she's playing flag football and now we think she made she may have injured or at least a worst case, you know, torn at ACL or at the minimum just bruised it. So we had to go yesterday to doctors and then to an orthopedic surgeon to review, and now I have to go get MRIs. And then there was something going on with Danette that I won't share with you, but just that. And so I'm sharing this today because in the life of an entrepreneur, while you're trying to build this thing and you have a job and you have a family, sometimes it just gets hard Right and in reality you know people will sympathize with you, but they don't, they can't, most of them don't care, and it's not that they're being cold or heartless. They got their own stuff to go through and they didn't add the extra burden of being an entrepreneur. Like you and I, we added the burden of being an entrepreneur. We can have a job right For the most part, unless some crazy thing is happening. But you know we're choosing to have the family, have the job and have the business, and that's hard right.

Speaker 1:

And so I think the biggest thing for me to that I can impart to you, is that in these seasons, when that happened, you just have to learn that you'll be lonely in these seasons, but it won't be in vain. And you know, for those of you who are like me, who trust in God, like you, remember the verse we said he'll never put more on you than you can bear. And so you have that. And if you're not, you have to think about it Really. This is first world problems. Like you can go south and people are worried about if the water they can find is clean, or you know what's the next meal? You can go to any other country, a third world country, a legit third world country. Well, they're just happy they have. They have, you know, electricity during the daytime, right, and so it has to be in perspective, right. So, no matter how hard it is, you have to put it in perspective, we're still blessed, right. Whether the business that you have, or meg relief for me, goes to a billion dollars or it's just enough to put food on the table, we're still blessed.

Speaker 1:

Now we are supposed to do our best, because for me my work is unto the Lord, right. So I can't present Meg Relief to him. He doesn't care about the dollar amount, but I can't present it to him having half done it right, because he knows the intentions of my heart. So I have to put forth my best effort, align with what I believe is the direction that he's going with me. And I know you're like I don't want no Sunday school lesson. I get it, but this is me documenting my journey, and this morning and yesterday I didn't feel like doing anything. But what kept me going is I have a responsibility to God, the people that are dependent on me, and to myself and to you and to the people who I'm serving MedRelief for those who do not want to take another pill or can't take another pill, those who would take a natural iron pain relief option if they knew it was available right, other countries have this. United States does not, not in a massive way. So that's it Now for today.

Speaker 1:

I have to get the presentation done that I have to submit to the president of the college that I work for, to try to fight to get more resources for the veterans, because it's pretty abysmal what they've given them.

Speaker 1:

And now, at a point to, all the things that I've led and built are going to be upended because, you know, a situation is beyond the control or the scope of military and veteran services. So I think if that's done today control or the scope of military and veteran services so I think if that's done today, then hopefully we can get an MRI done for my youngest daughter and hopefully, hopefully, prayerfully, they'll just say hey, it was Bruce. Regardless, the flag football season is over and that's a pretty bummer because literally playoffs start next week. But I'd rather her miss playoffs than to miss everything for the next five years or be injured in a way that can't be undone by pushing it. So what are your plans for today? How are you planning on making and taking your business just that one step further? Share it with me and let's get it done together. All right, see you.