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The Transparent Podcast
The Transparent Podcast
Kevin Fedor - Transparent Lessons on Entrepreneurship
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Ready to stop daydreaming and start building? Kevin Fedor, Founder & Digital Marketing Strategist at Follow Spike, and I dig into the real tradeoffs behind side hustles, full-time leaps, and why validation on nights and weekends rarely scales unless you design for it. With marketing operator and agency leader Kevin Fedor, we unpack how to test offers fast, keep costs low, and decide when traction justifies quitting your job. If you’ve been hiding behind plans and perfection, this conversation gives you a practical path to your first paying customer.
If you’re on the fence, start small and public: pitch a pilot, frame your first dollar, and learn in the market. Subscribe for more candid playbooks on small business growth, share this with a friend who needs the push, and leave a review to tell us what you’ll test this week.
Also, learn more about Kevin and his work at Follow Spike at http://followspike.com/
Meet Kevin And The Mission
SPEAKER_00Hi, my name is Nick Ford, and I am the host of the Transparent Podcast, where we believe in bringing transparency to the world of small business. And this week I am joined by a guest. Kevin, I'll let you introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, Kevin Fedor, um, half Portuguese, half American. Uh grew up mostly in uh Orlando, Florida area, and yeah, started my entrepreneurial journey when I was in college. Now, a decade later, I'm still kind of going strong and have been able to level up here and there uh each year. Run a couple of marketing agencies, um, have built a few other things in the past, basically focused my day-to-day on helping small to mid-sized businesses grow through various channels, and then kind of help build up my game and team throughout that. So hopefully it gives you a little bit of an idea on me.
Side Hustle Vs Full-Time
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Well, very good. Yeah, so I started the podcast to kind of inspire people who are maybe on the fence. I call it entrepreneurs that want to maybe get into entrepreneurship, hopefully let them hear from other entrepreneurs who have done it, and then hopefully give them a little bit of a you know push to start their own business so that they can kind of hear from other people who've walked the path before them. And so that was the idea behind behind this. And then I started transparent staffing about five years ago now, which is a you know recruiting company focused on direct hire recruiting, mostly in the healthcare space. And so I got kind of lucky, and I'm kind of curious to hear your thoughts on this, but I got lucky because I was able to start my business as a side hustle. I had a full-time job. Um, my employer when I started transparent staffing back in 2021 was really cool about me starting a side business. They didn't have any issue with it as long as it wasn't a competing business. And so I was able to get it going for six months or so before I quit my job and went in full-time. Um, but what are your thoughts on that? Do you think you can do it as a side hustle uh or just depend on the business, or what do you think?
SPEAKER_01Good question. Um, it's a classic debate. My take on it is I don't think you can have a chance at hitting your ceiling or succeeding with a business if it's a side hustle, just given somebody else out there is going to be willing to work 40, if not 80 hours on it, realistically, your 20 might not compete. But I think you can validate whether it's worth you going full time by doing it on the side for an excited period. Uh that's typically what I recommend folks to do is like if you have a little bit of an entrepreneurial bug and you know you have a nine to five now, take your five to nine two, three, four times a week or your weekends and go taste is kind of like the word I always use. Like try different stuff, see what works. Um and I think when you have some traction, trying to squeeze it out so that you can work on it as much as possible while keeping your nine to five until the until the point where the math ends up being in the favor of you just need to make that leap of faith. And funny enough, people even have a tough time doing that. Sometimes it's really obvious for you to go quit the full-time job and uh you know make your side also your main hustle. But you know, naturally people have reservations and risk aversion. But um, yeah, I think to answer your question, you can certainly validate uh a business, I think doing it on the side, but I think you'll have a tough time competing at a high level with folks that are doing it full-time naturally, just because they're gonna have more time and put it and likely more resources than you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, I I have to agree. I mean, I think if it's something that you want to keep as a side stream of income and you know kind of where you want it to be, I think it's possible to have it as a side hustle, but kind of like what you were saying, you can never compete with someone who's gonna be in it full time or and it can't hit a ceiling that you, you know, that it could have if you were in it full time. So I think getting it started as a side hustle can be good. Test out the market, test out the idea, and then you know, validate it, and then maybe you go in full-time. Um, but yeah, I think it ultimately going in full time is gonna be the the best way to go if you want to make it the best it can be.
Service Businesses And Time Constraints
SPEAKER_01I also think it you know, to your point maybe before, it really depends on the business. Because if it's a service-based business, I actually think it's extra challenging to do it as a side hustle, especially if you're like selling B2B, any sort of services. Uh I mean, everybody is working through nine to five. So if you are also working nine to five, but yet in order for you to grow your business or validate it, you have to be somewhat on the clock during when other people are on the clock. I think it's especially challenging. There's not a whole lot of businesses that are gonna be willing to meet with you before 9 a.m. or after 5 p.m. Maybe if it's like a time zone hack and you can catch people on the Pacific Coast or vice versa. Um, but yeah, in general, I think like that would be another area to consider too is like if you're interested in starting a business where you're selling services to another business, most businesses are gonna operate nine to five hours, so you're gonna have to carve out your lunch hour, things like that. And like, you know, maybe that doesn't feel as much of a side hustle anymore, is kind of the argument. Um, so I do think it's a little circumstantial to what your game is entrepreneurially as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would I would have to agree with that too. Um, yeah, those are all good thoughts to think about. And I think it also depends on you know the industry you're in, but also whether you're taking on capital. I just I think about like Shark Tank, where these guys they always tell entrepreneurs, go all in, you need to jump both feet in the water. And that is of course, if someone's giving you money, they're gonna want you full-time in the business. Or if you're taking money from like a bank, I would imagine that wouldn't love to hear that it's gonna be a side project for you if you're gonna have to pay them back. So it yeah, it just depends on circumstance, too, I think.
SPEAKER_01So my my experience with that is uh so personally I've self-funded every single business I've started, um, which is relatively easy because most of the businesses I've created are agency style businesses, so relatively low cost, good cash flow, etc. Um, I am a believer though that if you are getting financed for the business in some form or fashion, there is a ticking bomb on your end on your hands. Okay, if somebody is like checking in with you each week and basically your boss as your investor and saying, hey, what's the update? I think you'd need to have time to do things to offer an update and also some level of traction after three, six, twelve months. And so doing that on the side, I do kind of agree actually, like if you if you are being financed, either yourself or through an investor, it probably does beg that you need to have more of a full-time commitment. Um, otherwise, why are people gonna invest in the first place? I know I wouldn't if somebody was doing it on the side. Um, so I don't blame investors for having that expectation, which is why I'm such a big fan on if you're gonna have a side hustle, ideally you focus on your MVP and have it be as low cost as possible. I'm big fans of start a business with a thousand bucks or less because realistically, odds are against you. So those a thousand bucks isn't gonna turn into uh, you know, a good ROI. Um, but it can be from your learning and skill building standpoint, right? So I started several businesses that didn't make any money. My first business didn't make any money, but my first business led me to my current business, which I still operate 10 years later now, that's made me plenty. Uh and so I think that's that, you know, the podcast I started to talk about sports in college was super ROI positive for me because it led me to learning how social media works and content and doing that for other folks and building processes around it and thus the agency, which you know, I can afford New York rent. So I guess I'm figuring out something. Uh but to give you an idea, I think it's one of those things where you have to you have to understand like how can you try to make a business as easy to execute and taste so that you can have a more full-time commitment to get investment or just your own personal time.
Funding, Risk, And Lean MVPs
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, and so as far as marketing is concerned, you know, it's great that you're it's a service-based business because like you were talking about earlier, it's lower overhead. Same with my business. I I think I put like$2,500 into the business, and like within a month, I had taken that all back out. I didn't really even need it. Um, I just had to pay for like an LLC, and that was basically it. But um what do you think you know got you into but what got you into marketing? What made that your path?
Falling Into Marketing And Early Experiments
SPEAKER_01Yeah, good question. I kind of fell into it. I uh sneak peeked at just that, which by the way, when you talk about starting an LLC, and I know a lot of my entrepreneurs out there uh can easily get sold that an LLC costs$2,000 or something like that. It doesn't it cost like$183, I think, at least in Florida and most states are quite similar. So just throwing it out there of like it's a hundred YouTube video less than an hour. Find a YouTube video, don't let somebody tell you that some lawyer has to do it. Like it's uh a common misconception with people starting their first business. I'm actually of the opinion you don't even need to legalize your business until you make a few grand. And then I think it's worth you doing it, um, just because realistically there's nothing for you to declare. Um, so anyways, just a quick thought on that. But how I fell into marketing, um, so yeah, I a little bit stumbled into it. Um, I'll tell you how I got into entrepreneurship, which I think is also probably relevant for this audience, which is um I was an intern at a uh kind of like a travel company, if you will, a travel logistics company. And, you know, I was a wide-eyed college student, no experience, lots of ideas, etc. And I had the very stereotypical. I wasn't necessarily getting coffee for folks, um, but I was in like an eight-foot by ten foot file cabinet room putting away uh alphabetized files for hours each day. Obviously, like very monkey task, so to speak, right? Um and after several weeks of doing that and having all these ideas of things that they could do to help grow whatever they were doing and things that I was, you know, minimally exposed to. It felt like uh man, I feel like I have so much more I can offer and give, yet I'm not given the platform. So I kind of thought to myself, like, maybe this is an opportunity. If I really think I'm that good or valuable, I should be able to do it for myself. And so that's kind of when the entrepreneurial spirit started was me feeling like I could offer more and not necessarily being given the opportunity. Um, so yeah, that's kind of how I stumbled into starting a sports podcast at the time. I was, you know, a pretty young guy. And at the time, sports media was also basically a bunch of 50, 60 year olds talking about sports. There was no like youthful personalities uh that were analysts or anything about sports. Now they're all over the place. So I actually think my the trend that I jumped on was correct. Uh I just necessarily wasn't the personality long term. Um, but for about six, seven, eight months, I had a podcast that I would post weekly on uh and that allowed me to see what it was like to take an idea to execution. Um, it made zero dollars, of course, but that also part led me into learning about marketing because naturally I needed to get more people to listen to me. So I learned about social media and content creation and building a following, etc. I ended up partnering with a buddy of mine that went to uh USF, the college I went to in Tampa, Florida. And then uh we both had different entrepreneurial endeavors that uh we were trying to grow. We kind of growth hacked our way into figuring out how to do so, then figured out, man, we're actually way better at this growth hacking thing than we are individual businesses. Maybe we could productize this or make this a service to sell to other folks, and that's how I fell into it. And then it started off with me just helping people uh organically grow their Instagram and Twitter following, and now you know I'm basically the fractional CMO for a dozen businesses or so. Um gives you an idea of how I started and where I'm at now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. That's that's great. Yeah. Um, well, thanks for sharing that background. And you know, I talked to entrepreneurs a lot about uh the idea of starting a business from scratch, which is sounds like what you've done. Um, and there's also the option to buy a company or I've looked into franchises, especially as like another stream of income. Like I wanted to own like a coffee shop franchise or um some other franchise I could, you know, I could hire someone and hopefully have them kind of run it and me oversee it. But there's you know pros and cons with that. But what do you what do you see as the pros pros and cons of franchising or buying a company versus doing it yourself and starting from scratch?
SPEAKER_01Um I'm gonna caveat all those with I've never bought a business, so I can't I can't speak to the other side. Um what I I do have friends though that I've done so, and I do see some pros and cons. I think the pro is I think creating is the hardest thing to do in life. Um, meaning let's bare bones example. If you have a Google Doc and you're trying to jot down your strategy for how you're gonna get in better shape, having nothing to start on that Google Doc, there's a lot of lift for you to start those first couple of sentences, right? Versus if that's completely built out for you and you're just tweaking what day of the week you're gonna work out, much easier. I kind of view it as similarly. It's a lot easier to have a little bit of a roadmap that's already been paved for a successful business that you can kind of jump in and buy or franchise. There's already a model that works, you don't have to reinvent the wheel in a lot of ways. I just think it's more about do you have the skill set to tinker it so that it can grow 15 to 50 to 500 percent so that you get your ROI? That's kind of more of your game, which is really cool and something like I think in the future I'd be pretty interested in, particularly in the agency space, just because personally I have so much knowledge in it and I kind of know like what are the six to eight ways to really grow an agency. So there might be people that have awesome businesses, but they have two of the eight they don't really do a great job at. If you can plug in those systems, you can really make an awesome business. Um I think for starting your own, you just have so much more autonomy, so much more uplift. I think it is more rewarding and also it allows you to create the business and lifestyle you exactly want, because it's not going to be, you know, kind of uh already forewarned for you. Um, but I think also it's your your your road to get there might be much longer and a bit more taxing. But I think you'll be a better entrepreneur personally. I think I think you are a better entrepreneur if you start something from zero and bring it to a hundred rather than start something from 50 and bring it to a hundred. Um I think there's more skill in the former. Um so yeah, I think pros and cons of both naturally.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think you know, with a franchise uh particularly, you're you're buying the the like you described it as like a roadmap, you're kind of buying a playbook, and now it's just go run the playbook. And so that's simpler, but you have way less autonomy, you have way less creative control. Um, and I I got pretty far down the path of opening a coffee franchise here in Atlanta with a Hawaiian coffee brand. And um, as I got into the process and started reviewing all their documents and I'd signed like an NDA and stuff, I just started feeling like, okay, I'm gonna be working for them kind of like it's my company, but I'm really working for them and working their business. And so to me, that wasn't as exciting as just focusing on my business or starting my own coffee shop and having control over how I was gonna do it. So yeah, I mean, I think there's pros and cons of both. I think, like you said, you gotta have some creativity to be able to build it out on your own. But uh I would I would rather go the you know, start it your own way route.
Build From Scratch Or Buy/Franchise
SPEAKER_01But that's what I've done, so I can disagree with you. I think there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there that and I'm I'm not uh away from this camp, but that we all have egos, right? We all think that you know we're the best, and that's why we start something. And realistically, being an entrepreneur is is a crazy endeavor. Like the stats are against you. You have a 10% potential chance that having something that even generates a dollar, you have a way less chance that that being the case three years into a business. So you and I are anomalies, if you really think about the statistical likelihood of having a business that actually profits beyond three years. Um but I also think it's one of those things where if you can build it correctly uh and you understand yourself a bit better, you can know like maybe I do want to go through that three-year endeavor and have a better pot maybe at the end of the rainbow. Or you realize, like, I actually don't mind working for somebody or having to play book. It makes it a lot easier. I just want, you know, a minimal level of autonomy to execute in the way that I want to, right? Which I think a lot of franchise models or buying a business allows you to do. Um, but realistically, you can't you can't completely pave the path yourself. Um, for me, I actually am not a person that's like an entrepreneur that hates the idea of working for somebody. I know a lot of people that are like that. Um I am a person, similar to what you said, that really appreciates autonomy. It's the thing that gets me going the most. In fact, kind of midway through my career, I didn't know if I wanted to climb the corporate ladder or not. I never had a real job. So I uh I sort of gave it a go for about a year. And I worked with one of the largest agencies in the country and uh figured out pretty quickly, you know, long story short, I had a quite literally a million-dollar deal on the table that I was in the midst of signing for the agency. Um and I left it mid-deal because I had a$700 deal that popped up for my current my my own agency on the side that I was still kind of monitoring here and there, but not really growing. And I was really jazzed about the$700 deal and not about the million-dollar deal. And I figured out pretty quickly, like, oh, I'm not in it for money, I'm in it for me feeling like I'm creating and exchanging value in the marketplace. That feels good to me. So I need to optimize for that. And basically that's when I quit the job and haven't really looked back since.
SPEAKER_00Nice. That's cool. Yeah, if you're if you're willing to let go of the million dollar deal for a$700 deal, you definitely cared more about having your own deal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that makes sense. Cool. Um, so coming into a new year, what how how are things with scaling? Like it's something I'm always trying to figure out how to do better, but what are your challenges with scaling your business now? Or are you are you how do you view what you want your business to be? Do you want to scale it into something big or do you want to stay boutique, or what do you how do you do that?
Autonomy, Ego, And Career Choices
SPEAKER_01It's a really, really good question. Um so let's take 2025 out of it. The prior four years, I've doubled my business each of the last four years. So scaling wasn't necessarily an issue for me. And in some ways, I would say it happened naturally, and in some ways, naturally, I you know put in processes for things to continue to grow. This past year was kind of the first year that to talk about 2026 goals. Career wasn't the only thing I was focused on, which was a little bit different than all other years of my adulthood, realistically. Um and so, you know, I was I made a big move from Florida to New York City. Um, my lady and I moved in together. You know, there was other kind of like life things that took priority naturally. And so my business did not double this year, it probably grew about 20%. Um, on one hand, am I a bit disappointed because my level of acceleration is going down? Yeah, uh, I think the ambitious entrepreneur in me would prefer to say that I went five years in a row. Um the reality is too, and it's a good question and a funny time period for you to ask me. It's the first time that scaling for me looks different than it has in the past, where I am now starting to get to the point where my org and kind of boutique team and process has reached its ceiling and capacity. And so I am now actively starting to make some changes to my internal process to take on more scaling opportunity. Both from a standpoint of having allowing the business to grow to also for my clients to get a better service, because sometimes I think when you're a service-based business and you're so focused on just uh fitting the deliverables, you don't do your job of just being a good partner at times. And so I think I want to prioritize having enough time to be both. Um and then and then also on an entrepreneurial level, I think as you grow older as an entrepreneur, you're you're splitting time between your sergeant brain and your soldier brain. Your sergeant brain kind of like is the idea person, the strategist, like the direction. And then the start, the the soldier brain is more like the actual work ethic, the execution, like boots on the ground, uh much more focused on uh bringing it to life, if you will. Um, I've noticed that as you grow older entrepreneurially, I think it's harder for your soldier skill set to be as sharp as it is in the beginning when it's all you have. But also your sergeant side becomes so much sharper because you know things, right, that you didn't realistically know three, five, ten years ago. And so I haven't adapted my business to how I've developed as an entrepreneur, which is why I'm actually really excited this year because it'll be the first time I've kind of like really invested in that. Um, I also think it's like a comfortability thing of like, I like to be so hands-on with clients and projects in the business that uh I'm realizing that I can't afford time-wise to do that at the scale that the business demands. Thus, I need to update for myself as an entrepreneur my business and also make a lifestyle that I think is more attractive to the entrepreneur I am today versus who I was five years ago. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. That totally makes sense. Um, cool. Yeah, I mean, for me with with scaling, I've got it to a point where I'm kind of there's I've shared with you before, but I'm I there was a point where I really want to scale and grow it into a big business with you know, like a hundred employees or you know, a lot of a head count and stuff. And as I've hired people and continue to be in the business, I kind of like keep the idea of keeping it smaller. You know, as long as I can provide for my family and we're making enough money and I can, you know, work with good people, I'm fine with it being small and would prefer it that way now. Um, and I know a couple other recruiters, um, recruiting agencies where like they've got like one one you know main person, they got some 1099 people, and they've been doing it for like 10 years and they're making 500 grand a year, and they're like, Why what I why would I want to do anything else? Like, this is going great. Um and so that's kind of where I'm at. It's you know, I want to I have revenue goals where I want to scale, but as far as like hiring and growing it into something bigger, I'm kind of past that point. I'm comfortable keeping it as a small boutique agency.
Scaling, Systems, And Capacity Ceilings
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, I I hear you on that front, and actually I don't disagree, even though I just said I'm I'm making some changes to be able to scale a bit further. I I I think about it less from a standpoint of scaling revenue or even my income. I think I'm more about scaling my time. Um, which is to your point, what I value more personally. I think you have to think about like what are you optimizing for? I think so heavily about what my perfect week in a year look like. Like, what is what am I doing on the calendar? Who do I speak with? How often do I jump on calls? Where am I working? Uh, you know, I I think that's really important to consider like what lifestyle you're trying to sign up yourself for, and then ideally adapting your business to fit that lifestyle. So for me right now, the last three months in particular, I'm way too in the weeds. And that is a fault of mine, no one else's. So realistically, I need to delegate more tasks right now, um, and also set up the business where I'm only serving or doing the things that best fit my time. Um, and also that where I'm the highest leveraged, right? So for me, it's a little bit more of the sergeant brain to kind of go back to that analogy, um, where realistically I've probably been caught up on the soldier side because I've been optimizing for finances and not optimizing for efficiency. So it's kind of like a learning lesson that I've came into naturally that I didn't sign up for because I, like you, have always been enamored by a lifestyle business where you could have a couple of people that help you execute what you do. You know, you're kind of the face of it and the engine of it, and you work, you know, a modest lifestyle and provide a good service, and that allows you to provide for you, your family, your kids, etc. That's literally why I started entrepreneurship. Um, I a little bit of context on that end. I come from a professional athlete background. So my dad was a pro basketball player overseas. Um, my grandfather played a shortstit in the NBA, quit to make more money as a teacher. So don't mean to date my grandfather, but different time tack in the NBA. Um but I say that to say, you know, as a kid, I was a decent athlete myself, like any other person who plays basketball, whatever sport, I wanted to play professionally. And that didn't seem crazy to me because my father and grandfather did. And so I realized when I was in high school that I probably wasn't good enough. I'm 6'2, I'm not that short, but my dad's 6'8, to give you an idea. So I thought I was gonna be much taller, and things like that really matter as far as how far you go in a sport, um, let alone my skill set. And so I uh I realized quite quickly like there was lots of reasons I was enamored to be a professional athlete. But actually the biggest one was I really loved the idea of quote unquote retiring when I was 35 and having so much more time and autonomy to spend time with my future family. That became really interesting to me. And so I realized, like, man, I could actually still do that without being a pro athlete. I could start a business and then build a financial vehicle that allows me to afford my time back. So that's literally the whole reason I started in the first place. And what still to this day is my kind of driving engine into doing all this is because one day I want your lifestyle. I want to be able to like enjoy time with my three children and my wife and not have work be my first priority or thing that I'm like aching for or optimizing for certain finances, etc. I ideally want to put in the work now so that I can be a little bit more flexible in that chapter of life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Not to say that I've reached a point where I can, you know, have ultimate flexibility. I still work a pretty, you know, normal work week, and I wouldn't want to just, you know, I don't know, be so flexible that I didn't, you know, dedicate time to working. Um, because I do enjoy work and I enjoy the recruiting space. And um, it all depends on what you want out of the business, I think. But you know, we were talking about earlier that a lot of small businesses fail. I don't know what that do you know what that stat is. It's like one out of five survive five years or something like that.
SPEAKER_01Uh it's actually worse than that. So I'm pretty sure the stat is uh two out of ten businesses will make a dollar. One out of those two will survive past three years, as I believe the stat. So basically you have a 10% chance at a business that lasts three years. Uh, and then you have a 20% chance at making a single dollar of revenue.
Lifestyle Design And Time Leverage
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we're in the top 10% already. Yeah, which is nuts to think about it that way. But yeah, yeah, that is nuts. But you know, I love studying like successful people. You know, I like listening to stuff like Tony Robbins, and um, there's a guy named Earl Nightingale that I have a thing on the podcast about and just successful people and what their mindset is. I'm looking at a Michael Jordan quote, and this is uh I have this on my desk, but it says I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games 26 times. I've been trusted to take the game game-winning shot and missed. I failed over and over and over again in my life, and that's why I've succeeded. That was Michael Jordan.
SPEAKER_01Facts. Uh, you know, I've uh I've fallen on my face so many times. Um, my first business didn't make a single dollar. I mentioned that with the podcast. Um, even when I started my agency at the first time, you know, I was making 40 grand as a college student, which is pretty cool, plenty of beer money. But at the same time, like 40 grand is not gonna really be an awesome living for you if that's kind of your ceiling long term. And realistically, I didn't know what I didn't know. So that's why I moved to New York the first time and took on the corporate gig and learned how the big agencies do it and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then ultimately kind of invested in myself long term and it's worked out for me. But yeah, I see that all to say like everybody's got their own path. I've also, in that whole process, gone to zero twice with my agency. Zero. Not like, oh, we're having a bad month. Zero. Uh, and I can tell you those stories, but the big reasons is because my business was optimized in places that it shouldn't have been. For example, I had an only Facebook ads agency basically at one point, and Facebook ads plummeted in value in 2021 due to iOS 14 updates, and Apple and Facebook went to war, and basically what made the day the data that made Facebook so valuable as an advertising platform went kaput overnight. Thus, if you are profiting on the margin that you can charge other businesses for the value of Facebook ads, and that goes away, you have no business. So six months later, I literally made zero dollars. Um, yeah. But I also think what's awesome about that is now I'm not afraid, even though I highly doubt it'll happen again just because of become a better entrepreneur. Um, I'm even if I do go to zero, I've already gone from zero to one so many times that if it happens, it happens. But it's it's it's certainly a part of it. In fact, I actually think you are not as good of an entrepreneur if you haven't failed. In fact, I've talked to a lot of VC investors, and that's one of the first things they ask is talk about your failures. And if they don't have like so many obvious failures, they actually feel less comfortable investing in them, which is quite counterintuitive to what I think most people think makes a good entrepreneur if it isn't just straight success. Uh so yeah, I think I totally agree with that.
Failure, Resilience, And Market Shifts
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you're not failing, you're not trying sometimes. I mean, you gotta be willing to take some risk and you just kind of move forward and and fail forward, I think. And uh I think yeah, I I think what separates I love the that Earl Nightingale um podcast I have on the podcast, but he talked about what sucks what separates successful people. And I think that one of the biggest things to me is mm-successful people have goals. If you don't if you don't know where you're going, then you can't get there. So you gotta you gotta have a goal that you're working toward, um, whether that's a monetary goal or a life goal or whatever it is, but I think successful people know where they're going is the biggest difference trader.
SPEAKER_01I could I mean totally agree, and I'm kind of a maniac when it comes to goal setting in the sense of like I get really in the weeds. Uh, and I've actually updated my process over the years on how I do this. For several years, I had this like master Google Sheet with six different categories and three-day goals per category, and I would daily log how many minutes I read, how much how many sales calls I went on, etc. Um, and it worked for me. I mean, there's a reason why things like my business grew double each year and things like that. So uh, and to your point, I don't think your goal should just be financial or career, um, although candidly many of my goals have been historically. Um, but that being said, I think I think you have certainly no opportunity to get to a destination if you don't know what it's looked like, what it looks like. Right. My big thing and why I love goal setting is less because it gives you a chance to know where you're going. It's more because it's easier to reverse engineer when you know the you know what the destination is, right? I'm so I'm such a big fan of that. Meaning, you know, really bare bones example, but if you're trying to get to a million dollars in income, as an you know, as something that I think a lot of people stereotypically talk about, it's like, okay, cool. How many sales calls is that? What's your conversion rate? How many people do you have to talk and onboard? And what's your client retention have to be, etc.? And then it's just a math equation. Cool. In order to do this, I have to spend X amount on getting Y meetings and Z conversions, and then I'll get there. And then it's just a matter of time and me doing the execution. So often, like reaching goals is simple, it's just extremely difficult to stay disciplined. Yeah. Uh, and that's the hard part. And that's what separates, you know, a lot of the successful folks from the people that struggle, I think, is just the discipline part.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. Speaking of discipline, you know, it's uh it can be challenging to figure out as an owner where to spend your time in the business. And um, you know, now that you have a team around you and you have people that you can kind of offload things to, how do you figure out where to spend your time? Like where is where is your time most valuably spent in the business now?
Goals, Reverse Engineering, And Discipline
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for me personally, it's um it's it's whatever I uniquely am great at. Um, and I think that also takes some self-awareness. Um, so like for me, for example, I've always backed myself as a communicator. So on calls with clients, you know, major fires that come out, etc. I I tend to deal with a lot of the unsexy, actually. Um, meaning if there's a an issue with a client or the agency that's eight out of ten or above, that's where I step in. Anything that's a seven or below, the team can execute. And I live with whatever happens, right? But realistically, like that's like a framework that I like to use as far as where I spend my time. I also spend my time on ideas to grow both the business and my clients' businesses. That's where I tend to do well. I'm not the best content creator, I'm not the best email marketer. I like personally, I'm not the best uh media buyer, but I have really awesome people that are awesome at that stuff, and I know how the functionality of each of those tasks well. So I can be the person that puts the whole kind of organization together. Um, but realistically, at one point, I did all of the nitty-gritty, and I actually think you've there's benefit to being a practitioner for a long time because you can speak to you at a high level how to actually execute things beyond just theory, which I find there's a lot of people in my space that only know theory and have never actually ran an eye themselves or hit posts on Instagram or anything like that. Like there's a lot of people that don't know the X's and O's of what they're doing, they just speak in hyperbole and go, why don't we make more money in this business? Um, so to answer your question, it's like wherever I'm most leveraged. Um, and also at this point, and something I'm optimizing for this year is wherever I feel most fulfilled. You know, if there's something that like I'm good at, but realistically it isn't a fun use of time for me. I think that's actually important to note for yourself because realistically it's like you're gonna keep pushing that off of your to-do list, et cetera, and then inefficiencies arise. Versus if you're excited to wake up and like tackle on your workload for the day. I think it creates like a very different human being in business that you know is is a result of that. So for me, it's wherever I'm highest leveraged and also wherever I'm most fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's the perfect you know answer to that. I mean, yeah, I think wherever I think that my um impact is gonna be the greatest for for me. I I love the sales side of things. I love connecting with new clients, I love uh I like the service side of things too. Um I'm kind of spread out within the business and probably need to niche down where I spend most of my time, but I enjoy doing a lot of it. I've outsourced some of the administrative things, which is good, the things I don't enjoy doing. Um but yeah, I mean I think it's an ongoing um journey with that. But well, so there's a lot of people who listen to the podcast that are not entrepreneurs yet. So, what advice would you give people who are on the fence about getting into entrepreneurship?
Where Founders Should Spend Time
SPEAKER_01Um I would try as much as you can. Uh meaning it may be a fit for you, it may not be. Um either way, like you're I don't think you I think one thing that I uh I will say is I think entrepreneurship is much sexier now than it used to be. Um entrepreneurship as a label is actually a relatively new term. Like 30 years ago, you know, uh you weren't called an entrepreneur, you were called a quote unquote a businessman, you know. Uh now this entrepreneurial term, I think because of social media and whatever is like got a lot of sex appeal, um, which in some ways I think is great because I'm as a as a person who's an entrepreneur that really appreciates the lifestyle and the life lessons that you learn, etc., I think it's awesome. But also it's if you're not one, I don't think you're like lesser of a human being. So I think I think having self-awareness as to what type of lifestyle you're looking for, I think is a big piece. One thing I'd say too is like, don't let what the internet tells you about entrepreneurship to be true, because realistically, a lot of those people aren't actually practitioners or entrepreneurs themselves. Um for me, I think most entrepreneurs I know work more, not less, than employees. Um I think uh most entrepreneurs I know are more, not less stressed than employees, right? Um so does that mean you can have a stress-free entrepreneurial journey? Potentially. I just think it's not common. Um, so I don't say this to scare people, but I say this to offer reality because what entrepreneur is amazing at is do I think you'll be a better, well-rounded individual because you test yourselves in a million different ways and you'll have to learn how to split, spin the plates of all sides of the business, not just one that most employees can just focus on. Yeah. I think you're like you'll be a much more interesting, well-rounded, accomplished human being. Personally, I feel a tremendous amount of fulfillment being an entrepreneur, which is why in a lot of ways I would do it for free. I did for so many years. Um, so for me, it's like it's it's it's more of a fulfillment thing. Um, but I also think you know, people can kind of evaluate like what they want out of their lifestyle and what autonomy they're looking for. And can you achieve that by working for someone else? And a lot of cases, I think yes, and there's nothing wrong with that. And also in a lot of cases, probably not. And so you need to kind of start your journey, um, whether that's a side hustle or taking big vets, et cetera. I always say the smartest, I'm not that smart. Like, I was I was an A-B student growing up, but I had a lot of friends who were much smarter than me. I went to Ivy League schools and blah, blah, blah. My best friends at a PhD at Stanford. Like, um, I am not the smartest person in my friend group by any means. The one smart thing I did is I started when I was young. I started in college where failing had very little issue or challenges for me. I think it's much harder, Nick, if you today with three children had to start a business because I think your responsibilities are so much bigger and your the downfall of failing is so much larger. Um, so that I think you know, you have to measure your risk on that front, which is why I think the side hustle conversation is like really important. Um, but yeah, I think uh I think on analyzing what you're looking for and again what the perfect week looks like for you in the future, if that's about autonomy and personal fulfillment and developing. yourself, man, there's entrepreneurship for you. And then it's not about money at that point, you know. Um if it's about not having a ceiling, I think also entrepreneurship is for you. If it's about hey, I want to really enjoy other facets of life and plug in and plug out in my work realistically, like yeah I think getting a job is way better for that. I have so many friends that work 25 hours a week and a corporate gig and they're super happy with it and they, you know, they're part of leagues and families and do other things and that's their focus. And I think it's awesome. And it's whatever kind of best fits what personality or lifestyle you're you're looking for.
Advice For Aspiring Entrepreneurs
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's great. I think the advice I would give people would just be to start doing it. Like just take the first step, you know, stop sitting on the fence and test the market maybe or just take the first step in getting the business going. And um you know sitting on the fence is going to be just as hard as taking the first step. So why not go ahead and take the first step? And um maybe that means you know putting together a mock business plan or maybe it means you know giving it away you know as a service, give it away to one client for free and see if it's valuable or not. And then you can start charging people as a side business or whatever. But just do something. Don't just sit on it is the advice I would give, I guess.
SPEAKER_01So I totally agree. One thing I'd say too is you haven't started a business if nobody knows about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So like what I mean by that is if you're sitting there putting together a bunch of mock plans and you and ChatGPT are going back and forth and you have this 11 page thread of all these ideas of how to grow this thing and what it'll look like in five years, etc, yet it hasn't gone to market. There's not a single person that knows about it outside of your you know your sister or husband or whatever like that's you haven't really started the business yet. Starting the business is when you tell somebody about it to buy your product or service. That's when a business starts. And then it really starts when you make your first dollar uh which is why I literally over here have my first dollar framed in front of me because I remember that day. And to me it's like a it's a monumental moment because like okay now now the game really starts. But I say it to say as a person who waited so long to get that and spent so much time in the weeds of being a entrepreneur and coming up with a perfect strategy you're never going to have a perfect strategy. I learn stuff every day right now I'm not fully optimized. Yet some people would argue they would want the lifestyle I've built well it doesn't happen because I came up with the perfect plan. Uh it happened because I actually to your point took the leap of faith and started letting people know about the uh you know something I wanted to build to the world.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah no that's great. Well um Kevin thanks so much for for being on the podcast and um where can we find you? Where can we find out more about Follow Spike and where can we find you personally?
SPEAKER_01Yeah good question. So I'm I'm starting to get uh a bit more active on social. You can find me at Kevin Fedora really across all socials K-V-I-N-F-E-D-O-R. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn right now. I'm about to start being pretty active across the board even have some media stuff here kind of lined up um so so yeah I'm starting to kind of uh put my game out there a little bit more and uh yeah if anybody's interested or intrigued by my conversation style I uh I I don't know why but I I appreciate it and uh feel free to follow.
SPEAKER_00Cool. Well I'll leave a link uh to your website in the show notes and uh thanks so much again for being on the podcast. Yeah Nick appreciate it was awesome