From $0 to Business Owner: What It Really Takes

I didn’t start with money.

I started with $0.

No investors.

No shortcuts.

No perfect roadmap.

In this episode, I break down what it actually takes to start a business from zero — not the social media version, but the real process behind it.

We talk about:

• The research you need to do before starting
• The documents and setup most people ignore
• The time commitment nobody warns you about
• The expectations you must have early
• The mindset required when you don’t have resources

Starting from zero isn’t about motivation.

It’s about clarity, discipline, and consistency.

If you’re thinking about starting a business — or you’re in the early stages — this episode will give you a realistic picture of what it really takes.

Want a follow-up where I break down the exact first steps I’d take today if I had to start again from nothing?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Everyone has a dream. A dream to escape the rat race. However, that dream is not very easy to accomplish. And there's so many factors that contribute to it. It's not easy, especially when you're starting from scratch and you do not become from an entrepreneur family and nobody had given you that push. Like how can you really even start? You already have existing financial obligations, your time is packed with your job duties and your responsibilities. Where and how can you even begin? It's definitely not easy, but let me tell you this most successful people that I've read about or know started and built their wealth from nothing, from hard work and dedication. Discipline and work ethic that allowed them to build multi-million dollar companies. I'm not even talking about billionaires, just millionaires. So I'll be straight with you, it's not easy. Don't let anybody fool you. But also, it's not hard and it's not complicated if you build the steps I'm gonna share with you in this video and build the skills that it takes. And remember this you do not really need to know all the steps or all the skills. You know, it's impossible to gain them all before you start. But you gotta start to start gaining them. And I know this because I was born in Egypt and I moved to the United States when I was 20 years old. I had to borrow money to come here. So I had no money, no connections, and really no sense of direction. But I only had one thing, which is a dream the American dream. I had a nine to five job just like everyone else, working in corporate, climbing that ladder, and I thought that's the best life that I could think of. But fast forward now, I own my real estate company and a construction business and multiple properties that cash flow rent every single month. And I'm making a lot more money than when I was working the 9 to 5. And today I'm gonna share with you how I build these businesses and what are actual steps that you could take to build your business as well. So let's talk about the steps because there are steps that you need to do to start a business, and some of these steps you could not skip. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2024, on average, 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, while almost 50% fail in their first five years, another 65% fail on their first 10 years. Now, that of course between all industries. Now, why does these numbers matter? Because you can look at the industry average and why do people fail, and you can do some research, and we'll talk about this later in this video. It's good to know two things that it's not easy out there and it takes hard work, and also for you to know what are these businesses if you're starting similar to them, why they fail and how they fail. There's so many different factors to why these businesses fail. And let's put these in very easy words. First one, you're selling something that people don't want, a service or a product. Or people had some cash or investment they put in and that ran out. Having the wrong expectations, starting a business thinking it's gonna run by itself. After a few months or a few years, the business is running you and tough to manage. So negligence. Or simply competitors outbeat you. And one of the big ones is pricing costs. And there's so many more I can list here, but we'll just focus on the main ones. The last but not least for marketing. Nobody knows you existed. So to solve these problems, first let's focus on what's your idea. It doesn't have to be new, but a lot of times in a lot of businesses that succeed is you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You see, you have businesses who are already working and you think, okay, there's so many people other do it. I was talking to a realtor the other day, they're just starting out, and they're like, but there's so many realtors out there. If I thought about that when I was starting the construction company, I would have probably never started. So do not get fooled by there's so many people already doing it. You can do it better, you can do it faster. Maybe you find out a problem that they have that nobody had. Example in the construction business, when I went into just construction for real estate investors, yes, there's people out there that probably do renovations for real estate investors. However, they don't do it, they don't do exactly what we do. I found a better way of like covering the updates, sticking to budgets. You know, what did what are these investors want that I was myself and still am need from a contractor, and I exactly delivered that. So figure out the idea, look into the industry that you are interested in and think about what problem you can solve. Just like my example, what problems are these people facing that you can do better? Take for example, Nick Woodman, the founder and the CEO of the GoPro action cameras. It's a very inspiring story. Nick lived in his van going coast to coast, trying to find the best surfing spots, and he found out that it's impossible to capture the moments while you're in the water with a camera, even if there's a professional photographer there. These events and situations led Nick to invent the GoPro action cameras that they can mount on their surfing boards or strap on their bodies, then they can capture these moments while surfing. Now his company is worth over a billion dollars. When I was starting, I didn't think I have to invent something like that. As I said before, there's multiple business, and that's what's great about living in America. You could literally do anything and be profitable. I was talking to my electrician the other day. She makes about$30,000 a month, and she has a potential to make a lot more than that if she wanted to. You can pick any trade, anything, and make money of it, and I'll bet anybody on that. If you do it right, if you have the discipline and you follow the skills that we're sharing here. So before I was starting, what I did is I researched. I remember hours and hours. I never even studied that hard in college or high school, but when I was learning about real estate, I would order pizza and I gained a lot of weight that time. I would order pizza, sit down, and just watch every video on YouTube. The information is all out there. So research, pick a couple people that you that seems legit in the industry and follow them, see what they did, read about them and test by yourself. So do the research and learn. So for any business that is starting, there's two things. You're either gonna have to put money down or time down. If you're just starting, I'll be careful whenever you have to start a business and put a lot of money down or take in loans, in my opinion, unless you really have a good plan or a partner that tells you that this will work. But in my opinion, you do not need to go that route. Whereas a lot of people don't have that initial investment to open, you know, a brick and mortar shop or get into business with investment. So if you do not have that, what you could do is you can put time in, learn and start. There's a lot of businesses out there that does not require a lot of cash to start, but time. A lot of people look for that shiny object that does not require a lot of time, does not require a lot of money, and it will be a business. If that's simple, everybody will do it. Business is not for you. So either think about that, you're either gonna put a lot of time in it or a lot of money in it. The good thing is you could once you get your credit up, you could borrow that money. Once you have money, the money starts working for you and bringing more money. A billionaire Robert Herđovek said the same exact thing. He's a founder of a cybersecurity company, Herzivek Group and Cythrus. It's worth about 600 million.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

The other day, somebody came up to me and they said, uh, Robert, tell me about a business that I can start, make a lot of money, and not have to spend a lot of time with. You know what my advice was? Don't get into business. Even easy businesses that you think are gonna be easy and not require a lot of hands-on. Guess what? At the beginning, they're all gonna suck your time, they're all gonna suck your cash, and they're all really hard. Business is just hard. It takes many years to get to easy. Don't be fooled by trying to start something easy.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

So think about value. What value are you giving? Who are your customers? Who are your clients, and what value are you giving? What is that product that you are giving? Is there a required skill or knowledge that you need to gain before you can start that business? And I was talking to my sister about that because she has her dentist office, and I start telling her more about understanding business. The most successful dentist office in Cairo, what do they do? You know, what system do they run? How do they attract their client and what system they have? Because every successful business has a system. Now, another key element is the potential to grow, and we talked about that from things that make businesses fail. As an example, a lot of people are going away from retail shop, and if the retail shops are going down, so I wouldn't personally invest in a retail shop if it does not have the potential to grow in the next five, ten years. So all that time I put, I wish I would have put towards something else or something that AI can replace. Another one, know your competitors. I never really look at my competitors and say, okay, they're doing this or doing that, but understand, you know, as an example, I wouldn't go and compete against Walmart or you know, start a franchise for something because there is monopoly, right? The big companies they have a lot more cash in hand, a lot more labor to easy outbeat you. It's easier to get into industry that does not have those big competitors. But if you learn and search your target, you might find some people that maybe Walmart doesn't serve that you can serve, right? Or areas where Walmart is not there, that you can be there, but that will go back to researching and finding. Are you able to give a better price, better quality? Whatever the idea is, what are you beating the competitor in? What advantage can you have that the competitor doesn't have? In my industry, I know a lot of people have a hard time writing scopes. They go visit the property, ask a contractor to write you a bid, good luck getting that bid. Have a better system to beat that. Another thing that makes businesses go broke, and you can avoid that, and I learned to avoid that is by understanding finances, payroll, materials and supply, and how much money we need to save. All that is not hard to figure out, but it's important to learn and keep in mind. Another mistake that a lot of new entrepreneurs fall into is initial cost. If you do not need an office, don't get one. After five years of running the business, I'm just now getting my office. If you don't need it, don't buy it. Put the money where there's a return in it. Some people could have hired the social media manager. It's so early on. Your main focus is keep it is stay in the business, get more competitive, get more clients, make more money. I went to Alex Hormozy's event, and the biggest feedback I had is do more of what you're doing right now. If you made that much money with this team, how can you double that? Okay, you need more project managers, hire more. You need more people, more labor, hire more. Where is your constraint? And go there, fix that to grow. That should be your main focus. Another key element there is registrations and permits. If you're getting into construction, a professional service, sometimes there require permits and license you need to get before you can start and operate. So definitely look into that without spending so much time on it. And register your LLC. If you start a business, there's a lot of tax benefits. This is not a tax or a legal advice, but there's a lot of benefits from owning a corporation or LLC. And there's also benefits of liability when it's a different company than yours, and there's so much information out there that you can read about that. So there you have it. These are the crucial things and small steps you need to know before starting a business. Just make sure you commit to it. It's not a one-time investment, it's an ongoing thing, but the time you take to build it. I look at businesses as levels, as playing a video game. It literally is like playing a video game. Level one is getting the business starting and getting your first client. Level two is get your second three, four, five clients. Level three is hiring your first manager. Level four is hiring a second manager as an example and then growing your territory. So every level requires you to gain different skills and learn new things. So you gotta commit to be able to, and there's no finish line, right? There is just no finish line. You keep climbing as much as you want to go and know that the problems I had at level one are totally different than the problems I have at level 16, right? But every level you climb, you became stronger, you gain more knowledge, more power. You're able to unlock the next level by these skills you get. Some levels you might be stuck on for a while, but that just means you're not ready yet to go to the next level. At the end of the day, it's a beautiful journey. You learn a lot from it, and it changes who you are. At the end of the day, I would say it's a beautiful journey that I'm thankful for it. And from what I've learned from it, it allows you to change your life and people around you're life. But it's a journey of mistakes and learnings, regret, success, and hard work. And if you like this video, don't forget to subscribe and see you all next time.