How To Set Up A Business In 47 Minutes

I was 15 years old when I first started a business I had no choice but to start a company is the best thing I ever did in 35 years I've gathered so much knowledge and how to build a business just recently a year ago I launched a business called Help bank and today based on last money in it's already worth 30 million and I'm going to give you all the knowledge I've gained over the last 35 years in this video right now for free all you need to do is listen for 5 minutes and if

you can't do that I've got some news for you you're probably not going to make it now I'm going to go through everything thing you need to know on how to start a business from where to start it which is more important than you realize and so many people don't talk about it how you're going to actually get the idea formed in your head and into a business model that can work how to sell that business to everybody including potentially a buyer later how to raise money I've covered this in previous videos I'm going to

try and go a little bit deeper today and finally and probably most important is the boring stuff the legals the trademark how to make sure you pitch do you need an NDA all the things you don't know you don't know I'm going to go through in this video so let's get started right a question most people don't ask themselves when they're thinking of starting a business where should you start it now one of the reasons people don't ask where is because maybe you've got no money and you're like well I've got no choice but to

start it from my mom's spare room fair enough sometimes where you start is literally what you've got so I'm going to put that down and I have started many businesses from many shitty locations for now I want you to feel comfortable to start it anywhere you know the most important thing is you start and it doesn't have to be the perfect business from day one just start something it doesn't matter what it is a window cleaning business a car cleaning business it doesn't matter of course if you've got an idea in mind we're going to

get into how to make that business work but I just want you to start and where only matters if you can move somewhere else because number two on the list that I don't think people realize when it comes to starting a business is where you start it can literally make the difference between it succeeding and failing so for example Mark Zuckerberg moved to San Francisco to make Facebook work if he hadn't done that it probably wouldn't have worked why because San Francisco is where all the money venture capitalist wise is it still is today as

it was when Mark Zuckerberg was building Facebook it's the place to go to raise money now not every business needs to raise money but if you're not in the right environment to make your business Thrive it probably won't now number three where I actually think Hong Kong is a really interesting Market again it depends on what you're trying to do but if your business is manufacturing or you're thinking in any way that you want to get into the Asian market in my opinion and I spent a couple of decades there Hong Kong is a great

place to go there's some additional benefits to thinking about where for example in Hong Kong there's no double taxation system if you make profit in Hong Kong it's flat 15% if you then pay yourself that money as a director of the company you then don't have to pay any additional tax once you paid the initial company Tax whereas in markets like the UK there is a double taxation system which makes it a lot bloody harder to make money if you're looking to make a product you can have an office in Hong Kong from a legal

structural point of view but honestly I think shenzen is a market that nearly nobody in Europe or America seems to know much about but that's where 90% of the wealth's patents are 90% it's where gets made no one's told you this stuff and I want you to understand that if you want to move there and you've got no money you could you know how there's things such as accelerators in markets like shenzen they'll literally pay for you to fly there stay there and build your business there because they're looking for the next big thing you

don't need money to go set up in any of the markets I'm talking about when I moved to Hong Kong I slept on a friend's couch and I borrow the money to start my company San Francisco I went there with no money I literally had a friend who was air STS she got me a cheap ticket I went there and pitched my business when I had nothing so I know when I tell you these where locations you're thinking well I haven't got the money break that fake mindset that limiting belief system number five on the

list of places you should think about I sometimes think when you're building a business people aren't thinking enough about lifestyle personally my next company I'll probably live in LA to make it happen in fact I'm work working right now to create a TV show that means I will be able to shoot it in LA and live in LA for a little bit of time I think all of these markets if you're smart would be part of your business so for example Manufacturing in shenzen your legal structure probably in Hong Kong your fundraising arm of your

business probably in San Francisco and in this day and age with all the ability we have to do nearly everything online there's no reason why you can't be operating in all these markets I will also say a lot of people tell me it's so expensive to live in London or live in San Francisco or even live in Hong Kong and yes these are expensive places to live but you can live there cheaply and they're expensive for a reason because it's where the people with money both clients to spend and people to invest live you want

to surround yourself by the very things that are going to help you be successful you've probably all heard you're literally a reflection of the six people you hang out with in my opinion you're also a reflection of the place that you live in if you're in a place that doesn't encourage innovation the people around you don't think that Innovation is exciting to do something cool is interesting then you won't do it you'll get some shitty job in a bank and you'll die there number six on the list I'm going to say places like Dubai barley

Thailand all of these have their different variations of benefits depending on why you might move there Dubai right now is 0% tax it's pretty interesting in the web free space if you're looking to get into that world of blockchain barley lifestyle it is again on a nomad Visa zero tax for a short period of time but outside of the technicalities it's actually a beautiful place to live and work and great lifestyle businesses are coming out of that part of the world and then finally Thailand I think for manufacturing it's one of the most underrated locations

in the world having spent lots of time in China itself China is pretty hardcore whereas Thailand is fun and you can do some pretty interesting things on the manufacturing side there so all of these markets frankly the whole world is open to you what I want you not to do is get stuck in the location you were born War not going out there in the world and realizing there so many different ways to build a business should start with where should you live as crazy as it sounds no one's ever told you that before because

I know it to be true I moved to Hong Kong when I was 23 years old and I honestly think I wouldn't be a multimillionaire today if I hadn't that market helped me get rich and you've got to give yourself the best chance of being rich by being in the right location where the money lives where the most expensive places in the world are often where the money is and the people that buy your products you need them to have money the people that going to invest in your businesses you need them to have money

the people are going to work for you invest with you you need them to have money so go where the opportunity is and I think lifestyle is also something to be completely built into what you do because there is no work life balance next up how to formulate an idea into a business model that works ideal model this is actually really complicated to explain and every time I've ever tried to do this I don't think I've done it well so let me know today if you get it the the reason it's difficult is because whoever's

watching this right now you're probably falling into one of two or three categories you either have an idea and you want me to help you figure out how to execute it or you don't have an idea and you want my help to figure out an idea that you can execute or you have a idea and you need me to show you that it's a idea so you can do something good so how do I tick all three boxes and help you if you fall into any of those categories I think the first thing I'll say

to you is and this might help you decide if you're idea is or not and avoid me giving you judgment would be to ask yourself this simple question in the education system when you're being educated about life you're asked this question you're asked what will you do when you grow up but the real question that really opens up your mind the one that doesn't trap you like that question into a job into a job role is what problem do you want to solve when you grow up so the question I have for you is what

problem does your business IDE IDE solve and I put this under the category of problem solving equals money if you can figure out a way to solve problems for people it equals money but more important than that and this is number two on my ideation of a business is purpose too many people are building businesses today and they come to me with this pitch they'll say this business Simon fills a market Gap it will make us both Rich when they're asking me to invest in their businesses this is what they say it is the wrong

pitch it's the wrong way to think about it if it's filling a market Gap that's an additional bonus and I'm actually going to put that on the list it's not about the Gap it's about what's going to drive you to drive through that Gap because most people when they're building a business they don't have a purpose and that's why they give up I've said this before and I'll say it again nurses get up every day and go to work in Engish Le for 150 years until recently because the government's so until recently they've never gone

on strike why because if they don't go to work someone dies if they don't go to work someone's in pain you need to have that today if you get up and feel like well if I do nothing today it doesn't matter then you will do nothing because humans are inherently lazy you need a reason that's why people who open up shops go to work and open up shops if you give the keys to someone in a business most of the people have a key to a shop turn up because you need that sense of responsibility

that accountability and so the problem you're going to solve is the question you need to tell yourself is the right question not the one you've been taught since you started school about what you're going to do when you grow up that doesn't matter and then ideally that problem has a purpose in an ideal world that matters to you and then yes if it happens to fill a market Gap then great I started an agency called fluid when I was 23 years old it filled no Gap there was already hundreds of people in Asia doing exactly

what I was doing but no one cared about helping people and their businesses work more than I did because I was 15 years old when I started a business and I had no help this video I'm making for you didn't exist so I knew that there was a gap in the world where people needed help and I wanted to build an agency yes I charged people back then I don't charge people now I charged people back then to help them with their businesses and I took the profit and I used to invest that money in

helping new companies start so from the very beginning of starting company I had a Competitive Edge and there I was in 1997 when Hong Kong was being handed back to the Chinese by the British when everybody left Hong Kong thinking it was then going to turn into a communist state I was there helping people start businesses in Hong Kong get into China helping China businesses get into Europe and America and I knew that if I helped people helped the 15-year-old me I would get up every day and care about it and that's what happened that's

how I got rich because I had a problem worth solving there was not enough people doing quality marketing back in those days in 1997 a lot of talented people left as well which helped me I had a purpose of helping that 15-year-old me which happened to be 35y old business owners and then I had a market Gap in the end I created one why because in 1997 when I started my first business in Hong Kong I was thinking about digital I was thinking about how to help people start digital businesses now that.com came and went

but I pushed through that pain at that time because I knew digital is the future just as I know by the way that today blockchain is the future that's another video for another day number four on your ideation and business model is think to yourself what would I do for free what would I do every day for free me right now sitting in this studio I'm helping you for free learn marketing learn business I would do this all day long why would I accumulate all this knowledge and not give it to humanity to help millions

of people who can't make ends meet today make ends meet and I think that's what drives me you've got to understand and this is the word I'm going to use to help you get this community businesses of the future they going to do really well have a community that's the competitive Advantage every new idea going forward will have to beat the big incumbent Brands even people like Google I say disruptor for Google how well if I tell you that by switching to my search engine you can help the homeless you can solve some of the

world's biggest problems and all that money won't go to a couple of Rich shareholders you probably switch to my search engine as long as my search engine does as good a job as Google right because people who run communities with a purpose solving a problem will win and create a market Gap they'll create what I call Blue Ocean strategy a new market not the red ocean where everybody else is blue ocean a whole new place where you can go that no one else is occupying and if you get these idea items in line you can

make a fortune now there's one final thing I'll talk to you about business modeling because I promised you an idea and then I promised you to make money and I think the best way to demonstrate this is by giving you a billion dollar idea to wake up your mind and help you realize how this actually all fits together and maybe rethink your existing idea or your existing idea help it make it happen or finally give you an idea so here's an idea for free and if it's not a billion dollar idea unsubscribe from this Channel

and never come back here again all right here we go how do you incorporate all of this into something new what would I do have you guys heard of property agents like civiles and night Franks and all these guys that sell property right it's a pretty soulless business property business and here's what I would do if I was starting a property agency today which I don't particularly want to do but this is what I would do incorporating everything I've just taught you I would make it that that Property agent every time we sell a property

start a new brand that competes with these guys that actually sell property but every time we sell property all the profit from that property sale which can be huge number num in America it's huge numbers in Europe it's huge numbers in Asia it's huge numbers commission payments to people that sell property I would give all the profit to fund the homeless to help homeless Charities get the funding they need to help the homeless so now you've turned a property business with no soul into a purpose-- driven business now the most important thing in a property

industry business like that is Supply the most important thing for agents is they get the listing I bought a house recently I don't want to buy a house but did because I got a family and I was forced to do it but I bought a house and when I bought that house I only cared about the house I liked I didn't care who was listing it at the time so it's not about the agent and their brand like they think it is it's actually about having the listing and if I can give the listing to

an agent that's going to use the profit from that sale to help the homeless I will give it to that agent so you win the supply and if you win the supply then you win the client to buy the property and you get the commission of course you need to sell the property but that's an examp example of what I just laid out there and basically every business model needs to follow this basic structure Community purpose goal orientated it's got to matter to you and then you create a market Gap and Money Follows a purpose

and a problem that you've sold for people next up the road to monetization now this is also a complicated subject which I love spent so long learning and I'm excited about sharing with you but it's not going to be easy here we go road to making money number one on the list get your cost down you know too many people have built up debt they've been sold by clever marketing companies stuff you don't need if you've got a brand new car sell it get a three-year-old car better still walk get your cost down the system

doesn't want you to get your cost down but it's actually really simple the lower your cost the more freedom you have every time you buy that car think about it if it's costing you £500 a month how many hours do you have to give up of your life each month for that shitty car don't do it get your costs down and I don't care what business it is again I built help Bank from scratch it's now worth millions I did it by getting my cost down I have a house but I have no mortgage I

have a car but I have no car loan even my car which is a Tesla is on a solar panel charging system every time I buy something I think okay is it an investment in getting my cost down if it is I buy it if it isn't I don't the same principle applies when starting your business so for example you might say I need to hire someone to help me do the app well do what I did bring someone in as a partner make them an equity owner in the company get your cost down now

some people say well developers won't do it unless you pay them money well your idea isn't exciting them enough it doesn't have what I just told you community or purpose you don't have the people that care about that purpose in the company you've not spoken to the right people every single thing that makes a business work starts when you start the business if you get it wrong at the beginning it's like a foundation of the house it will all crash it's actually really good to test whether people care about the purpose they're about to step

into if you just hire someone and pay them money they'll come and work for you but if you tell them they have to invest in the business or they have to be an equity shareholder in the business to actually be a part of it you'll find out whether whe they really care about your purpose or not and then you have a team an army that actually cares about what you care about not just a bunch of people paid because you did that gave them what they needed that's it again I have applied these principles these

aren't things I'm telling you to do and not doing myself I've built a $3 million company in a year and I've done it before and again and again I can do it because I know the things I'm teaching you now now I know getting your cost down isn't easy maybe you've got an expensive partner get rid of them maybe you've got an expensive dog me too at the end of the day there are some things you just can't get rid of I totally understand but the bottom line is joking aside please work on getting your

cost down do not buy you don't need I sometimes say that I was lucky that I got kicked out of home at 15 years old because I lived on the street it taught me how low cost wise you can live and of course I can't sign up some BT internet thing and some Netflix all of this stuff does drag you down but I know what I'm saying to you is not easy that's the point if you do the hard thing now your life will get easier over time if you do the easy thing now your

life will get harder over time yes live with your parents if you can I would if I could have done go do what I did I lived in my office and my office was on barter get your cost down in every regard I've got the money today to fully fund what I'm building and I still act poor I my team who are all listening now will tell you I spend every single day talking about how to manage our costs even though we could spend a lot of money I've got the money in the bank to

do it it I still don't do it I still don't do it because I know how dangerous it is to think you've got a lot of money you waste a lot of money and you don't hustle I know that's become a negative word but it shouldn't I think it's healthy to hustle when you're young if you don't have kids yes live on a sofa if you don't have kids yes travel where the opportunity is at the end of the day if you're at that stage in life where you don't have huge responsibilities for others it's

the time to get your cost down and even if you are married and you've got kids the kids will do what you do not what you say so make sure you're doing something you love because they will see you doing something you don't love spending lots of money to try and make up for it and they'll copy you later the second step on the road to making money from your idea you don't have to make the money from your idea so when I first started fluid one of the things that was really fascinating for me

in that business was I initially work for someone for free now a lot of people tell you don't do free work because people don't value it this wasn't true in my case in fact this particular client ended up being my client for 16 years recommending me probably the hundreds of people and for 16 years after I did the free bit of work for them they gave me business every month so I'm not saying you should do anything for free but what I am saying is have this mindset your idea initially doesn't need to make money

make no money now bear with me for a second as I tried to explain this I told you this isn't easy to explain when you're building a business most people have let's say a service and you think I know I'll charge for that service and I'll make money but what if you give that service away I'll give you an example of something I did recently to help someone someone in America wanted to start a hairdressers and they didn't know how much to charge so I said to them charge nothing and at the end of the

haircut just put a bowl out and say to people pay what you think it's worth they earn more money than they ever thought was possible by doing it that way sometimes if you think about offering a service for free there is an argument that some people don't value it but there's also an argument that people you want as clients will value it so sometimes it's an interesting moral code test now I mentioned just a moment ago that my first big client at fluid I helped them for free but beyond that and this is where it

gets really interesting if you're starting a business let's call it a big Tech business let's use maybe Airbnb as an example so you're going to build Airbnb right you know what they did at first they first of all gave their spare room to a couple of tech Bros to help them build the platform so they gave accommodation for free in an ironic twist to help the people they needed to stay somewhere in San Francisco have somewhere to stay so they could then help them build Airbnb then what did they do and this is all because

they had no money which is brilliant about having no money when you start a business then they said right who are the people that going to use Airbnb when it's built people at conventions people at that time who were going to the Obama rallies and the McCain political rallies so what did they decide to do they went and packaged up serial boxes called Obama resel and McCain snacks and they sold these serial boxes to people at the conferences for a laugh for some profit and then they used that profit and that insight into the people

they were selling to because they were eventually going to be their clients they used that money to build Airbnb now eventually and I'm going to come to it in a minute they did have to raise money and how to raise money I've talked about this before but I'm going to go into it again at the end of the day sometimes your actual idea let's call it Airbnb isn't where you start monetization so if you have a big ambitious business believe it or not I don't care what it is you could probably clean some cars and

make some money you can clean some windows and make some money you can clean people's swimming pools and make some money maybe the people your swimming pools you're cleaning are actually the people could invest in your business and you found a way into your investors by cleaning their swimming pool I know it sounds crazy but this is literally how you rewire your brain to realize no matter what you're going to make this business work and maybe just learn this concept that you don't have to make money from your idea from day one think how you

can make money elsewhere service businesses are brilliant for this because service businesses you can charge for example copywriting and charge 50 % in advance I know AI is going to take that job eventually but right now there's a lot of things that you can do to get your business up and out there's a lot of ways you can get people into your business without there being huge costs and making no money from your idea is a pretty interesting concept that I want to teach you next what I would do and I touched on this a

little bit a minute ago but one of the things I discovered is when hiring people sometimes the best thing you can do is get them to invest in the business with you so Callum who helps me with these videos he invested in help Bank he's become a very rich man because he's done that but he invested in it when it wasn't worth anything because at the end of the day I knew he was talented and I knew I could have paid him full whack but I wanted to see if he cared about the purpose as

much as I do see if he actually wants to fix the education system and help people break free from modern day slavery of not doing what they love does he really care about that and you know what he put all his life savings into the business and he put all of his time into the business now he does get a small salary but I'm telling you right now he could earn a lot more more than he does when he was first started working with me and I and I want you to understand this step that

you can take the people that come in your company can invest in it and that can be your road to making money in your business because if they invest it gives you a Runway right so get your team to invest I now have 12 people helping me fulltime with this content and help Bank 12 people all of them in some way have invested to show they care about the purpose and the problem to show that they actually are committed to the process but also for me to give them something back equity in the business the

only thing I think that actually has any value because a salary is a drug it's not value it's not real value it just pays the bills it's not scalable to sell time the only way to scale is buy time not sell time and my opinion the best way to do that is own Equity where you work so it's a transaction between the two of us to validate the partnership as well number four now a bit later in the video I'm going to get into talking about like I said earlier the boring stuff like ndas and

legal contracts and structure this is important stuff I'm going to get into it at the end but I know a lot of you will get bored of it so I put it at the end but I think that uh this point is in a way touching on that when you're trying to make a company work what you've got to understand is it's not a one person Army that makes a company work right what you've got to think about look at your competitors and think to yourself can I work with them I know it sounds crazy

it's counterintuitive to everything you've probably been taught but it's absolutely true that nearly all of the businesses I've made work at some point I end up partnering with my competitor so at fluid my competitor was ogy and Leo bedet ogy actually asked me to take what they had as a conflict client off their hands in other words they had a client they couldn't handle and they passed it to me and the only reason they passed it to me was because I made a relationship with the CEO I became friends with them I didn't see them

as competitors I saw them as comrades everybody else saw them as competitors it's a mistake to think that way especially if they're solving a big problem that you care about too now Elon Musk when he saw he was doing X way before it was called Twitter and he started a business that was exactly the same as PayPal but he looked at what Reed Hoffman and Peter till and the PayPal Mafia were doing at PayPal and he joined them he closed down his company and he joined them because OnePlus One equals 11 I've said this in

other videos and I know you might have heard this before from me but it's just such a a a fundamental thing that no business school teaches that no entrepreneurs seem to share it's so crucial to my success and I want you to know it's important to yours too if you want to make a business work you're going to be shocked to find out that your competitors are probably the company to unlock it when I sold fluid to price waterhous Cooper the opening negotiation with me was they're going to do what fluid's going to do so

either buy us or they compete with us now that was a scary intro to a potential partnership right but the truth is it's better for them to partner with us because they remove a competitor from the market and it's better for us to partner with them because one I personally made a lot of money out of it which is one definitely good reason to to partner up but the other reason is they had Global offices at that time I only had three offices they have 50 so they can expand it in a way that we

can't but we have the case studies and the history it would take them years to get up to the same standard that we were at in that particular sector right they're a worldclass company in case they're listening they're a world-class company in their field but in the creative industry which I was in they were just a baby so to buy us they save time so I want you to see this and I want you to understand that if you learn this 1+ 1al 11 mythology you can get successful quicker and you can make money quicker

because I can spend a decade promoting fluid to get the client that olgy gave me in one phone call in one simple kind gesture if olav recommended my company I got all the halo effect of that company's respect as a brand right so that takes me on to 0. five which actually is similar to 0 4 but there's a Nuance I want to make sure I get across to you your road to making money obviously you need clients but I don't think people think enough about getting partner clients so I have opened up offices for

my businesses based on my client wanting us to be in that market so you might think you have to go and open up an office and set it all up and then pitch to get clients the truth is you can expand with a client I don't think people think about this enough if your client is your partner if you're doing a good job for your clients whoever they are they will fund your expansion now this can be a community that funds you expansion or this can be an individual brand or partner but people don't know

this I just literally interviewed someone that done four years business school and they don't know this concept right partnering up with with your client to most people sounds dangerous and there is one Pitfall to it if for example you're a software development agency and you work with banks and you get one client as your investor or your partner the other Banks might be pissed off right so you have got to be careful but that being said you can have sector specific Partnerships that mean yes the bank can have six months exclusive if they invest in

you that's perfectly normal I have had arrangements with Partners in the past where they are are my exclusive partner for 6 months because they invested in me to open up in another Market that's what you can leverage right why not they're going to fund your opening of an office why not be exclusive to them for six months it's not a big deal just put those restrictions in now I'm going to talk about some legal stuff in a minute because you are going to need to know that stuff to make all of this work but the

final thing I'm going to say on the road to making money the road to making money requires you to say no too many people especially when they're building a business will accept every client that comes what you need to do is learn to say no but in a polite way there's a couple of ways to say no and be sure that you should be saying no first is set very clear payment terms most businesses fail because of cash flow problems not because of sales problems make sure that you get decent terms now initially when you're

hearing this if you're a new business you might be like well that client dictates the payment terms no you dictate the payment terms be wrong I'd rather you stay small with a proper cash flow business that isn't going to get into trouble than grw too big and have a cash flow problem that brings you down grow slow if you go up too quick you come down quick right build a cash flow business where you can trust the person's going to pay you do tight credit terms for example no more than 15 days and a 50%

deposit on signing of any agreement but also saying no in everything I've mentioned here no to the wrong staff no to the wrong Partners no to the wrong clients saying no is one of the most important skills you can learn in business because when you're building something and you're watching this video because you want to build something or you're trying to build something we all will say yes to try and make it work the hardest thing is to say no learn to say no make sure you shut out the people that could eventually destroy your

business I have a really good friend who's built an incredible business he got the wrong investor in he's an investor that no one else likes and now later investors the big boys will not get involved in this company because he brought the wrong investors on board and it annoys me because I should have told him like I'm telling you don't get the wrong people involved in your business say no especially at the beginning it's the foundation of your business if you say yes to the wrong person it will all get up next up a subject

I like selling a company and raising money now I have tried to talk about raising money before and I have been criticized for not giving enough detail it is a freaking complicated subject I'm going to try and help you get the basics and go as deep as I can without losing you so ironically raising money and selling a company are really interl okay so selling and raising I'm going to put these two things into two separate categories for you but they're linked so I wanted to put them together right to sell a company what's the

number one rule to sell a company the number one rule is do not want to sell your company to sell a company if you build a business you love then you'll negotiate better I didn't want to sell fluid to price waterhous Cooper I didn't need to sell fluid to price waterhous Cooper I was in the negotiating position I wanted to be in I wasn't even running it when they came and offered to buy it which is even better so I'm not having to run it I'm getting paid from that business every month and I was

leveraging it for the Investments I was making in other businesses so why would I sell it so don't want to sell it now I know it's a hard mindset but if you start off a business based on the things I've just told you earlier you shouldn't want to sell it anyway and that's when you'll get offered the most amount of money for it don't want to sell it but I am going to take teach you how to sell it but I want you to get in the right frame of mind right don't want to sell

it equally number one on raising money if you want to raise money don't ask people for money don't ask for money the golden rule is don't ask for money ask for advice if you ask for money you'll get advice if you ask for advice you'll get money most people want to feel valued I don't care where they are in the food chain when it comes to raising money you need to make people feel valued now ideally and this is number two on raising do you due diligence on people again like I said earlier about saying

no make sure you're asking the right people to get involved in your business make sure you've made that list of questions I told you earlier and you're asking people the questions you need to ask them to make sure they're the right person for you when it comes to raising money the biggest mistake people make is getting the wrong investors on board do your due diligence it's human psychology if you ask people for money their default is to deflect from that and give you advice it's just human instinct but equally if you ask someone for advice

and you listen and they like you they feel listened to like you're able to learn which is an important reason people invest in business it's the reason I invest in businesses I invest in someone who I think will adapt and learn right don't want to work with people who are stubborn don't want to work with people who won't absorb my knowledge what's the point of me having all this business knowledge and just giving you money if I don't feel like I bring my business knowledge to the table I've got no competitive Advantage right so you

need to make the person feel like the investor feel like they're bringing their competitive advantage to the table with you right you need to really think this clearly through and and so many people don't they die straight in there with I they watch dragons down way too many times they like H like 50,000 Ms for 10% of the business I mean Dragon Den is such a bad way of learning business I know a lot of people learn business from shows like sharp tank Dragon Den is such a bad way to learn because it's the last

thing you should ever talk about in fact you want them to ask well look I love your business I think I can add value how much do you want you don't even want to say it the best pictures I've ever seen in business are people just telling you what they're doing and what their plan is and how I can add value to them that's it there's no talk of money right because the three steps to any sale is I like you and you like me I need you you need me and then the third step

once those two things are established I like you and you like me I need you and you need me then the first step always happens the deal terms always get worked out but people don't spend enough time on this they're too busy just asking for money don't be dumb now when it comes to selling a business one thing I did when I first started fluid is I wrote down all the companies I want to work with but I also wrote down all the companies I think one day I could merge with I could buy I

could collaborate with and I also made sure that those companies were on my mailing list were involved in my marketing so saw what I did in fact for one particular company who I was targeting I did an ad campaign around their office I took a billboard around their office because I knew one day they'd want to work with us and when they walked outside and saw our billboard they' be like wow that company is serious I just did one billboard outside their office they didn't know that they thought I did a billboard campaign all across

the city point is get in front of the people you want to sell to make sure they notice you make sure the people that you're trying to sell to notice you right and it might I mean in fluid's case 16 years from the time I started it to the time I sold it I didn't want to sell it even then but the point is everybody who could buy me everybody that I could buy they knew me I targeted them just as I did my clients again selling and raising a link so I'm now going to

jump back to raising because there links to this these people that could buy your company that could be a partner with you they're also potentially your investors over the years of all the companies I've built a lot of the clients I've been working with offered to invest equally a lot of my competitors offered to buy so if you look at history it'll always tell you the future you look at the history of Tesla a lot of car companies actually invested in Tesla some famous people sat on the board and then went away and did their

own electric car companies right so there's all sorts of reasons why people do this and I'm going to go into the legal stuff you need to do later to protect you from that sort of issue but the point I'm trying to make here is on the ray side also connect in every way you can to companies that could invest in you could acquire you some of the best businesses raise money from people who will eventually buy them I mean Microsoft has just invested in open AI That's the beginning of a purchase right and there's also

you know from open ai's point of view a partner and a client so I'm teaching you here is being done in the real world at billion dollar level scales it's obvious stuff to me I just want to make sure you know it because I don't know if it's obvious to you number three on the sales side when it comes to selling a business one of the most undersold ways of selling a business is a management buyout I have actually done this a few times I've let my team buy the company I actually think this is

a really exciting way of also building a company it's one more option for the people that are working with you to own where they work which I think is crucial in life so think about your team and think about bringing in people that can eventually potentially buy your business so in my previous companies I brought in very high-profile people who worked in the business but I knew they had the capability of raising the money to go and buy the whole business and that's what they've done and I want you to know this concept and again

team also links to raising money on if you have the right team most of the time raising money comes down to who's in your company most people who are successful in raising money is because they already knew the people they raised money from before or people in their company knew people that raised money from from before so hiring the 13,000 people that got laid off at Airbnb there'll be people in there that are probably in the early days of Airbnb there for the fundraise and I guarantee you that the investment firms know them that's much

better than the cold email from you so finding team members to help you raise money is a really powerful thing that not many people think about hiring the right people so you can raise the money is something I've just done at help bank I just brought someone on board who I know because they now part of our team adds further credibility to what I'm doing will probably make it easier if we need to raise money later I'm not sure if we will to need to but the point is it's a very useful tool to have

people on board who can help you do that if you need it number four on the list when selling a company is maybe look to buy the company that could buy you small fish eats Big Fish I guess is a strategy um and I've seen this play out in interesting ways now there's a slight danger to it do not approach a company to buy them and unless you're serious about potentially buying them because you'll hurt your brand it's morally wrong but I think that um and I've seen it play I've invested in a lot of

businesses and the 78 companies I've invested in for of them actually got an exit by doing this they looked at a company they were going to buy and that company ended up buying them but I also think it's a great way to grow a business if you can buy a company that's bigger than you that maybe doesn't have the same energy as you doesn't have the same Mission as you anymore they lost their way they've lost their so it can be quite interesting to buy a company in this way but I'm assuming you're a small

fish buying a big fish of course if you're a big fish they do that all day long Google survived today the big companies like Amazon survived today because they keep eating up the companies that could eat them these little companies could eat them they know what happened in the past you know Google at Yellow Pages Netflix at Blockbusters at one point they were the small fish and they were the big fish and now they know they better eat up the small fish to stop them becoming the big fish that eats them but it is interesting

to think about you know small fish buys Big Fish now you perhaps see why selling a company and raising money for a company are interlined of course your cap table the shareholders in your business will also affect whether or not someone buys you or not I've seen it play out time and time again where a company will not buy a company well you can't even list your company because you've got the wrong shareholders in the early days that haven't done their accounts right for example or aren't following ethics that match with your client's needs and

expectations so make sure you follow your ethics make sure you're very clear on what your moral code is and don't let anybody into your business that isn't right either on the buy side or on the investor side okay next up is legal and accounts now I think it's important in business to especially if you're giving advice to know what you're good at and know what you're not good at I would say that legal accounts something I've been involved in for 35 years is not something I'm brilliant at so what I've asked is the best accountant

I know the best legal advisor I know the best trademark lawyer I know to actually put a document together Down Below in the comments giving you all the information you need to know please don't be lazy go read that stuff understand the fundamental importance of this stuff but I'm going to give you a couple of quick pointers before you have to go and read that stuff right the first thing I'll say for things like ndas ndas is a nondisclosure agreement you're going to need things like this to protect you from bad players people that might

steal your idea that's one type of NDA or people that might go and share your private information about your business if you pitched it to them they could steal it I'm going to say something to you now that kind of counterintuitive to the documents that you're going to read down below and this is more like experience on top of legal my lawyer is my lawyer because he said something that I believe is so true he said paper will always accept ink what that means is if someone wants to rip you off they will if people

want to steal your idea they will how do you make sure for example that someone doesn't steal your idea execute do the idea go fast build do everything I've just told you to do an NDA sometimes can cause offence to some people I don't sign ndas myself because you either trust me or you don't you've done your due diligence on me as I told you earlier in this video or you haven't you know what I'm like or you don't know what I'm like you don't let me in if I'm not the right person you say

no you're not doing due diligence if you're thinking about doing an NDA and at the end of the day all of this legal paperwork there is an element of take it with a pinch of salt do it to dot the eyes and cross the tees you should do it listen to the people I've lined up that have a lot of experience who put the documents down below together for you for free point I'm trying to make here is an NDA is one example and you're going to need structure to protect you but use your common

sense be careful and if you're going to share an idea with someone go for it make sure you're ready to execute it so they can't catch you up even if they copy it that's the best sort of the defense you ever going to have is executing better than them number two accounts please get this stuff right register your company properly make sure you follow all the rules each year I know the system wants to people up when it comes to business but please please please follow it do the paperwork correctly because if you don't do

shareholders agreements correctly if you don't do accounts correctly then you won't get investors later you won't be able to sell your company easier later just do it properly get into a habit accounts is just a habit right I can talk to the emotional side of accounts the physical side of accounts the document down below but the emotional side is every single day take 10 minutes out to collect your receipts and do things properly do not muck around with this stuff get it right take it seriously now maybe you're an accountant hearing me say this and

you're like yes don't worry something I'm taking it seriously but I bet a lot of people that are watching this content on YouTube don't take it seriously enough I made the mistake of not taking it seriously in the olden days back before the war and I'm telling you right now that that stuff me up so get it right and the document down below are put together with the Best in Class to help you do it focus on your accounts number three I'm going to say this to you this final thing if you speak to a

lawyer they're going to tell you to paint in this and do that and do this do all these things to protect you and you should definitely think about all of these things there's only there's only really one thing that I genuinely believe you need to make sure you do from all this legal stuff and that's get your trademark now I don't own a trademark company and my trademark lawyer gets more work from me than anybody else in the whole of the UK is his last words to me I am his number one client because I

know that is a critical point of failure for your business if you don't do it right you may have come up with a name sitting around a table and you love it you might think it's the best name in the world someone else owns it you are go trademark your company it doesn't cost a lot of money if you don't use a trademark lawyer it costs about £300 to go register it on a trademark registration in the UK in the US is similar it's all open the government systems are run by government so they're useless

but when it comes to those sorts of things they actually do it quite well most countries go online trademark your company name ideal in every Market you're Opera in but to keep cost down at least in the market where you're accepting the money get your trademark do not risk this this is the one thing illegal I don't muck around with if I start a business I own the trademark then I can launch and no one can take your business from you but if you don't get the trademark someone else has it they can do something

called passing off your business will have to shut down you'll have to pass all previous profit and income to that brand owner do not muck around with this stuff get it right documents are down below good luck folks I'm going to go eat some chicken now I'm bloody hungry I hope you enjoyed this video