Starting A Business Archives - Solopreneur Grind

Solopreneur sick days, walks and motivation

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 07 May 2023 18:42:48 +0000

Back to the grind today after a hectic end of last week and crappy beginning of this week.

Here’s how it went down:

So last Thursday night I had a meeting with a potential partner, which ended up being a few beers long. It should probably be a written law in business that more beers consumed during a business “meeting” = a better result in the end for both companies.

Anyway, it’s for a very exciting partnership for Visto, and their CEO and I wanted to discuss details in-person after business hours. Good talk, hopefully good outcomes for all of us.

I’ll keep you posted as it evolves.

But it also meant I was out much later than usual and wasn’t able to get my Friday morning email out – my sincerest apologies.

To make matters even worse, I caught a cold over the weekend and while I didn’t take Monday fully off, it knocked me out for all of Sunday which is when I usually write the Monday morning email.

It leads to an interesting question, which is how should solopreneurs treat sick days?

Is there even such thing as a sick day as a solopreneur? Because a day off usually means zero work/output. I have 2 thoughts on this.

The first is that the best way to tackle sick days is to lead a very happy/healthy life and avoid them as much as possible.

Easier said than done, but I’ve found that in the last 3-5 years as I’ve optimized my health (routine exercise, eating healthy, lots of water/sleep, etc.), I rarely get sick. I’m talking 1-2 times per year, maybe.

Again, maybe your situation is different and getting into a good routine is harder, but I think that being healthy and avoiding getting sick should be goal #1 here. Do you agree?

Now secondly, if you do get sick, I think the best thing you can do is maxmimize recovery so you can get back to 100% as quick as possible. Not sure about you, but I find my efficiency and quality of work is much lower when sick, so I’d rather take an extra day/half day off to recover, instead of grinding too hard and extending the period of being sick.

So for example on Monday, I slept in a bit longer than usual, made sure to drink tons of liquid, took a few cold meds, and mostly did admin work from bed.

At this point I know my body pretty well, and with one more good sleep I’ll be back to 100% – so there’s no point trying to force in 1-2-3 more big tasks, over-tire myself and push things back.

Just my thoughts: avoid sick all together, and prioritize getting over it if you do.

I think that more than ever, we as solopreneurs need to be as on-the-ball as ever, so this is all very important.

Keeping a closer eye on trends, world events (to an extent – don’t need to follow every detail), key factors affecting different parts of the world, financial stability, and yes, staying healthy.

And being able to adjust as needed.

Luckily it’s easier than ever to do that thanks to the internet, and also making sure you have a good network of people that can keep you focused.

I had a good mastermind call with a group of solopreneurs I meet with every 2 weeks, and the benefit of simply talking to others – who could be in very different industries from yours – who are in the same kind of solopreneurial journey during these crazy times can have such a grounding and calming effect.

It’s part of why I always recommend networking to solopreneurs, and especially developing some close connections and/or mastermind type groups for deeper discussion when you need it.

One of the key takeaways: now that’s nicer out, I need to go on more walks.

If you’re ever in the position of making a difficult decision, or tough spot, or stressful week – usually a nice walk clears your head and makes harder decisions feel easy.

We’ve also got a big week ahead of us. Largely filled with sales, and by the looks of the weather forecast, rain.

Up here in Toronto it’s been a rainy few days, and forecast for another 3-4 more it seems – a warm welcome to summer.

But as they say, it can’t always be sunshine and rainbows.

On the business side, we’re slowly starting to see some traction with our (pretty cool) immigration platform. These things usually don’t happen overnight – as much as we’d like them to – but after months of launching, selling, listening to users, adding new features, and continuing to sell, the needle is moving.

We’re feeling confident, and just need to keep pushing.

Even though it’s going to be a gloomy week (weather wise), I’m gonna get up each day and pound out a ton of cold calls.

It’s not exactly the thing I’d love to do, day in and day out, but it’s what we (the company) need right now to get to the next level. And we can smell it…

This motivational Monday update is almost as much for me as it is for you, but this is a reminder to just keep pushing. For all we know, we’re all just another day, or another week, or another month away from huge break throughts and progress.

As long as we keep pushing.

So let’s do it together. No matter what difficulty you may (or may not?) be facing this week, let’s take it one day at a time, and keep pushing.

I know I will be.

Have a great day, make sure not to miss out on my daily solopreneur business tips and stories here, and keep grinding.

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Thinking about AI as a solopreneur

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 18:43:32 +0000

We did some work today on the AI side of things.

Nothing too crazy, and by no means is it any deeptech AI stuff, but pretty interesting in my opinion.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, it’s (AI) definitely been one of the hot topics of the year so far. Especially in the tech world and also for solopreneurs.

AI this, Chat GPT that, you know how it is.

And so one thing I’m thinking about is how we can leverage it to make our immigration platform better at Visto.ai

Based on how good the AI tools are already, it’s probably something every company should be asking – how to leverage AI to improve your business?

Can you use it to improve your internal processes? Produce more output? Improve your own tech product? Save your employees more time?

Something else entirely?

That’s for you to think about! But seems like there are a ton of applications and the tools will only get better.

In our case, we already integrated Chat GPT-3 into our web app and it didn’t take our devs very long. Our CTO, Alex, had it going in just a few days using their API.

I unfortunately can’t speak to the intimate details of that because I don’t do our dev work, but it seems to be pretty user friendly in that regard.

And we’re going to keep improving it over time too, so will keep you posted on how that goes.

Have a great day, make sure not to miss my daily solopreneur tips here, and keep grinding.

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How we’re using Chat GPT

Josh Schachnow — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:36:57 +0000

Has a day gone by in the last few months without someone mentioning Chat GPT?

Well, in case today was going to be the first day for you – I think I just ruined it.

Oops!

Anyway, I think there’s no denying AI is already – and will continue to – changing the game. Especially for businesses, and especially for solopreneur businesses that try to get the most output from minimal input, like solopreneurs, small startups, etc.

I also find it really interesting how different so many peoples views are on things like Chat GPT. On one hand you have people embracing it and trying to do the impossible, and on the other, people who are scared crapless and think it’s the worst thing in the world.

Still the very early days in the AI scheme of things, but I think that as solopreneurs, we have to find ways to embrace it and benefit our businesses accordingly.

Not saying you need to rush to use it right now, but especially as some of these AI tools get better, the businesses that do embrace AI – and reap the rewards from using it – will far outclass the ones who don’t.

Just my opinion, which of course could be wrong.

It’s also something Chris and I chatted about in the most recent episode of the Grind Mastermind podcast, where we go live every 2 weeks to chat about our businesses, how the last 2 weeks went, our goals for the next 2 weeks, and cool tools/books we’re into.

Of course, Chat GPT came up as Chris is using it for a whole whack of awesome, time-saving activities for his copywriting business, and we’re using it to improve our SaaS product at Visto.

If you want to watch or listen to the full episode, which I highly recommend, you can check it out here.

And if you want to get updated anytime we release a new episode, make sure you’re on the email list here.

Have a great day and keep grinding.

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Is solopreneurship fun? And peaking beyond just business

Josh Schachnow — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 17:39:06 +0000

Saw an interesting Q&A with Elon Musk on a short video today.

As you all know, I love soaking in information and guidance from successful solopreneurs, entrepreneurs and tech founders.

He was talking about how – contrary to popular belief – a lot of entrepreneurship actually isn’t fun. Which really stuck out to me at first, because especially on social media, it’s mostly glamorized as being this amazing thing.

He said the opposite. Which made a lot of sense to me.

Now this is less applicable to solopreneurs, but Elon was explaining what it’s like to build big businesses and what he said was that as the CEO of a big and/or growing company, you’re pretty much only dealing with problems.

The things that are easy or going really well don’t get his attention – because they don’t really need his attention.

It’s the things that are going wrong, or struggling, or aren’t that fun and no one else wants to do, that falls to the CEO, founder, etc.

In essence, he’s got these huge companies with thousands of employees, and he’s mostly spending his time trying to fix the things that are broken, or not working as well.

Not the most fun sounding job in the world, eh?

It’s because of this that he says you better have some real passion or interest in the problem you’re trying to solve with the company, otherwise you’re in for a real painful and negative experience.

In his case, he really believes that humans need to evolve to live on other planets like Mars, so even if he has to deal with all of the hard parts of that process, he’s driven by his internation motivation and passion over solving that problem to keep driving through the hard times.

While my company, Visto, is nowhere near the size of any of his companies, I can certainly relate a bit. And maybe some of you can too, especially if you have at least a small team?

Anyway, thought it was interesting and it caught me by surprise in contrast to most of the content out there that glamorizes solopreneurship as this heavenly thing – it isn’t all the time!

In a somewhat similar vain, it still surprises me how many cool people are out there building cool businesses.

Not sure if you can relate to this, but I find that when you’re so focused on building your business, in your city, in your industry, it can be easy to spend most of your time in a bit of a bubble.

But then, every once in a while, you get on a call or networking event or introduction from a friend, with someone doing something really cool that you’ve never heard of.

Or never expected to exist.

Or are super impressed that it exists in the first place.

Or can’t believe you didn’t think of building something like it!

That, or I’m a bit out to lunch over here.

But it happens to me every now and then, especially from warm intros or partnership calls where you’re meeting people just slightly out of your own industry. I find it exciting, like a breath of fresh air, just to learn about all of the other great stuff that’s going on in the world of business.

Because as most of us know, especially early on, it’s best to niche down – or specialize – and so you keep the blinders on for the most part. When you get to peak beyond them, even for a quick call or meeting, I find it really interesting and motivating.

It makes me think that one day, maybe down the road or in a second life, I could be interested in private equity and/or tech investing because I’d get to meet a ton of cool entrepreneurs doing a variety of things every week.

But first I need to prove myself as an entrepreneur in my own business… oh and actually earn some money to have to invest!

As always, only time will tell.

Have a great day, don’t miss out on my daily business stories from my journey over here, and keep grinding.

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Losing my voice and 11pm business calls

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 19:42:45 +0000

Been on calls and meetings for most of the week. And Monday especially was kind of crazy.

One of those days – not that it happens too often – where your throat gets dry by the end of it because you had more calls/conversations than normal.

I’ve also noticed this happens more on Monday than most other days.

Because it’s easy to schedule a call for Monday on a Thursday or Friday, or even with someone over the weekend. Do you notice the same?

If I scroll back through my calendar, I can’t help but notice lots of calls on Mondays and also Fridays. I guess because at the end of the week it’s easy to book calls “for next week” aka Monday, or at the beginning of the week it’s easy to book calls on Friday.

Wednesday appears to be left out for some reason…

Anyway, just something I picked up on.

Also another reason to have batch-style days, where you stick to a theme.

For example, booking most calls on Mon/Fri, clearing Wednesday for deep work, Tuesday for internal meetings, Thursday for research, etc.

Not saying you have to do it that way, but it’s probably most efficient especially for solopreneurs. Instead of having 2-3 calls per day interrupting your work, imagine just focusing on calls for one day, just doing deep work (with no calls/interruptions) the next day, etc.

Probably more efficient, and fewer switching costs – meaning the time and energy it takes to switch tasks (even if you don’t notice it).

Example: you’re doing some work that will take about 2 hours, but you have a call in 30 minutes. After doing ~25 minutes of work, you stop because you need to prep for the call, then you have the call, then you need a few minutes to recoup and remember where you left off in the work you were doing.

Even if the call was 30 minutes, it probably cost you 40-50 minutes due to switching costs.

So where and when you can, batch tasks!

I’m also learning pretty quickly how different it is doing business with people in different parts of the world.

Or I guess another way to put it is that people can be very different – and so by extension, they also do business differently.

Here’s what I mean.

We’re starting to do more business in India so I’m having more calls with folks in India than previously. So far, two things stick out to me.

The first is that many people in India, especially the business owners, are working very hard and long hours. It’s normal for them to respond to emails, whatsapp messages, or even be willing to jump on a call at 10 or 11pm.

I was surprised and impressed to see it, because a) not many people are awake, let alone working, in Canada at 11pm, and b) because India is ~10 hours ahead, so it makes it easier to schedule calls for my morning/their evening and not have to get up too early.

In Canada you’d get laughed at for suggesting a call at 11pm…

Second, calendar events are not taken as “seriously”. And when I say “seriously”, I mean, many people don’t show up on time.

I’d say that in Canada, for the most part, people are good at scheduling calls and showing up on time. Not perfect, but very good, whereas for those in India, these calendar events are not treated strictly – many people don’t show up for them on time, and send messages much later asking if I’m free to talk now.

At first I was offended (not actually), but have come to realize – after spending a few weeks on this and speaking to some good Indian friends – that this is just how business is done there.

And I’m sure there are more nuances than that, and as we expand into other countries, I’ll learn unique things about the people there as well.

And yet another reason why the immigration industry is an interesting one to play in.

Have a great day, make sure to get my daily business updates here, and keep grinding.

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A power outtage, guest lecture and day trip

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 20:10:06 +0000

What a week!

Last Monday around 6pm our internet went out. There was a bit of a snow storm here so that was probably the cause, but I was susprised such a “minor” storm would cause an outtage considering that weather is pretty normal up here in Canada.

Anyway, what I wanted to write about – but was delayed until now – was a pretty fun guest lecture I gave on Monday morning.

No, I’m not turning to academia.

But I was asked to give a guest lecture by a friend of mine who teaches at the TMU Law School here in Toronto, a class on access to justice and tech in law.

It was a lot of fun – partly because it makes you realize how far you’ve come reflecting on your solopreneur business journey, and partly because the students asked some good questions and seemed genuinely interested.

Also made me wish we had a class like that back in my day, so kudos to TMU Law for putting it together.

I spent about 35 minutes talking about my journey going from lawyer to tech founder, and also the different products we’ve designed and built along the way (the topic of the class was building product roadmaps and MVPs). Then about 20 minutes of Q&A.

Anyway, it was a good time.

I don’t know if there’s a business takeaway there, but my thinking was that giving this guest lecture would:

provide some value to students/the next generation
help build the Visto brand
be a lot of fun

I think I checked all three. Also, polishing of your public speaking skills never hurts.

Two days later, went on the road for a pitch/meeting with a potential business partner.

Fun because of the potential partnership, and also to get out of the house for the day.

It was a short drive from Toronto, so Alex (our CTO at Visto) and I met up and drove together.

Not sure if you’ve noticed this in your business and/or line of work, but since Covid, so many people/clients/etc. are comfortable doing business online, that I find myself doing fewer in-person meetings.

Heck, I’ve barely seen Alex in-person in the last year or two because we all work remotely.

That’s fine, in my opinion, because it saves a lot of time and at the end of the day, I’m a homebody at heart. But it can also get stale after weeks/months sitting at the computer.

It also feels like a big breath of fresh air when you go meet someone in the flesh and have a great conversation – because it’s usually better for building meaningful solopreneur relationships than doing it online.

Of course, online is fine too, but there’s something about shaking a real hand and sitting down in-person that adds an extra element.

I also enjoy presenting much more in-person.

Standing in front of a group, using your body to express your points, looking people in the eye and getting a feeling for whether they’re buying what you’re selling (literally and/or figuratively).

Anyhow, we went over, gave a pretty good pitch, had a good conversation and now we wait for some feedback and next steps.

The bonus was we also stopped by to visit our other employee, who we sponsored to come to Canada from Mexico, and he/his wife made us a traditional Mexican lunch before we headed home.

And the food was delicious. The cherry on top.

Have a great day, make sure to sign up to get my daily updates here, and keep grinding.

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Solopreneur mastermind, change of scenery and new website

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 26 Feb 2023 17:39:58 +0000

Back for another solopreneur blog update! In case you don’t live in Canada or the US, or in another country with fun holidays, we were off yesterday.

In Ontario it’s called Family Day – no complaints here! Anyway, last week I was talking about what to do if things feel stale for any aspect of your solopreneuer business.

Of course, what to do is very situational and depends on a variety of factors. But sometimes the best thing you can do is switch things up, mix it around and try something that sounds more “fun” to you.

After all, business is mostly just working hard on a series of tests and scaling up whatever works. At least from my experience.

So as I said in my last update, I decided to switch up the Solopreneur Grind Podcast a bit. And move from interviews to more “building in public” type vibe. For those who haven’t heard, that’s got a lot more popular in the last few years.

And it’s exactly what it sounds like: building a company and sharing your journey along the way.

Which is… kind of what I do in these solopreneur blog posts already!

But if you like my updates, and want to hear them in even more detail – from me and also a good buddy of mine who is building a copywriting/UX business – then definitely check it out.

In fact, episode 2 (both video and audio) is now live, can check it out here.

Had a weird too as Sam and I are doing some house-sitting.

Her parents went away on a trip and they have two dogs. Therefore, when they go away, we get volunteered to house/dog-sit.

Luckily their two dogs are pretty quiet, lazy and cute. And while having to walk them in Canadian winter is not fun, they’re pretty good company during the day as I’m working from home most of the time.

It’s also a nice change of scenery.

For those of you working from home, do you find it difficult if you go long stretches without having many reasons to leave the house?

It’s certainly convenient, but also very nice to get a change of scenery. I find it keeps me fresh.

Other than that, spending most of my time this week doing more Visto sales and marketing. Outbound, demos, partnership discussions, all that kind of stuff.

We also recently updated our website, so if you haven’t seen it in a while, or want to get a better idea for our latest product, definitely check it out.

In short, we’ve automated the process of preparing and submitting a Canadian study permit application – both for students who want to apply by themselves, or law firms that want to save time prepping these applications for clients.

If you happen to know anyone that might be interested, definitely let me know too!

That’s it for now. Have a great day, make sure not to miss my daily updates here and keep grinding.

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The Superbowl, concussions and books about the grind

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 17:20:35 +0000

Hey folks, back for another solopreneur blog update. Hope your week went a little more energetic than mine.

Largely because Sunday night I stuffed my face while watching the Superbowl.

Here’s what I thought about the game:

It was a very good and entertaining game, until the refs blew it by making that holding call against Philly near the end. Not only was it a bad call, but it took the ref in the back corner of the endzone an extra 5 seconds to even throw the flag.

And to have such a big game decided on a play like that felt crappy, but hey, I’m not really a fan of either team, so not going to lose sleep over it.

For the record, I also thought the halftime show was good – not great. The big floating stages were pretty cool, but otherwise there wasn’t much to it.

I think American football is an interesting topic these days. It’s been in the media a lot more recently, largely because of the debate around contact sports and the damage it can do to peoples brains.

There’s been an endless number of former NFL or college football players that have committed suicide, and even a 2015 movie starring Will Smith called Concussion.

I don’t think tackle football is bad in moderation – I played it for 3 years growing up, and I think it taught me a lot and has a lot of overlap with solopreneurship and building businesses (teamwork, hard work, and it’s a humbling experience to get your ass knocked to the ground a few times).

But the reality is, at least for now, it’s too entrenched in American life and makes too much money for it to go away.

The NFL, and even college/high school football, continue to be uber popular and generate so much money, that until attention fades, people will continue to play and support it. I don’t watch it much anymore, but it’s still fun to get together with friends once a year, stuff our faces and have a good time.

Anyway, back to business, or at least talking about business-related things. I recently re-read a great business memoir.

If you follow me on LinkedIn, you probably already know what book I’m talking about here, but it was a great re-read.

The book is called Grinding It Out, written by Ray Kroc – the man behind the fast food chain McDonalds.

They also made a movie about it called The Founder, but as is the case 99% of the time, the book is always better. And if you disagree, please respond with ONE good example of a movie that is actually better than the book.

Anyway, back to business.

There were a few big takeaways I had from reading the book:

First, Ray’s story about McDonalds doesn’t even start until he’s in his 50s. His 50s!!

Now I’m not saying we should all sit back and twiddle our thumbs until we’re that old (no offense to anyone in that age group…), but it’s almost a comforting takeaway to realize that a lot of successful solopreneurs really don’t “make it big” until later.

I think this was also the case for the founder of Costco, and maybe Starbucks too – but not all huge businesses are started by 19 year olds in their dorm room. In fact, that’s usually the minority.

Second, Ray got by on mostly hard work and perserverence.

Of course, this is a very common theme in successful solopreneurs, but he didn’t do much “rocket science” type of work, or any fancy maneuvers. And he admits to not being the smartest guy out there. He found a business that he believed in, set some core principles to follow, put in place an equation that worked, then worked like hell to build it, hire good people, expand, out-perform competition, etc.

It’s nothing any of us couldn’t do, if we tried as hard as he did. Which was very hard.

In summary, it wasn’t easy, but it was simple. That might sound contradictory, but it’s not. Something can be simple to do, but hard to execute – over and over, for days and months and years on end.

And of course, stressful too. But it just comes with the territory.

Reminds me a lot of Shoe Dog to be honest, another amazing read.

If you need a kick in the ass, or a taste of what real entrepreneurship tastes like, read both of those (Shoe Dog and Grinding It Out).

Have a great day, make sure to jump on my email list to get my best content right to your inbox, and keep grinding.

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In-person meetings and venture studios

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 16:06:31 +0000

Had a few good solopreneur partnership discussions recently, including one in-person coffee chat.

And it got me thinking – what is the tradeoff for doing in-person meetings?

Now a few years ago (read: pre-Covid), we may not even be asking that question, because it was so “normal” to do lots of meetings in-person. During and since Covid, most of us (depending on business, industry, etc.) got into the habit of doing almost everything remote.

It certainly has it’s benefits – no commute, no additional fee (for travel, food/beverage, etc.), big time saver, a stronger connection when you shake someones hand and chat from across the table.

In my case, I went to go meet this gentleman downtown, which required about 25 minutes of travel on the subway. That’s not a huge deal, but the total cost was about 50 minutes in travel (25 to, 25 back), $3 for the subway ticket and $6 for the coffee (those fancy coffee shops are a bit of a rip!).

I know I know, I probably shouldn’t even be looking into it this deeply, but this is how my brain works. I over-analyze and consider, in most cases.

But it begs the question – is meeting in-person so much more valuable, that it’s worth $10 and 50 minutes of time?

Honestly, I’m not sure what the answer is. If it’s for a promising potential partner or client, probably yes. But what if having the meeting remotely were to result in the same outcome anyway?

I guess the only way to answer the question correctly would be to track all of your leads, and whether you met in person or not, and compare conversion rates. Or just go with your gut.

Who knows, or maybe some big research company will do a study on this someday. Or I’m just crazy in the head, and shouldn’t overthink it as long as things are moving forward in a positive way for the business.

What do you think? Have you been meeting more in-person lately? Is it “worth it”?

I also attended a pretty cool networking event a few days ago, and one or two interesting conversations that could lead to partnerships. You never really know, especially with partnerships, but casting a somewhat wide net and seeing what sticks can be a good strategy.

The event was hosted by a pretty repuable venture studio in downtown Toronto.

I didn’t know much about venture studios before, but essentially it’s like if a venture fund and a tech studio gave birth. The venture fund part means they invest in tech companies, and the tech studio means they do some work actually starting and building tech companies in house.

Put them together, and you get a company that works with founders to create and fund tech companies, in house, then leverages their network and connections to help grow.

Pretty cool concept – and dinner/drinks were free

That’s it for me – have a great day, don’t miss out on my best updates from my daily email list, and keep grinding.

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My solopreneur networking event from last week

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 15:56:24 +0000

Wanted to give you an update on how my solopreneur networking event went last Thursday night.

Especially since I switched up the format a bit, so I was curious to see if the attendees liked the two new elements that I added in.

Most of my networking events are focused on one thing: bringing people together so they can make meaningful connections with new, cool people.

But I also take feedback after every single one and try to improve it over time. And based on suggestions from the last event, I added in 2 new activities. Would they be accepted and enjoyed by all?

Only time would tell…

Thursday night, the event started as normal. People showed up ontime, everyone started hanging out and introducing themselves, and at 7pm we started the “formal” part of the event.

This meant getting into groups of 4 (that I created ahead of time, so I could group people with who I think they’d enjoy connecting with the most) and have a solopreneur mastermind session.

This gives each of the 4 people 10 minutes on the “hot seat”, where they can introduce themselves, explain what they’re working on and ask the other 3 for advice, tips, introductions, etc. It’s a lot of fun, and I also time this section with a stopwatch to make sure everyone gets their 10 minutes of fame. It also means you usually leave the event with at least 3 new great connections.

After the 40 minutes was up, we had my first new segment – the 30 second pitch – where I give everyone the chance to stand up infront of the entire group and give a 30 second pitch about who they are, what they do and who they’d love to meet.

This was a great suggestion from the last event, because it gave people the chance to pitch themselves to people who were not in their mastermind group – brilliant!

I’d say about 65% of the attendees did the pitch, which was great and I didn’t want to put pressure on anyone who wasn’t comfortable enough to do it.

It’s all in an effort to bring people together, but not push anyone too far out of their comfort zone.

Anyway, it went very well.

After we did all of our networking and 30-second pitches, we started the second half of the event.

By heading to a nearby bar!

This was recommended the last time I ran the event, because unfortunately we cannot serve booze in our current venue.

Well, I guess I could try, but that would require getting some sort of license that I simply don’t have the time or energy to look into.

The formal part of the networking is a lot of fun, but there’s no doubt that hanging in a more casual environment with a drink or two is a more casual, different vibe as well.

If anything, it helps people relax and open up a bit too, and was a really fun way to end the night.

A good chunk of the attendees stuck around and seemed to enjoy the bar too, so I think it’s a part of the event that will stick around. So there’s something to say for having a more formal, structured part to an event, but also offsetting it with a more casual, chill vibe as well.

Use this as you will!

Have a great day, don’t miss out on my daily solopreneur updates here, and keep grinding.

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