Ex-Google Tech Lead talks about building a side-hustle and making $40K/month in your 20's.
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Video Transcript
(Note: This transcript is auto-generated by YouTube and may not be 100% correct.)
00:00
alright hey tech elite here and welcome
00:02
back to another episode today we're
00:04
going to be talking about how to start
00:06
and grow a small business and we're
00:08
going to be talking to somebody somebody
00:10
in their 20s who has founded a
00:12
multi-million dollar business a company
00:14
and that person is going to help us get
00:17
all started and/or gentleman what are
00:20
you doing here I'm not talking about you
00:22
Gemma what do you mean well maybe you
00:26
should go to sleep then gather here go
00:28
to bed it's past your curfew time not
00:30
talking about you either and start a
00:32
multi-million dollar business yeah here
00:36
let me get over here climate climate hey
00:41
Clement now Clement here has started and
00:44
grown a very successful business in his
00:47
20s Clement is going to tell us all
00:49
about how he got this started what were
00:50
the logistics and how to practically get
00:53
a business going and why it is so useful
00:55
for young people to be starting small
00:57
businesses he's going to take us all
00:59
through the steps what was this business
01:00
that you started and tell us all about
01:02
it
01:02
our business is called Aldo expert algo
01:04
expert gallo it's basically targeted at
01:07
software engineers who like you and I
01:09
who want to prepare for their coding
01:11
interviews especially a big tech
01:13
companies big startups and we provide
01:15
curated questions like the ones you find
01:18
these coding interviews and we give
01:20
video explanations for those questions
01:22
of coding work space etc etc so you can
01:24
go to algo exper do a slash tech we'd if
01:27
you want to check it out that's right
01:29
you want to make sure you use code
01:30
technically get discount check them out
01:32
now start your business sounds cool and
01:34
we are here all the time well just our
01:36
business list our business I'm gonna
01:38
start business but how exactly do you
01:40
start a business what are the steps that
01:42
you have to go through what are the
01:44
challenges and how do you concretely get
01:46
this off the ground yeah so the first
01:49
step I think is coming up with the idea
01:50
and to be honest I think a lot of ideas
01:53
can work it's just about finding a
01:55
problem and then coming up with a
01:56
solution to that problem and building it
01:59
and executing it and so in my case I was
02:02
prepping for coding interviews and I was
02:05
using a bunch of resources textbooks
02:07
websites online YouTube Wikipedia and I
02:10
thought there's got to be a better way
02:11
that's how I came up with the idea
02:13
sounds simple enough do you do it by
02:15
yourself do you have a co-founder do you
02:17
set up like a LLC do you incorporate
02:20
start partnership you can do it alone
02:22
I think alone is a bit tougher I ended
02:25
up having a co-founders so I contacted
02:27
one of my best friends who happens to be
02:29
a software engineer as well I pitched
02:31
him the idea and he was on board and we
02:34
got it up and running so we ended up
02:35
going with an LLC the reason being is it
02:38
fit our needs the best we wanted from a
02:41
tax point of view to have things be
02:43
simple we want to only be taxed once
02:45
right so now we'll see was good for us
02:47
from that point of view as opposed to
02:49
corporation for instance but we also
02:52
wanted that limited liability that a
02:55
partnership a general partnership may
02:57
give you yeah that's right because as I
03:00
understand that you have a sole
03:01
proprietorship and that is where anyone
03:03
can actually start a business you just
03:05
start making money and that's a business
03:07
already you're a sole proprietorship now
03:09
is that beyond that you can actually
03:10
form a partnership say with multiple
03:13
people but that's still pretty much ax
03:15
very similar to like a sole
03:16
proprietorship the level above that is
03:18
you for my OLC which acts more like a
03:21
corporation where you can pay yourself a
03:23
salary you get limited liability such
03:25
that if anyone sees you they don't have
03:28
access to your personal assets is simply
03:31
the company standing alone on its own
03:33
and then the company has its own bank
03:34
account its own social security number
03:37
for tax purposes
03:38
everything is very separate and then
03:40
it's easier in a way to separate your
03:42
business and personal expenses now how
03:44
do you go about forming an LLC isn't it
03:47
very complicated aren't there all sorts
03:49
of paperwork that you have to go through
03:51
so it's a little bit complicated there
03:53
are a few services like stripe Atlas
03:55
Legal Zoom Rocket Lawyer that'll give
03:58
you like services to make the LLC for
04:00
you or help you along the way we ended
04:03
up is doing it ourselves it's sort of
04:05
like old-fashioned rent
04:06
oh wow so you just filed the audit
04:08
paperwork on your own yeah we went to
04:09
the State Department and did all that by
04:11
ourselves how complicated was that to do
04:13
on your own it's intimidating but not
04:16
actually that complicated okay
04:18
interesting now I have formed a few
04:20
LLC's myself as well and generally I
04:23
just use a service like lemon mint
04:25
and that's an arrow it's very simple and
04:27
easy to get this all set up you just
04:29
fill out an online web application press
04:31
submit button and don't get a LLC all
04:33
set up for you what are the fees
04:34
involved in it I'll see here so you have
04:37
an incorporation fee it's escaping me
04:39
right now but it's roughly two hundred
04:42
to a thousand dollars something like
04:44
that might vary from state to its eight
04:45
hundred dollars in California and as I
04:48
understand that you choose a state to
04:50
incorporate in and then you can actually
04:52
operate in any other state yep
04:55
which state did you choose we ended up
04:56
giving New York we just fit well for us
04:58
okay cool
05:00
generally I will actually register in
05:02
Delaware which is very well known for
05:05
its business friendly laws and then you
05:07
can operate as a foreign business in
05:09
other states yep not working now once
05:11
you have to say I'll see you all set up
05:13
how did you fund the company so we
05:15
didn't need too much money at the
05:16
beginning so we just put $2,500 each up
05:19
front me and my co-founder and that was
05:21
it the company has been self-sustaining
05:23
ever since did you ever have issues
05:24
choose iam co-founder I find that they
05:27
say co-founders are often almost like
05:29
having a marriage because you get to
05:31
work with the co-founder so closely and
05:33
you have to work out so many different
05:34
issues how did you know that you could
05:36
trust your co-founder what would happen
05:38
if your co-founders decided to just stop
05:40
working at some point this is where I
05:42
totally agree I think choosing the right
05:44
co-founder is probably the most
05:45
important thing you can do me and my
05:48
co-founder are lucky in that we're very
05:51
good friends and we just have that trust
05:53
on top of that we have very
05:56
complementary skill sets and we also
05:58
have different sort of like goals so we
06:00
don't overstep on each other and it just
06:02
works out really beautifully we're able
06:04
to work remotely pretty seamlessly with
06:06
no personal issues no work issues
06:09
fighting someone who has a complementary
06:13
skill set it's probably gonna be one of
06:15
the most important things because so
06:16
that you it's actually useful to have
06:18
multiple people and then probably just
06:21
making sure that you have open
06:22
communication if you have open
06:24
communication and trust you will be able
06:26
to work together and you can maybe even
06:28
be creative instead of things where you
06:30
have to work a certain amount of time or
06:32
produce a certain amount until you get
06:35
your equity in the business so is your
06:37
business purely online
06:38
do you have office space yeah so we're
06:41
purely online that means that we don't
06:43
have an office space we can work
06:45
remotely from wherever we are in a
06:47
coffee shop on a beach if we want that's
06:49
one thing that's really cool about the
06:52
era that we live in where we can build
06:53
fully online businesses and not have to
06:58
deal with the difficulties of having a
07:01
physical product having to have an
07:03
office space or a warehouse or hold
07:05
inventory of course not everyone has
07:07
luxury to do this not everyone has a
07:08
purely online business but you can't
07:11
have that these days yeah I think that's
07:13
one interesting thing when that was
07:15
running the online businesses it
07:17
actually allowed me to take time off
07:18
work between jobs there wouldn't be like
07:21
a huge resume gap because I could say
07:23
well I'm working on this business during
07:25
that time I can do some traveling during
07:27
that time as well and I just get more
07:29
flexibility and freedom in what I'm
07:31
doing well at the same time still being
07:33
productive and living how I might choose
07:36
to live I remember I would work from
07:38
Hawaii sometimes or work on cruise boats
07:40
now you're painting a really good
07:41
picture of running your own business
07:43
what are the cons of this what are the
07:45
challenges of running the business yeah
07:48
I think that there there are three big
07:50
challenges but in some sense they are
07:53
also positives if you like this if you
07:55
have that sort of entrepreneurial itch
07:57
the first one is there's a lot of work a
08:00
lot of the work is gonna be stuff that
08:01
you don't like
08:02
like for instance forming the LLC
08:04
marketing I'm not the biggest fan of
08:06
running ad campaigns and all that but I
08:09
have to do it challenge number two is
08:10
that sometimes you're putting in all
08:12
this work and you're not getting much in
08:14
return especially like in the earlier
08:16
months or earlier years of your business
08:18
you might not be making that much money
08:20
you you might be losing money right
08:22
that's a challenge to stay motivated and
08:24
number three this one is really critical
08:27
it is that everything that goes along in
08:30
the business is your fault everything
08:33
that goes wrong is your fault and even
08:36
beyond that if you do something wrong
08:39
and you break something in the business
08:41
there's no one on the other side that's
08:43
gonna be able to fix things when you're
08:45
at a normal job and something goes wrong
08:48
for instance in software engineers some
08:50
system breaks even if you don't know how
08:52
to fix it you have this sort of mental
08:54
piece that oh some other expert here is
08:57
gonna be able to fix it here that's not
09:00
the case it's only me and my co-founder
09:02
and maybe you know one other person no
09:04
one's gonna fix it for you you got to do
09:06
it that's right you have to really be
09:08
accountable and have a good work ethic
09:10
and understand that it doesn't matter
09:12
how much time you put in in the normal
09:14
job it's just about putting in the hours
09:15
and many times people would just go in
09:18
and work and they're not going to worry
09:19
about being terribly productive all the
09:21
time but when you're running your own
09:23
business
09:23
you really need to make sure that the
09:25
effort that you put in translates into
09:27
real impact into the bottom line and
09:29
oftentimes it's not going to be that's
09:31
something that you really enjoy doing
09:32
sometimes you're going to find out that
09:34
all you want to do is maybe code but it
09:36
turns out that you know that marketing
09:39
is going to be what your company really
09:40
needs at this point and then you have to
09:42
spend all your time studying about how
09:43
to do Facebook advertising or Instagram
09:46
advertising or something like that
09:47
that's a key thing like it especially as
09:50
software engineers we have this tendency
09:52
to want to code code code want to build
09:54
sometimes you got to stop building and
09:56
you got to start maintaining and don't
10:01
sneak up on me like that now I hope
10:02
you've enjoyed part one of two of this
10:05
interview for the stunning and epic
10:07
conclusion to this interview head on
10:09
over to Clements channel is going to be
10:11
great link in the description below and
10:13
I'll see you over there
English (auto-generated)