Callye discusses the overcoming the fear of failure. Your obsession is emotional not logical. Stop letting fear guarantee failure. The world is filled with opportunities. Entrepreneurship is, in part, identifying and solving opportunities by risking capital, time, and talent. Brilliant people are capable of phenomenal mental gymnastics. I have friends and clients capable of the most intensive mental processing to find why something will NOT work. The heavy focus on an infinite list of risks is a mask for fear. Here are the 3 steps to translate fear into action. Acknowledge the Fear Ask Why and Find the Purpose Mitigate Risks

This episode we talk about outsourcing versus hiring or doing it yourself. I am investing heavily in finding top talent to join the team. The purpose is to grow Red Blue Collective and to provide resources to grow our client's businesses. In your business, are you the bottleneck? Can no one do it as well as you? Listen to the strategies and tactics in this episode to shatter growth obstacles. The best people on earth cannot be hired. You need to learn to contract with partners.

I discuss innovation, technology, and business systems with Roy Edwards of Capital Presence. Launching a business is tough. Becoming successful and actually making money is even more difficult. Entrepreneurs are obsessed with ideas and product development but we know most of the effort is in running and growing the business itself. Systems allow businesses to scale. Business process automation allows entrepreneurs to multiply efforts and capacity through innovative process tools.

Finding who you want to be aligns action with purpose. External motivation from gurus and memes evaporates at the first obstacle. Figure out what you want. Let that drive you through the wins and losses.

Have you reached out to contract manufacturers only to get rebuffed? Or receive a “no bid”? Where to start searching for the right contract manufacturing partner? Should manufacturing be done locally, domestically, or internationally? How can factory audits improve partner selection? Engineering entrepreneurs have a million questions for me around manufacturing, sourcing, and logistics. In this episode, I cover some of the high notes.

The secret to strategically price products higher while beating the competition. Stop undervaluing your product or service. We have created products at 2x, 10x, and 100x the common market price resulting in ... Sold out 6-figure launches High-demand 7-figure sales I know that sounds crazy enough but we have done this with little to no paid advertising.

What is the difference between a massive flop and a massive success? The gap is smaller than you think. The difference is not the product. The difference is the problem the product solves. Context beats content. I found BusyBox on a crowdfunding website and was captivated by the success. I have seen similar products several times absolutely fail. The answer is not simple "product-market fit" because, as entrepreneurs, we have the ability to define our market. How does this work?

I have heard and read 100s (if not 1000s) of pitch decks. Startups make the same rookie mistakes over and over again. Statements startups think are bold or impressive often reveal immaturity and lack of research. Doing incredible things requires hard work to answer critical questions. Missing one of these top issues could prevent you from getting investment, mentorship, or partnership. End hype. Know the numbers. Know the market. Know the facts.

How do we cross the chasm from having a great idea to funding prototyping, engineering, manufacturing, hiring, or the other pieces needed for growth? Instead of testing, Growing revenue through traction products can provide real startup validation. Quit guessing or making assumptions. Start generating revenue and growing a business.

Innovation gives engineers and entrepreneurs the opportunity to change the world and create a fulfilling business. Transforming an idea into reality requires capital that many people do not have. Innovation challenges provide a new path.   Everyone thinks they have a million or billion dollar idea. If you had the skills, mentors, funding, connections, or whatever “if” … you would be successful. The “ifs” are imagined obstacles.  They are excuses for inaction because the path exists.   When your idea solves a real problem, there is a customer out in the world who wants the problem solved so badly (at a core mission level) they will pay for the development just so it exists. With the right problem, your “if” becomes “when”. The reason I love these innovation challenges is they fill those gaps and cancel the excuses you have for starting. The innovation challenges I am about to present provide funding but also connect you to mentors, manufacturers, industry leaders, and more to fuel your success. So what is out there? https://www.herox.com/solarprizeround4 (https://www.herox.com/solarprizeround4) https://www.challenge.gov (https://www.challenge.gov)

How do we reach out customers, get sales, and create revenue? When you are starting a new business or launching a new product, getting customers can seem daunting. In this episode, Callye talks about the Customer Discovery process used in Lean Startup methodology and expands on Steve Blank's concept.

Competing is for losers. Build something undeniable. Create an unfair advantage with Team Intellectual Property Relationships As startups, small business, innovators, we cannot succeed against giants through slow organic growth and a slightly better approach. We need to find and foster unfair advantages to disrupt the market.

Is it time to quit your job and be your own boss?

Mastering dichotomous thinking means being able to hold two seeming opposite ideas in a system. In our current culture, we have a tempting drive to see everything in contrast. Seeing situations and concepts from multiple perspectives unlocks the full potential of an opportunity. Key Examples Ego to change the world versus Humility to learn/grow Artist versus the Engineering Passion Heart versus Rational Mind Modeling and Disruption Hero versus Captain Detailed versus Big Picture

Even a fantastic product cannot succeed in a broken system. All success starts with the entrepreneur. The identity, beliefs, and cognitive abilities  Layer 1: Self Awareness, the Operating System Identity - How do we see ourselves, what do we want to become, what are our goals? Beliefs - What stories do we tell ourselves? Layer 2: Cognition, the CPU  Critical thinking - Seeing opportunities, problem solving Seeing the path - Chunking, planning, delegating Layer 3: Business Knowledge How a business works HR, Bookkeeping, Compliance, Tracking ROI Layer 4: Processes and Systems How does the business execute a function? Systems scale.

When should an entrepreneur reach out to a potential development and manufacturing partner? How much of the prototyping should a startup complete? When should I ask for quotes? Should the product and business have a vague definition to get the best direction and information from experts? Should the product and development roadmap be perfectly defined? Questions around roadmap, timeline, costs, and IP plague physical product entrepreneurs.

Everyone has ideas. Everyone is an inventor. Only a small percentage pursue developing an idea into a business. Engineering seems to produce a disproportionate amount of entrepreneurs. Why do so many of the titans we respect come from technical backgrounds? Forget about inventors wishing for patents or hopefuls dreaming of licensing agreements. We are talking about starting, growing, and running a business. We are talking about transforming an idea into reality. Why do engineers succeed? Engineering is hard Curiosity. How things work. Ability to see problems Problem solving Engineering is applied science and math to create something or solve a problem Once a technical person understands that a business is a formula means to solve a problem profitably, consistently, and with the ability to scale. Skills Early entrepreneurs and startups flounder due to lack of professional-grade skills.  Engineers come with skills What are the obstacles? Enamored with ideas Focusing on developing the product versus the business Little business experience or have an outright aversion to business Low tolerance for risk and uncertainty

I am hearing some wildly bad advice from Internet "experts" about the best businesses to start in 2020. Callye is giving the End Hype advice on what business to start and why. Forget the gurus telling you to open a co-working space or other ridiculous thing. Consulting - Use your skills Information Products - Scale your effort E-com and more ...

You have an amazing product built for your customer tribe. They loved the prototype. Manufacturing is ready to rock. How do you build the interest, demand, and momentum to launch with success? Callye Keen presents a series of growth hack strategies that compound to build an incredible launch.

Here is a little piece from the Innovate program. Something we talk about a lot. Something that goes into that killer pitch. We are talking about a team. It's everybody's favorite thing. I know, in high school, middle school, college, whatever, everyone loved group projects. They were fantastic. Everybody helped out each other and you got an A. You loved it. You had a great time. … OK, probably not. Most people hate group projects because they're really difficult. Here is the difference about your real life, about your business life, about pursuing your passion, that's completely different from high school. Maybe in high school or college, you were lucky enough to have friends in the class and you did your group project together. You probably goofed around a lot and didn't really get it done together. More likely, your team was chosen for you. You were smashed together. You didn’t pick the roles. You didn't get to figure out … this person's good at this or this person's good at that. You had no choice. You had no agency. You were given a group of people and you said, "Okay, we got to make this work." It was a real test of your ability to work with others. So, in real life and in business, we get to choose. We get to choose our associates. We get to choose our friends, for real, not just out of this small group of people in our high school or class. We can choose. We get to nurture those relationships. We build those relationships through little projects and engagements like putting on an event. We do something small and say, "Hey, yeah, I work really well with this person. This person is really driven like me," or, "This person's really laid back like I am." Whatever it is, you have the ability to pick those people. You have the ability to pick somebody whose skills compliment your own. So, if you're the business person, there's a tech person that can tolerate you. If you're a tech person, there's a business person that wants to work with you. We can pick the team that makes sense for us. You have the ability to choose. Don't get stuck with somebody. Why is building a team so important? If you have an idea, why can't you just do it yourself? You're so smart. You're amazing. You can get it going, right? The most simple way I've heard it is this: if you can't make $10,000 with your idea, you don't have a good team. If you can't do it with the team that you have (you can't make $10,000) refactor, go back to the drawing board. We're trying to actually create early revenue with the people that we have. Most startup founders, entrepreneurial teams, pitch contestants, startup weekend teams, fail to meet that criteria. They couldn't make a dollar. If I gave them $10, they couldn't make it into $11 with the people they have. Execution and growth are why teams matter. Picking the right people matters. So, let's get into this. Creating a functional, scalable business requires a team with the right skills and roles. Not just random people. Entrepreneurs might start alone leveraging their sole skills and experience to attract talent and build a team. Building a team is an early indicator of success. We're constantly going back and looking at our personal goals or business goals. A lot of entrepreneurs have an initial goal of attracting talent. I hear, “I want to work with great people” or “I need to be able to hire great people” or “I need a great co-founder”. Other people have a goal of attracting investment which absolutely require a stellar team. If you're participating in a pitch contest, competing in innovation challenges, applying for a grant, pitching to investors, or you're just working to grow your business, building a team shows traction. If you can't sell one other person the vision of your business, how are you going to convince a judge or an investor to buy into your business? If you can't work with a team, how can you run a company? We're constantly future pacing and saying, "What does success look like?" People...