Ep. 12 | Automating the freemium framework - Kam Clark

Dive into the entrepreneurial strategies behind Clark Audio's founder, Kam Clark, as he shares his journey from crafting beats in 2010 to founding Clark Audio in 2016, initially offering royalty-free samples to music producers. Recognizing a market need for innovative, beginner-friendly plugins, he expanded the company's focus to include advanced audio processing software. Jack and Kam discuss how to create and perfect a website optimized for funnel-based email marketing, emphasizing the role of AI in automating these processes. Kam hints at the importance of finding your passion and leveraging the internet to build and scale your brand. The conversation highlights how automating business operations can enhance efficiency and customer engagement. Tune in to discover actionable insights on using technology and strategic marketing to grow a successful online business in the audio industry.

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Kam Clark

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Host: Jack Moran
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Transcript

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Hello everybody, and welcome to episode 12 of Shaken Hands. I'm your host, Jack Moran. You can find me on Instagram at Blue Collar Kid that is blue collar KEHD. Today on the show we have Kam Clark, the founder of Clark Audio. How are we doing today, Kam? Good. How are you? Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So, talk a little bit about what you've got going on right now. Like, what's your business? what are you doing currently? So currently, Clark Audio is a music production software company. and what I do specifically is I design the software, I come up with the ideas, we just create software for music production. Okay. So, how you get into that business? so I've always been in the music field, and, you know, I started off just writing lyrics. I just follow the path, and it's led me to music production software. Okay. So, like, what was your journey into entrepreneurship? like, how did you get started? When do you get started? so I started pretty young. I want to say it was about 15 years old. and when I started, I started with music. I started writing lyrics, and I knew I didn't want to be like an artist or a producer or like a rapper or anything, but I wanted to make money in the space. so when I started, 15 years old, I was writing lyrics, and one day I just search on Google like beats, and I came across this website where people were selling beats, and that was kind of when I first realized, oh, wait, you know, there's these different avenues where you can make money off of music. And my first venture was to make beats and sell online. and I started that at 15 years old, and I've literally just been doing it ever since that. So how do you like, as a 15 year old, start a business? Like people are scared that their products aren't going to sell as like grown men. how do you get credibility? You get people to buy your your stuff. being like a kid in high school. So I guess that's the power of the internet. No one really knew my age at the time. And also during this time, there was only a handful of people, music producers selling beats online. There's literally probably only 12. so it was kind of like this new market that was forming, and I kind of, I caught on to it early on. So I kind of created a name for myself while the market was growing. and no one ever knew, like, I was a 15 year old kid. which is crazy to think about it now, but, yeah, I mean, that's the power of the internet. You know, you can sell stuff right on the internet and just being the internet, being so easily accessible, people really don't think about that. Like, who is this guy? They just, they see a B, they like they, you know, they'll buy it. So how did you structure your business like and how did you hide your identity and how did you like brand yourself to like, so there is this one website. At the time it was called Sound Click and it was kind of like Myspace, but you would upload it was built for independent artists. So the idea was independent artists could share their music on this platform and people can find them. But this small group of music producers started uploading their beats and selling them through there. And it was easy, as you know, just uploading your B and linking like a PayPal button to it. So that's how I started. and then as I went on with that, I wanted to make a website. I want to like my own website. I wanted to like, brand myself and kind of break off of that platform and create my own platform. and that led me into web design. and that was kind of my second venture was web design, where guys out of that go talk about that a little bit. what did you learn from that? Yeah. So, so the way the reason why I got into it was I want to build a website, and I reached out to web designers and again, I'm like 15, 16 years old, and these guys are quoting me like 2 to 3 grand, and I'm like, I don't want it to three grand. So I just started I was watching YouTube videos like how to design websites, how to build websites, and after a short period of time, I kind of figured out the basics. and at this point, probably like 16, 16, 17 and when I realized how to build websites, I was like, well, like 16, 17 years old, I just saw how to build websites on the internet. I could sell this to people for 2 to 3 grand, like, these guys are, and so I started locally just going up to people like, hey, you need a website, I can do it for you. you actually built me my first website. I don't know if you really, Yeah. You know, as a starter. Yeah, yeah. So that led into, like, when I was 18 years old, I got out of high school and I met another kid that was also doing web design. We kind of partnered up, to create, like, our own group. We got a shared office space, and we met another guy that had a web design company. And here's more established, and we ended up buying, like partnerships into it. So we each bought in like 25%. And I was like 20 years old at this time. and when I started working for them, that's what I kind of realized that I had no passion for web design. And when I started working, it just felt like a regular job. Like I didn't feel like I owned a web design company. I didn't feel like an entrepreneur. I just felt like an employee that was, you know, paying to be an employee. And that's what I realized. I wanted to go back into the music space because I had so much passion for it. I knew that, you know, I could I could work more and build something greater just because I love doing it, versus just doing something because I know I can make money. Why is passion so important in entrepreneurship? For me, I think it's because in entrepreneurship, it takes a lot of work and a lot of energy. And if you don't have that passion, I feel like it's going to be harder than if you do out of the passion. Like for me, when I when I was working and when I am working, I don't feel like I'm working. I just feel like if I had a job, that's what I do for fun. Anyways, and I can sit there for hours and hours building something because I just had that passion for it. Yeah. And I mean, I'll say to our audience, like, you are probably the most legit entrepreneur that I know. I mean, I don't say that lightly. Like, you know, I remember when we were in high school, like people being like, oh, camps making fucking beats and blah, blah. And like, I always knew you were grinding and like, eventually you were going to make it. And then, you know, you're pretty established now. And like, you know, the business is pretty crazy in my opinion. It's like the model of the business, as as good as it gets. as far as, like, automation and, like, utilizing systems and being systemized and, you know, having a passive business. so I want to kind of talk about, like, and try to extract because you're very, very humble. extract like out of your brain. for our audience, like how what your strategy has been like developing your business, like what you've learned along the way. And like with my business, I'm envious of your business because of how systemize and automated it is, where mine requires so much input of my time. And it probably cannot operate without myself. Where you like, you have a business that operates on its own. What was like? How did you figure out, like running a business like that? Like what was the journey like, how did you start establishing this model? Like, what were the moments you started like, you know, learning about like, what are some of those, like key insights that you've learned about along the journey? I think it did start that like the first crucial moment was when I was 50 and I saw these producers selling beats online because when I looked at them, I was like, these guys just make the music, they upload it and you know, they can sell that a thousand times and they don't have to meet with anyone or do anything. So it's like this passive model and that's what I realized, just the power of the internet. And that was one thing that always stuck with me was even when I was doing the web design, I just I kept coming back to the internet because I was like, dude, like, you can you can build these passive incomes without having to sit down with, you know, with clients and do services and stuff. so the internet, I mean, I feel like that was kind of the biggest thing that, set the stage for, like the whole business model was how do we utilize the internet to build, like, systems? And then, as time went on, like I came into and in the play and websites got better, so all these tools came. That's just made it easier and easier. and I just, I just follow the path, you know, and it's this guy and it's just gotten better and better as technology grows. So how is I, like influencing business? And in your business specifically? I'm trying to think because there's multiple there's so many different things. but I would say one of the biggest things is, is funnels. So when you're building an online business, or let's say when you have a traditional business, right, you have to have a sales team, you have to have, like a process to get a client to close with an online business, you can build these funnels where it's automated steps. So, you know, I could give you something for free online. Hey, download this for free. You give me your email. And now you enter this funnel that I've built and there's AI in there where, like for example, I just started marketing to a worldwide audience. So I have I and my funnel that will detect AI. This guy is from Japan. So we're going to send him all these emails and Japanese. and before you would actually have to sit there and type it out and learn Japanese or, you know, translate it. Yeah. Translate it and it does that all for you now, more recently, like with ChatGPT on the development side of like software, all the time will come into issues and I can just go to chatbots and be like, hey, this is what I'm doing. This is the issue I'm having. What's the solution? And it just runs a diagnostic for you. Yeah, it's not always accurate. Sometimes you have to give it more and more information, but that ends up giving you you know, it takes off so much time because I could sit there for days trying to figure something out. And within a couple of hours I can get it figured out with just using chat service here. So with your business, you're like developing a software product? like a piece of software, which it's an instrumental electronic instrument. and then once that software is developed, you're essentially just marketing it, right? Right. what is like the stages of that business like? Because that in my opinion, and I think a lot of people are advocating for software businesses now because of the automation that you can do within it and how passive you can make it so quickly if you get those systems established. What is kind of your process like if you were to restart a new company, eliminate music, but just like some software company, where would you start? And like how would you develop out that process so that you could have another like, established business that's passive? Well, the first thing would be, I guess, more traditional. I would look at a market, look at different markets, you know, where is, what's a profitable market? So one market, I think right now online that's profile. It's like the fitness. So you find a market. and then you obviously build a website, build a brand. And the first step I always take, like the first time I have my company, is offer these people something for free. so in the beginning, like, I offered free software. And the reason why you do that is because you get their email, you can put them in funnels, but you can also build that trust, a rapport, which I think nowadays is, it's becoming more crucial for online businesses because there's so many scams out there and, like people want, people want to shop in the company that they trust. So it's an easy way to build trust. After that, you had, develop the product and then you'd go straight into advertising. and then you also have to build like these funnels. And it really boils down to how complex you want to make things like it can be as simple as, this is our product, let's run ads and let's just try to get as much sales as possible. Or it could be as complex as, let's build all these funnels so we can get a sale, and then we can build a lifelong customer. So if we do release more products like they're loyal and they come back, all through these automated funnels. So I want to break down like kind of each of those steps in detail. And I think market analysis and like identifying a need, is pretty self-explanatory. But then like once you've identified that need, you create a brand like what are the keys to like branding yourself so that people generate interest, to that brand? Is there a methodology? I think the method, the method now is trying to put a face to the brand. and because I've noticed that people online, the consumer online continues to change. And before you could, you know, be this big company and hide behind a logo and sell things online. But it seems like people are more they're resonating more with like, personalities. So what I would do, the brand name is you could be the personality you, or you could hire somebody like an influencer or somebody to be that personality to, where people can connect with, and I think that's like one of the key things right now to build a good brand is so to have that personality attached to it. So now we talk about a funnel like what are the stages of that funnel. So they, you know, the top of the funnel is them seeing some sort of free, product that generates interest and solves a problem or, meets a need that they have that directs them to your brand. is that correct? Yeah. Because that's a start to the funnel. Yeah. So then from there, where did that go? Like where does that what's the next step in the funnel. Like what are you trying to accomplish once you have gotten them their interest and they are engaged with your, your funnel? the first thing is building the relationship in the trust. so after you give them that free product, you don't go directly into, you know, buy this from us. It's more of, let's send like 5 or 6 emails just explaining who we are, our story, like what we're trying to do and build, like, you know, that, that personal connection. So after 5 or 6 emails or 5 or 6 touches, well, how do you get their email? do like a free product. Okay. Yeah. So they would see the top of the funnel like graphic or whatever. What is the methodology to that? Like how do you get them to get to your like, is it right off in your Instagram out or whatever their real ranking their email. Yeah. Or are they going to a landing page and you're pulling the email then like yeah. So to break it down like that, like I want to go into like, yes. So you could I've run ads before for like free products. You can do it that way. I've also collab with people, so like brands that are bigger than mine, I'll just be like, hey, I'm giving this off a free can you tell your audience? And that's like a quick, easy way to get a somebody else's audience into your funnel. and I mean, you could do things like SEO and stuff. The thing is just getting it out there, like, here's our free product. What's the way to get out there? You could do ads or collabs and that. And those are two big insights. how do you collab with someone? Like, what's the incentive for them to distribute that to their audience? do you have to reach out to a lot of people until one of them says yes, or is there like a strategy to that? Yeah. For me. So what I've done collabs like it's been just reaching out to like hundreds of people in so many bites. I go with them. But I've also like been in partnerships of other companies where it's like, it's a business partnership. So like, I'm selling their, my products through their storefront and. Right now we're splitting the percentage. And then I build that relationship with them. And when I do have a free product, I can give it to them. They'll promote it for me. And, you know, I'm just taking in all that, all those people that from their audience. So when you are, say you're trying to get it out and through ads and I know ads are a big part of your business. what is like what is the methodology behind running ads? you know, is there specific platforms that you use that you feel comfortable with? and like, what is that kind of the strategy behind? so I'm big on Facebook ads, and I think it's just because that's my market. because the biggest difference between Google ads and Facebook ads is with Google ads, you're putting your product in front of somebody that's actively looking for it. so if I'm searching music production software, I will show up. So that person was already looking for Facebook. You're just trying to get people interested, like, hey, like this is our product. You're trying to, you know, build up like a hype and get them interested to buy. And for me, I found that it works best for me. and Facebook ads like nowadays, it's just that's all I know. And like before, you would have to get very detailed and you have to really know what you're doing. But now you could literally just create an account and I will do everything for you. It will find potential customers just off of like your landing page and like the most basic information from your business, which is and say it. And that's like something that you taught me that was a game changer is like, not really fucking with, back end on the Facebook ads. but instead just letting the I like figure out because essentially what it's doing is it's like putting it in front of an audience. And a lot of people, you know, they're not having results the first week. So they're like, I'm wasting money and they throw it away. But it only exponentially gets better because it may put it in front of a thousand people and only one person clicks and is interested, but then it's going to put it, the next thousand people are going to be the same profile as not one that clicked, and soon it's just the AI is going to figure out that audience. Your ad spend just goes down and down and down and down and down. Yeah. So with Facebook guys, if you're starting from scratch, that that's how it's going to be. But if you have data. So when I was giving out free stuff, I had got all this data from people. So I got their emails, I got like IP addresses, all this data, and you can feed that into Facebook ads. So Facebook ads will take that data and be like, okay, this is the type of person that's interested in his product and it will jumpstart that whole process. You don't have to go through that learning phase. Yeah. So when I first saw the lookalike audience, right. Yeah. When I first started writing ads, like, seriously, I put that data in and within, like the first day I got like ten, 20 sales. And usually you won't see that when you start from scratch. And it tastes like a couple weeks to see your first sale. so yeah, it's just insane how just seeing technology where it's going, and it's making it so much easier for people to build businesses online and market and advertise online. So what's the key to a good ad like front End was? you need to know your audience. but I think it goes back to that profile. So a lot of ads have been good for me is when I'm like me personally, in front of the camera, talking to the person showcasing the product. And I've tried to ads before where it's like your basic like graphic, like, this is our product, this is why you should buy it. And it seems like that personal stuff is always working. And video to video is, so much better than images I found. So once you've grabbed their attention now and you've, you know, got that ad, they have found the ad and now they've entered into your website. What's the methodology behind that like first page of the website. so it's usually always a landing page. So when you're, when I'm running an ad, I'm bringing them to a landing page. And the, the concept of the landing page is it's, it's a sales pitch in a web page form. and you're just trying your best to, to sell that person through this page. And, you know, one of the biggest things is people's attention spans are so short. So I'm on my landing pages. Those first, like two sections you really have to nail because you have to really draw them in. but yeah, it's essentially a sales page. And the other thing I do on those pages, too, is I eliminate all distractions. So like on your average website, if you go to a page, you'll have like your menu where you can go to all these other pages and you can surf around their whole website. I just keep it simple like this is that this is our product, this is lower offering. This is the price. You either what or you don't. That's it. It's very straightforward. And I found that works so much better than, you know, like your stereotypical websites, right? Yeah. Like all those distractions are just like people, like they click the menu and then they go to another page and it's like, you can people want these like, pretty complex websites, but it's like, I forget what you said to me years ago. Like it's basically just like a digital receipt or like a digital pamphlet. Yeah. So when I was doing web design, that was the biggest thing is we were giving people those same exact websites and it was just like a business card. It was like the about page, the home page, the contact page. But what I've learned along the way is a website is is supposed to be your sales person. It's your digital sales person. So like, what's the what are you trying to get out of it? you know, if you're with your average website where it's homepage about page contact, you're just giving them information if that's what you want to do, that's that's the best website for you. If you're trying to convert people, it should be designed and done in the way where it's going to lead people to convert. and that's the biggest thing that I've learned with web design. It is it has to be built as like a machine. It is your machine. If it works well, if not, is just, you know, a business card online. So what are the key principles of like, that machine that, good calls to action? yeah. So the first thing is like figuring out your goal. Like, what's the goal? my goal is I'm trying to get direct sales, so I'm trying to convert people on the website. Some other people's goals might be, to get a lead. Another goal might just be I want to build trust and like, build brand awareness. so once you get that goal in mind, From there, I mean, I could go like deep into, like, web design if you keep going. Like, I mean, this is the good stuff in my opinion. yeah. So like, for me, like, I'll take me, for example, sort of my landing page is my goal is to convert. So that whole landing page I'm starting with trust. So I'm thinking of the consumer. Right. This guy just saw my ad. He has no idea who I am. He's coming to this page. I'm not going to hit him right away. Like buy this. I'm going to build that trust. Like, this is who we are. This is what we're doing. This is why we're the leaders in our space. This is why you should trust us. As they scroll down, it gets like more deeper into the sales. So then you start introducing the product like this is the product and then you highlight, what the consumer, you have to think about the consumer. Right. So like if I'm a consumer what do I actually want from this product. This is like Steve Jobs stuff. Like he has a speech on this, like values. Yeah. You don't want to be like, our product is good because this, this and then this. It's like, you want this because it's going to make this easier. You want this because it's going to take this. Don't you be about them. Not about yeah, it's all about that. And so then you go into that and then at the bottom of the page is that, that conversion. so the goal is as you're scrolling, you're just getting deeper and deeper into like, I want to buy this. and usually that first beginning that, that trust, that's where the person's either really interested or not. That's where you learn, like, they might just they might just be clicking just because that's where you learn. And usually what the more they scroll down, the higher the conversion rate is going to get. Are you collecting that data like if. Yeah, I was early on, I don't really anymore. I mean, I still collect it, but I don't study as much. but there's yeah, there's websites like there's this website hotjar. I think I set that up for you at one point. I might have, but it will track literally everything, so it'll track where they're clicking. It'll track how much time they're, taking on each section, and it'll build these, like, heatmaps. And these heatmaps are like this. This is where most of the people are spending time, and this is where they're going called. So you can learn all this data and really refine your landing page. you know, something crazy, like a high converting landing page. So, what are the, like, top tools that you use that you think are like a game changer? Because you got to think about it like this audience is people that are have not journeyed into entrepreneurship yet. So they're trying to figure out, like, they don't have these skills that are within your brain like that are just like common everyday skills that you use now, like these, like, you know, some of these websites that you've shown me have been game changers, like using SEMrush, are using spy for like, what are some of those tools that are like, you know, for this type of business, game changers for you, like even Fiverr, like talk about like, you know. Right. yeah. So I guess, since you mentioned Fiverr, I'll start with that. so like throughout my whole journey, I've hired a lot of freelancers and, usually it's through Fiverr, Upwork, and I mean that for me, it was a game changer because it's like on demand scale. So in your traditional business, like, you might have to, hire a marketer to pay this guy a salary, you know, and he might not have work to do the whole year. You might only need them for certain times. We need to keep that guy because you need that skill. Both websites like Upwork and Fiverr, I do like I need, you know, I need help marketing. I'm gonna hire this guy real quick. This is going to help me. another one like you mentioned, CRM, Russian spy food. Those are huge because, you can put your competitors website in there and it'll just give you all the data on their website. So they'll give you what keywords they're ranking for, CRM. Right. So like if you pay for it, it goes as deep as it'll show you their ads. They'll should like this is their ads and this is they'll give you an estimate of how much, like conversion they're getting from it. So you can get a lot of competitor data. And that's I would say, like if you're an entrepreneur just starting out, that's where I would start was with those two. Because if you're thinking about a market like the fitness market, you can pick any, any company, song fit and stuff and put them in there and kind of get an idea of how much these guys are, like how much traffic they're getting, how much they could potentially be making. You can kind of get an idea of like the market as a whole and also like what you could do better, what you could do differently. besides that, I mean, ChatGPT and just like your stereotypical like website building stuff, I use WordPress, which I recommend everyone to use WordPress just because you have control over everything. a lot of people use like Shopify, if you're going to be selling like clothes or, or something like that. I mean, it's good, but you can't really build like complex funnels. And yeah, I mean, off the top of my head, there's nothing really coming to me for like, any other software's so. So what? Once you've gotten, like, a person's email, how do you nurture that client? Like, what are kind of like, how does that funnel get deeper? Like, what are the added layers to a funnel? yeah. So I usually start with the building, the trust. and the thing is, is like, I'm like picturing one of my head that I have and, and they just get so complex. because you can, you can build, you can take a funnel, you can build it out for years, or you can take a funnel and build it out for, like, only a month. but when I was running free stuff, the way I would do it is I offer the free download. I would have like 5 or 6 emails that would go out once every two weeks, and that was just building trust, building rapport. And then I'd have 2 or 3 emails like building hype about a product I wouldn't really talk like I would be like, here's our product I'd build. I'd be like, hey, this big producers using this right now, show like little clips, like they don't they don't have the conversion yet, but they're like, they're getting interested in it. you're building up that hype, and then you hit them with a conversion email, and then you can break that out. So like with the conversion email, if they can convert, you can end the funnel there where you can offer them more like upsell stuff. And if they don't convert you can do more emails of more hype. Or maybe, you know, maybe they don't trust you yet. You can do more trust. You can show reviews. and the whole goal is you're just if your goal is to convert, you're trying to get that person to convert. And, like, you can just go so deep on that where you can, you know, like I said, you can build it out for a year and send hundreds of emails just trying to get some money to convert. become. But yeah, I mean, I feel like it'd be easier for me to, like, open up my laptop and, like, show you you because it's like, it's hard to explain it, but it's it's literally just like emails. it's it's doing the same thing the landing page is doing, but through email. And nowadays with different like CRMs and softwares, you could do more than just emails. So you could, you could do like a phone call or a tax if you have their email. I've seen that that's been big where one of my competitors like in order to download something for free, you have to give them their phone number and the email. And they started doing that where they'll put you through like a phone email, where you'll start getting text for, so yeah, I mean, they can get complex, but when you're doing online business essentially. If you want to automate it, that's what you have to get good at is building these funnels. and it just starts with like, what's your goal? What's your end goal? And how do we get that person from here this year through this fall. So you had that kind of like initial setup phase. And then after that it's like pretty automatic, right? Yeah. yeah. So. Once the funnel set up, it's all about it. But it really boils down to what the goal is. Right? So I have a funnel where I give something for free and my goal is just to convert. So once somebody converted like, okay, I got the sale. But then I learned what do I do now? Like am I just going to like let that person drop off the face of the earth? So I started creating more funnels where it's like, right, this is my customer funnel. Now I'm going to continue to build the trust, and then I'm going to, continue to build the relationship and continue to show them like new new products, upsell, stuff like that. so if you have like multiple different funnels where you have one that's trying to get somebody to convert, and then you have one where somebody is converted, then you can have one where it's like, this is our top converters, these are our top customers. So let's give these guys a funnel where they get like all these deals. And once those funnels are set up you can just like step back and let it run. So you're running at somebody will download something for free. They'll either purchase or not. If they purchase they go into this funnel, they purchase again, they go into this funnel. If they don't purchasing all of this one, honestly, you can build this web hub funnels. It's like it's literally like a machine. You're building machine essentially, you know, and it's like, how crazy do you want that machine to be? Like, how much hands on do you want to be in? How much hands off do you want to be? If you really want to be hands off, you just spend like a couple of months building these very in-depth funnels. that could last like years. Like if you're sending out an email once every two weeks or once a month, even, you could do a funnel of like 30, 40 different touches that could last like years. You could just sit back for years and just let these customers, well, you know, since let this machine build these customers for you. but the other thing too, is there's a lot of testing involved. you have to test like, you see email, like, I, I spent a lot of time, like, just testing emails. you know, one thing I did find, like I said before, like, people are sorry to relay more to like, that personal feeling. And I found that with emails, you know, like your stereotypical, like, sales email, you know, from, like a clothing company where it's like a web page design and it's like, here's our thing. Yeah, I found for me is just setting them like a straight up email like, hey, this is Cameron, just wanting to check in and let you know that we're working on this and doing this. And I found that that gets more really conversion than like, setting the, the stereotypical emails because again, it's like I saw a video recently of this guy who was talking about that with AI. He thinks that people are going to gravitate to more personal things. and I found that that's true in this field right now is, is people are gravitating to more like personal things than, like you're seeing stereotypical things now, especially if I because if I send out, like a perfectly designed email, somebody might open that, like, oh, I did this like chatbot with this together. Like, this is stupid. If I send them a direct email like this is Cameron, like, here's a video of me talking to you right now. it does so much better. The conversion is crazy. I feel like it's just going to get more and more like that to a point. Well, we'll leave there into that. We'll just be in person again, I think. Yeah. Because the people are just wanting to get like personal. Yeah. The personal. Yeah. So if you like had someone in front of you and I know you say like your younger brother is getting into entrepreneurship and whatnot, but like, you have someone come up to you and be like, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to start my own business. Like, what do I do? Like what would how would you direct them? So I'm a big advocate on the internet, like building online businesses. And why is it so powerful? I think it's it's powerful because you can target a global audience. you can expand it for also like for a personal reason, you get so much freedom. you don't have to spend so much time on your business. So I'm a big advocate for the internet. And what I would tell like somebody, an inspiring entrepreneur is looking at like, the online world, where you could do whatever your passion is, figure out how you can create, like an online business or like something online with that, because you can, reach a global audience. And the other thing I tell them, too, is you have to develop the skills, the internet skills you have to develop, like web design, a little bit of graphic design, little video editing. Because in the beginning stages, you're going to want to be able to like, do all that and work fast. because you don't want to go and like spend money on a freelancer, spend thousands of dollars to build, you know, a video and a product just to find out the product doesn't work. But if you have the skills, you can build something real quick. Test it. Oh, it didn't work. Trash it. Let me build something else so you can. You know what I'm saying? You can, work faster. so once you have those skills, it's all research to like. I spent a lot of time just researching my market. My competitors and the consumer because, like I said, there's are. That's always changing. the way people act online now versus the way they acted, like, even like, three years ago is completely different. And it continues to change, like we see out of TikTok. Like, one thing I like Instagram is we used to have you used to scroll and look at people's pictures. Now people are usually just going through stories because their attention spans are getting shorter. So you have to study all that stuff and be on top of that. That's the biggest say, and. Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest advice. I'd be an entrepreneur. What's the key to entrepreneurship like mentally? Not just like business wise, but like why do you think people fail at entrepreneurship? I would say, I guess the probably giving up, that's been one thing with me, and that's where the passion comes in, is when you're passionate about something. If something doesn't work, like I've done so many different things in this one field that hadn't worked, and if I didn't have that passion for it, I feel like I'd be like, you know what? I'm going to go do web design. I make decent money doing that. I'll go do that. But I had that passion. I was like, no, like, I can figure this out. There's other people making all this money doing in this industry, so I could do it. I just had to figure it out. so I feel like it's just, it's a sticking with it and also you have to you kind of have to have like a tough mindset where you have to not really care what people think. Because like when you go into entrepreneurship, there's no guarantee. It's kind of scary. And a lot of people around you will, if they care about you, they'll they'll direct you away from it because they don't want you to go into a scary unknown that might not work out. Yeah, they'll discourage you. Yeah. so you kind of have to you have to have that tough mindset, and you have to just be like, you have to be dedicated. And, that's big is like, I'm going to do this. This is what I'm going to do. And if it doesn't work, I'm going to keep going until it works out. that's what I've done. And I feel like that's, that's a big one. How long did it take you to start seeing success? so I started in the music space, I guess you could say, like, the web design was kind of success because, like, I was making money. but in the music space I started when I was 15, it wasn't until I was like, maybe 19, 20 years old where I was seeing, like, results, before that, like, I'd see a little better results, but it was nothing where it was like I could live off of it or it did. It hit me where it's like, oh, I can actually do this. so it's like me, like I saw in like five years. How were you able to stick with it through that time? Like, I see people that they feel like they're failing after a couple of months and they jump back to a 9 to 5. How do you stick with it for five years without seeing the results? so there's a passion, but also for me, I just I've really been I've had a lot of like ambition and motivation and I've kind of had like a burning desire, like in my body where, where, I knew like, I had to entrepreneurship was like for me. And I knew that. So no matter what I was doing in those five years, if I was working a job, my, my, like, my whole aura was like, I'd need to, you know, do entrepreneurship. I would hate working. And I'd go back home. I had to figure this out. so I think, like, you have to have, like, a lot of determination and motivation. You have to have like, that fire to, like, really do it makes with a little bit of passion. What pulled you towards entrepreneurship as opposed to like an alternative? when I was 15 years old, man, I had like, I had like a realization where, it's like a long story, but, like growing up, like a lot of my family and close friends, they just, that we weren't poor, but, like, we weren't rich. and I just watched, like, my family and my friends work so hard and, like, just live. Barely make it by. And they didn't have any free time. I saw, like, what it did to them. Like it just, like, tore them down. And that's what I kind of like, the fire. So I had to come. I was like, I don't not only do I not want to live this lifestyle, like I want to have freedom, but I also want like the people around me to have freedom. And when I started with that mindset, like kicked it, I started studying, okay, who who out there has this type of freedom that I want. And I just started studying those people and like 100% of them were all entrepreneurs. So, that's where I, where it came in, where I was like, this is what I have to do. And this is why I have to follow this is the power. and that's the time I just had passion for music. So I was like, this is this is where I'ma stick with for now and, see where it goes. Is there anyone that you, like to like, recommend as, like an example, like anyone that you paid attention to or utilize as a mentor that's like popular that people could like, find online. And you know, that you got good insights from, any books or anything like that. So when I was researching, I started with books. The first book I read was Thank You Grow Rich. And the reason why is because I literally Google search. While I Google search, I realized that the mind is like very powerful and the mind is like an inner drive your whole life. So I knew like, how do I how do I condition my mind to like, be rich? So I literally Google search like how to think rich and Think and Grow Rich came up and that was the first book. And then I got into like podcasts, like one of the biggest ones was this podcast Impact Theory. where they just have like all these entrepreneurs on and you could get insights from all these entrepreneurs, which is good because you can see what's common between all of them. And that's what I was paying attention to. I was like, what's the common thread between all these guys that I can adopt? which was mostly I would say it was it was mindset. It was that mindset. And also that motivation of like not giving up because you would hear these stories and how these guys went through all this stuff never gave up. and how they had that mindset kept that mindset. And they kept trying new things until something hit. so yeah, those were the and that's what people don't like, realize is like they focus so much time on these, like, collaterals and like the product and all these things and like, they never get out and like, really start doing it. And it's like such a resilience game, like, yeah, you really I'm a firm believer that where there's a will, there's a way you can succeed at anything that's just like a function of time and like figuring out, like, whatever you do, you're going the the amount of time that you put into it, you're going to figure out how to be successful. It's just like doing it long enough that you learn what are those, like key things that drive that success, that was that was one of the main things I learned too, was action. And that was honestly one of the reasons why I didn't go to college, because, I learned how to do web design on YouTube, like, before that I was just thinking I was like, wow, that's in college for four years, just learning all this random stuff where I could jump in right now, take that action right now and figure it out as I go. and that's why I did. And for me, like, that's what worked is just taking action. And that's, that's one of the biggest things I would say is, as an entrepreneur is you can't sit around and talk about things, you know what I'm saying? And you have to go out and do it. Yeah. And every day you just have to get up and do it and do it. Do it. so yeah. How do you define success? Like if you look around, you're like like when you when will, you know, like, I've made it. that's kind of tough for me because like, when I first started out, like I said, like I want to have freedom. I want to have the people around me, and I have freedom. So that was always like my definition of success is like, let me get to this level where I like, free people around me are free. I don't know, I, I feel like it boils down to to is like this just, like, how do you like, how are you on a daily basis, right? Like, is this something that you're doing that you like to do, or do you not like doing it on say so for me right now? Like I have freedom. A couple of people around me, I have freedom. So I question that a lot where I'm like, have I already made it? But I'm like, I keep going because I just love doing like I'm I'm addicted to it. So I'm just like, I that's why I keep going. I think it's like being a junkie, like, yeah. So that that's a question that I value myself is like, when's it enough? you know, when is it enough? maybe never enough. Yeah. I don't think it will be. Yeah. So what? What, like advice, final advice would you give to, like, our audience, like, entrepreneurs that, are, like, maybe thinking about taking the leap into entrepreneurship. Final advice? do it. Don't wait. Yeah, just do it. The time is now. figure out why you're doing it and make sure that that wise is powerful enough to create that fuel in you and just do it. Don't talk about it. Don't, though, you know, listen to other people's opinions about it. Just do it. And, if there's anything you want to plug, like where can people find you or do your websites like Clark audio.com. Clark audio.com. That's where it all is. and they can hit you up and find you through there. Yeah. I mean, my Instagram is KamKand then cartoon car t, and, that's really it. All right, brother. Well, I appreciate you coming on. That was a lot of really great. And so it's our brother. Thanks for having me. All right, guys, well, that wraps up episode 12 of Shaken Hands. I'm your host, Jack Moran. You can find me on Instagram at Blue Collar Kid. That is Blue Collar KEHD. If you have any suggestions for guests or questions you want to ask, feel free to reach out to me. But other than that, tune in next time for some more interesting gas and conversations. So yeah.