Just Get Started: Todd Kuhn on Why Naivety Beats Overthinking, Bootstrapping Without Loans & Building a Business You Actually Love

SPEAKER_00 1:01

This is an Undiscovered Legacy Production and prod member of Pod Nation Media Network.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Analysis causes paralysis, I find, with a lot of people. It's the the what-ifs and the I can't do this, or the imposter syndrome of I'm not good enough to be able to do that yet, or who am I to be able to do this, I think is the the biggest the the biggest barrier. And it's interesting. I've I know so many people that are really successful, yet if you asked the people that were around them when they were 16, 17, 18, they would have probably had the opinion that that person would not be successful at all. Almost to a point where their naivety or their just being brave or not overcomplicating things has allowed them to be super, super successful.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Are you ready to unlock your entrepreneur potential? Are you ready to break free from all the barriers holding you back? Then you've come to the right place. Welcome to the Undiscovered Entrepreneur, your first step in getting across the start line. Let's get across that start line together. Right here, right now, on the Undiscovered Entrepreneur. Salutations, Scoobile Leavers, and we are here again with another amazing entrepreneur. Today we're here with Todd. Hey Todd, how's it going?

SPEAKER_01 2:27

I'm very well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Absolutely thank you. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to be on the Undiscovered Entrepreneur get across the start line and super appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Now, your time of day is a little different than my time of day right now. Where are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

No, I'm in Dallas. I'm in Dallas.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Oh, I thought you were in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

No, no, no, no, no, not now.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Oh, okay.

unknown 2:50

Great.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

And it's gone. Okay. So all right. So yeah, thank you so much for being an Undiscovered Entrepreneur. Super appreciate you. What I'd like to do here at the very beginning is just ask you a semi-serious question, okay?

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

All right, here we go. Are you a school believer?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

I am most definitely a school believer.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

All right, yay! Todd's a school believer. Thank you, Todd, for being a school believer. That's awesome. Thank you so, so much. All right. So, right here, I'd like to know exactly kind of who you are, what your entrepreneur adventure is, and how you got across the start line in your entrepreneur adventure.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yes, yes. Very interesting background and story. So I um uh started out as a person that wanted to go to university and get a degree and thought that I'd tow the line and follow the steps to become a businessman of some sort. I wasn't sure what it was. I just wanted to wear a shirt and tie and carry a briefcase. Um, and then after graduating and finding a graduate position, I was in it for uh all of six months before I realized this is this just isn't for me. And then uh I at the time I was sort of at a crossroads of what what do I do? I my father wanted me to do something with him, but my girlfriend at the time, I she was right into Pilates and she had been in introduced and asked to um become an instructor by her instructor, and then from there, uh six months later, we were running classes all around our town, 40 classes a week, and then uh realized that okay, that's I don't want to be an office, office worker, I don't want to be a business, I want to be a businessman, and uh let's just do the best that we can at a young age. We're only 20, 20, 21 at the time. Um, we went all in and and opened our first uh Pilates yoga studio, and uh the the rest is history, it's just built around that initially, and then uh uh got into opening a second location. I've just always had a uh a yearning for getting better and learning along the way.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

That's fantastic. I kind of had a similar thing too when I was growing up. I wanted to be a businessman, I wanted to wear the suit and tie, and you know, talk talk on the phone the same time I'm driving and doing a bunch of stuff all the same time and making money because I thought that's how it was supposed to be. I didn't for a while, for 16 years, I was a car salesman. So, like I was kind of in that business area. I had a couple family members that were car salesmen, so I figured that was a place to go for a while. I thought that was the right thing. Um, no, I'm in a completely different world, but it's amazing to me how we could have that kind of almost instilled as instilled in us as children to be the picture of success. That's what success is supposed to look like, and it's not really true.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

No, it most definitely isn't. And uh I think uh it's interesting even with my own children now to see some have chosen the path of following that oh yeah, I'll do this and take go to the next step and the next step to become this. Others are like, I'll just see where the wind takes me, and something will something I'll I'll find something that I love doing, and I'll just navigate through that learning process and and you kind of know that yet you will be successful because you're taking that that approach.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah, I mean, we all have at one point or another were told uh degree equals success. And especially nowadays, that's not I really don't think that's the case anymore.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

100%. It's um definitely a a changing environment now where you've got kids that can be 14 or 15 learning AI things or hustling selling on Shopify or eBay or or Facebook marketplace and earning great deals of income for just learning skills through YouTube or or where whatever means that you have, which I think is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

YouTube University, that's that's where I learned the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

But that that's where a lot of people are going now. We we have such an abundance of information that's so easily attainable now that it's almost kind of crazy not to take advantage of something like that, no matter what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

100%. Oh, and the interesting thing, uh, you know, I speak to so many people in a week during the week that want to open their own business or open their own Pilates studio, and it's um you can learn all the theory too, but then it's just putting it into practice. That's the the biggest step. Like you can absorb so much and and read up on and research, but until you actually take that step and go, okay, I'm gonna implement one of or two of these things, and that's gonna catapult me forward so far that uh it's my biggest with my own children, but with people that I speak to as well. It's like it's all good that you're learning this, but let's put something into practice and start making a making our way towards the goal.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Exactly. We can learn as much as we want, when we want, how we want, but it's what we do with the information that we've been given is what makes us successful, or just waiting on the sidelines for something to happen to us. We have to take the as entrepreneurs, we have to take the initiative to get across the start line and to make that first step, whatever it might be, definitely to do what we need to do.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Definitely. And you know, it might what you have in your mind's eye mightn't be exactly the path that you follow, but it everything is another door that's opening. So it is like a choose your own adventure book in some ways that you get to a point where you've got the option to go this way or this way, and you choose this way, and you might be a learning down that door, and then you get yourself back onto that path. I think that's it's that's an awesome journey as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Good or bad, it doesn't matter, it's gonna be an adventure.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, exactly. And there's so many learnings from it about yourself and about everything else within the world, which is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah, you're definitely gonna learn about a lot about yourself and how you know your mind works. I know that I experienced a lot of that when I was first getting started too. Um, I had very serious imposter syndrome, I didn't know how to get over it or around it, and it took me somebody, it took somebody to say something to me that made me kind of think, wow, that is kind of different than I had to think about for giving a different perspective, and sometimes that's what it takes. Definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

And taking on that feedback too, you know, like not as a personal attack, but as like feedback that you can grow with, I think is one of the critical pieces.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

It's it's so easy to take feedback as some like a negative thing, right? Oh, they don't like me, or or they, they, they, they, they. But what it really is, is how you perceive yourself. Yes. And how you perceive how you take in uh the information is what makes you who you are. Definitely. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

And you know, understanding that you may not be everyone's cup of tea, but you'll find your tribe, and then they'll be the people that'll be cheering for you or rooting for you and when you're in your successes and there for you to a shoulder to cry on when you you when you need it to.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah, surround yourself with those good people. It's so important to be able to find those good people they're gonna cheer you on. A lot of times, though, the tribe will find you before you find them if you do it the right way.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yes. All right. So, what do you think stops most entrepreneurs from getting across the start line? I mean, we've experienced yeah, exactly. I mean we've experienced so many different things, but what do you think more than anything else?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Uh the the mind, I think the the old saying of you know, uh analysis called c causes paralysis, I find with a lot of people. It's the the what ifs and the oh I can't do this, or the imposter syndrome of I'm not good enough to be able to do that yet, or who am I to be able to do this? Um, I think is the the biggest the the biggest barrier. And it's interesting. I've I know so many people that are really successful, yet if you asked the people that were around them when they were 16, 17, 18, they would have probably had the opinion that that person would not be successful at all, almost to a point where their their naivety or their their uh just being brave or not overcomplicating things has allowed them to be super, super successful.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Absolutely. Getting caught up with the what ifs, I I that's definitely a big one because a lot of times people will go, well, what if it doesn't work, or what if it fails, or what if this and what if that? But what if we change that? Well, what if what if we change that into a different way? Of what if it does happen? What if it does work? What if it does become successful? We won't know until we get take that first step and get going.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

All right. So do you think that's the same thing that happened to you when you were first getting started too? I mean, what kind of difficulties did you have when you first got started?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Oh, I mean, so many difficulties with uh funds like uh, as I said, we're only 20, and the the the first commercial lease that we signed was over 100,000 per year to fit it out would cost a lot. And we did that all through our own own money, no loans, no anything. Um, so kind of I I guess having that naivety, but also having like a I think risk is is calculated, like people would say, Oh, you're a risk taker. But it's like if you if one, if you believe in what you're doing, and two, if there is a market for what you're doing, it is such a calculated risk that it's like what as you said, uh using the what if what if it does fail? Like what what is that the end of the world? You learn so much from it, and then you can just pick it back up and go again anyway.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Exactly. And it's what we do with that what if information or the information we gather from those negative experiences we have that make us who we are. But you got to understand it's a calculated risk, it's not just a risk, it's something we think about and and do the research on and do our due diligence before we take before we take the risk, before we take the jump, before we do anything else, we have to make sure we know what we're actually getting into. If you just make the jump, yeah, your your failure rate is going to be exponential because you didn't know it real thing. You just did if you did just the jump, then you probably did it for just the money.

unknown 13:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

More times than not, those types of jumps fail.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah. Or may they may have short-term success, but then long term, there's there's no longevity to it.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

And then eventually you're burnt out, or you just realize you're you just got into something that you really don't want to be doing, and then now you're too far into it where you kind of get stuck a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

And that's interesting that you say that, because I speak to so many people that uh even friends, where they've done that with a with a a job where they've got into this role that is ends up paying very well, and they're really comfortable and they hate what they're doing and they want to do something about it, but then it's like I'm kind of trapped because I'm getting this great income, even though I hate it. It's like I've got a good income, but I hate what I'm doing every day. So it's like, would is it better just to cut ties and say, okay, do the research and make take some action, and you'll probably replace that income and be happy along the way.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

But never forget you can always go back to at least it's something you know, or there's some kind of uh tool or something that you learned that people will still want. So you can always fall back on that, but at the same time, we want to move forward, yeah. You know, and that kind of thing. I I find it interesting that you bootstrapped your first kind of thing. So if we if we wanted to bootstrap something, what would be the first kind of couple of steps we would want to make sure we take?

SPEAKER_01 15:12

So that the e in my scenario, it was it was kind of like a test of the market. So when we were running these classes throughout the different locations, like scout halls and and community halls and whatnot, it that was really testing the market to see, okay, is there an appetite for this within the market? With not really any, I guess, financial risk in some ways, because we were advertising, yes, we're running at this location and this location. And we knew that if we were getting 10, 15, 20 people a week at that location, that that would be getting us $200 income. And if it was us teaching a class, we it wouldn't be costing anything, but we'd have to pay for a hire of a hall or a higher of a community uh community center or whatever it was. So we knew, okay, well, there's there's margin there that if worst case scenario, four people turn up, we're still covering our costs, and then we just built and built and built. But I think that test of the market is also vital, like seeing, okay, is there an appetite for my service or my product? Okay, once we've got to that point, okay, from here, what are the next steps to make this like a bit uh a larger endeavor?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Awesome, that's great. Yeah, take those first steps, test the market, put your toe in the water, see if it's warm. Yep. Yeah and then go from there. Uh but it's a it's also important not to overlearn your area. I mean, you you start learning stuff that you might need and wasting valuable brain space or brain calories or however you want to say it on stuff you probably won't even use. So instead of doing that, learn what you need for now and then learn as you go.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Well, and I think that is actually also a super important thing of the continuously learning. You don't need to know it all to start. You'll learn so much along the way that then it'll just compound and compound and compound, which is and then you're a master at whatever whatever journey that you're on.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

And it helps to kind of niche it down to what that journey is going to be, too, because if you're too broad, now you're learning so much of everything else. Yeah, you're kind of running into the same problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

So um, I know that uh my virtual mentor Pat Flynn just finished writing a book called Lean Learning. And it basically touches on that. It touches on learning as you go, just learning what you need now instead of just in case learning, you're doing just in time learning.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, right. Yes. Japanese production for uh the terminology is there.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Couple, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. All right, so um, I know you've been on a couple of podcasts before. I'm sure you've heard what was your biggest pitfall, what was your biggest problem, blah, blah, blah, blah. What I'd like to know is, and I gotta put a little twist on it, is what is the one pitfall that you're proud of? I'm so glad I went through this negative thing because on the other side of this pitfall or problem, something so amazing came out of it that I'm glad I did it.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Okay, that's it. This isn't business related, but it is business related. I was actually a relationship breakdown, a divorce, actually, that um made me reflect internally of who I was and what I stood for, and also um allowed me to step into who I could be. So going from uh, I guess an operator to a uh like a CEO mindset. Um, and that would probably be the same thing, like of being constantly an operator and not thinking like a not not thinking or working like a CEO.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Well, you need to have the room to be able to think that way.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

You know, definitely when you're when you're working in an operator, there's a lot of things coming at you that you don't have time or room in your head to be able it's those brain calorie things again we're talking about earlier. But just yeah, once you remove the fluff, once you remove the stuff that you don't need to deal with, then you're able to to have the brain of a CEO and make those very, very important and necessary decisions for you and your company.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Definitely, definitely. I agree 100%. All right.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So, and you know, you're the first person to actually have that same situation too that I've interviewed.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

It just turned out to be it just turned out to be for the better. So don't, you know, don't stress over it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd like to know here, if you came across a brand new entrepreneur that's just getting started, not necessarily in Pilates and that kind of thing, but like in general, what's one good solid piece of advice would give them? What would their be what would their first step be, you think?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

The f I'm I'm big on I'm so big my wife says I'm like the hype man because I I I can get excited about anything. What if someone is saying that they want to sell marbles? I get excited about the potential of being able to for them to sell marbles. So it all gets back to me of calculated risk and then actually just getting started. Just just that that gets me so I get so excited when I see people that want to take that leap. And I'm like, just just do it. Do it in your spare time after after after your normal job. Just get started with something, and then things will start to roll to a point where you'll be able to take off.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Yeah, you don't necessarily have to quit your nine to five job right away.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

No way.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

There's really no not really a great big reason to be able to do it until you get to that point where whatever you're doing and whatever income you're making on your on your part and your um your side hustle equals or or exceeds what you're making on your nine to five. That's when you know you're getting to that point where you can maybe start thinking about you know, maybe going part-time in your business or maybe getting rid or get going part-time in your nine to five job, yeah. And maybe start concentrating a little bit more. But the experiences yet you have doing that is gonna be just as important as you making that money, too. Because now you're gathering experiences, it you meet people and it happens, it doesn't just like it's it's so interesting to me that when I first got started, I automatically started running into people that are doing the same thing I am. Yeah, and it was like an automatic thing. And I I thought that I would be competition or they wouldn't want to talk to me because you know they don't know who I am. But the more I did things, the more I realized I made these connections and I started meeting those people that wanted to be able to help me more than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah, and I think that's an interesting thing that in in a human being, we actually want to be empathetic and we want to help people. But you're right, so many people have this that guard up of thinking that, oh, no one will want to help me. I'm all alone, I'm isolated. But you start meeting these people where they can help you in this area, they can help you with this, and it just starts to to snowball as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

And to uh it's snowball into whatever you know. I had during last year or the year before, I had this analogy where we start out as a snowflake. Well, we get a bunch of those snowflakes, we make a snowball, and we make enough snowballs. we can roll it up and turn it into a snowman.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

And then that's our that's the way we think about our business too. Because the more the more flakes get together, the bigger the snowball is until you make that snowman, which is, you know, whatever it is you wanted it to be in the beginning. So I'm glad you put that together like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

All right. So I have a tradition with all my guests. In the next six months, where do you see yourself in your company? Do you have a goal for yourself in the next six months?

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah, the next six months we we've uh when I say recently we've we're in the last two years we've done a lot more business in the US and we've got a great product that we're always refining. And that's the other thing even with the product based business is always trying to get better or make it better and make our service better. So we we really want to focus on uh dialing in the the everything to do with that to make it the best that it possibly can be but also our service that we uh how we're servicing our clients and and the training and the the support that we can offer them as a is it at an all-time high. And so our goal income is to double our income but also along the way is we want people to be a part of this journey with us. So finding really great team members that want to uh tie into the values of our business and grow with us is super important for me as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Alright awesome so you want to double the income and get some new team members to work behind you. Yeah exactly all right so what I like to do with you Todd if it's okay is I'd like to follow up with you in six months and have another interview just like this. I'd love that and see what you've learned over those six months and see if we were able to make a team that's that's going to stand behind you like you say and see where we're at in that whole income thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I'd really like that all right because now you're not just accountable to me you're accountable to all my school believers out there so no pressure.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Exactly we like pressure.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Alright Tom this is your time to shine this is the time I want you to advertise yourself how we get a hold of you and all that good stuff. Okay ready? Set a go we're on so we're available at the corecollabusa.com and also sculptreformer.com which is our number one product for people that are looking to open modern reformer studios you can follow me there and on socials under the the core collab USA all right and you can also look into the show notes uh and find information there or you can go to my website where my customer customer my guest information is there on my website Todd thank you so much for being on the Undiscovered entrepreneur this has been an absolutely pleasure to be able to talk to you about things and I look forward to talking to you in six months okay too thank you so much absolutely all right school believers make sure you stay tuned for the wrap up okay everybody thank you bye bye all right school believers that was Todd Todd thank you so much for being on the Undiscovered entrepreneur get across the start line we learned so much about you and your business and how you actually got across the start line you did some amazing things but school believers as usual I do have a couple of takeaways I want to make sure that you caught and this is really big for me because a lot of times especially for me too the people nobody actually expects to succeed is actually the one that does. Not because they knew more but because they weren't scared enough by what they didn't know to stop themselves from starting sometimes it's kind of good to not know exactly what you're getting into. That way you don't get in your head about things but it takes a certain quality person you to get across the start line and start something even though you don't know everything about it but you know you love it. You know it's something that's in your zone of genius. If it fits in your zone of genius get across the start line and take action now even though you might not know everything about it you just know enough that you love it. A calculated risk is not so much as a leap of faith as it is a leap of evidence. And the entrepreneur who tests the market before committing is not being confident whether being smart enough to let the reality make the decision instead of fear. A lot of us looking at things from the outside normal people as the entrepreneur might think we're taking these huge risks but in actuality it's not so much as a risk as it is a leap of faith with evidence we are taking the information that we're given and we understand that this is the guideline. This is what we need to do to be able to start our entrepreneur adventure but we're not so much as making a distinction of jumping into the chasm without understanding what we're doing. As I said it's a decision of what we're doing based on the evidence that we've been given. And once we hit that threshold then we make that leap don't be fooled by other people taking that leap and succeeding and think they just made a leap into nothingness. There's a reason they made that leap. Understand that reason and your business will succeed and with that I'm going to say thank you Screwbelievers for another fantastic episode just a quick announcement I did get in to Podfest to be able to speak on stage again this next year coming up but I will also be talking on a virtual stage coming up in December for another entrepreneur group. Keep an eye out for more details on that how you can attend to see not just me but a whole lot of other entrepreneurs out there that have a message along with me. Alright school believers thank you bye-bye and there you have it future entrepreneurs we've taken a vital step on the journey across the start line remember every great business begins with a single idea and the courage to pursue it. And you've already shown that courage just by being here today. As we wrap up this episode of the undiscovered entrepreneur get across the start line I want you to reflect on the path you have to recognize the four hurdles of stock is it imposter syndrome holding you back? Is it perfectionism failure or fear? Identifying which one affects you the most is the key to unlocking your momentum. But here's the real secret the hurdles are not in the way they are the way every time you clear one you're building the exact strength you need for your journey ahead. Until our next episode keep pushing keep dreaming and keep jumping over those hurdles this is Scoob your guide across the start line remember your future is waiting I can I am I will and I'm doing it today