Karlton Hoskins - July 2, 2019
There are nearly 30 million businesses in the US. Of that, only 14% of them generate more than $250k annually. If you are in the 14%, this article may not be something you need, unless you don’t have a team of experts. As for the other 86% of you business owners, understand the difference between you and the 14% is that they have experts on their team.
If you take anything away from this information it should be that it requires business experts to help you build a sustainable business. You can not do it alone and you shouldn’t.
You may have been in business for several years or just starting out, the faster you add experts to your team, the more efficiently you will be able to create a sustainable business.
Many business owners use the term success and sustainable synonymously. So, let’s clear up that misconception first.
For some business leaders, success is defined by monetary rewards, while others say success is having a positive impact on others. Success then, is clearly a subjective impression and perspective.
Sustainability, on the other hand, is not subjective as seen in the definition of success.
Sustainability is defined as; the ability to maintain at a certain performance rate or level. "the sustainability of economic growth".
Now that we are on the same page about building a sustainable business, let’s get to the meat and potatoes. No offense to my vegans.
You don’t need money to add business experts to your business team.
Let's talk about business and the building blocks for your business that help ensure it is, will be , and will remain sustainable.
For all that you may feel the need to solicit expert advice: Great. Even better, you don't need ….
If you’re reading or hearing this, then you are 1 of almost 28 million businesses classified as a solopreneur. You are most likely of the mindset that you need money to pay for experts to join your team.
Well, frankly, you don’t.
You may even be thinking, “but, I’m not willing to give away my entire company!” And indeed you shouldn’t. That’s to say you shouldn’t give away all of it. However, there are smart ways to add powerful experts to your business team.
The results, when executed correctly, are amazing! And yes, I am speaking from my own personal experience. Not something I read or heard from some guru.
Almost 3 years ago, the co-founder of iDue Systems and I came up with an idea to solve the business failure rate epidemic in the US. Like most people we’ve spoken to over the year you too are probably wondering, “what epidemic?”
The epidemic we refer to is the fact that 20% of startups fail in the first year. 50% of startups don’t make it to year 5. And the fact that 99% of our economy is supported by small business, but yet, 86% of businesses in the US don’t generate more than $250k in gross revenue annually. 
Here is what the epidemic looks like in a graph, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Maybe you’re thinking, well that’s not an epidemic. Well let’s put this in a perspective that everyone can understand. Entrepreneurs consider their business, service, and/or product as their baby. So let’s look at it with a human analogy. If 20% of babies born in the US every year died before they turned 1 year old, would that be considered an epidemic? If 50% of the babies born this year died before they turned 5 years old, would you consider that an epidemic? What if 86% of babies bones and muscles stopped growing at the age of 7 and they were forced to go through the rest of their lives in a 7 year old body? Would that be an epidemic?
Well, that is exactly what is happening to the businesses in the US and have been doing so since the early 90’s. That’s almost 30 years with no change, but cars can now drive themselves. Needless to say, technology continues to advance, but not the small business ecosystem.
Now that you have a clear view of what we were up against and still are, you need to understand that neither of us are economic majors with Ivy League educations. We set out to understand why this continued to happen and what solutions were available. Almost 6 months of researching later, we’ve concluded the cause of this perpetual epidemic is based on a many facts, 3 of which we see as detrimental. Just to be clear, we’re not laying fault on anyone's doorstep.
Business owners build a business with success in mind, rather than sustainability.
Business owners that desire to build a sustainable business, don’t have tools available to determine which life cycle stage they are in. If you don’t know where you are, how do you get where you're going?
And lastly, there is no roadmap, checklist, or sustainability guide available for business owners and/or experts to use in order to guide the business towards sustainability. Instead, business owners are guided to their personal achievement and understanding of success.
Next, we had to figure how to solve the problem. The answer was easy, software. One major issue though, neither of us knew how to write one single line of code. I can make excel dance a little bit, but that’s stretching it. So now, our complete focus turned to the immediate issue, how do we code this thing? Here are just a few of the solutions we considered.
Hire a programmer
Learn programming
Walk away and scrap the idea
As for hiring a programmer, that wasn’t going to work because we had no money, GOOSE-EGG, to pay for a programmer.
Learning how to program has crossed my mind several times and still today I plan on learning how to code. But at that point, our mindset was that going to school would cost money, self education would produce an inferior result and someone would beat us to the market. Now, whether that was true or not, that’s what we thought. I’m sure there are some gurus out there saying, yeah, you should of went to school and learned how to code.
They may be right, but we took another route.
Today, iDue Systems has many partners. We’ve partnered with Teplar software development company who is our development team for all software needs. They’re awesome and we wouldn’t have Pillar Five without them. Our AWESOME CEO, Dr. Natalie Forest. Yup! Doctor. I won’t name the entire team, but you get the point that the entire team are experts in their field. Oh, and our software was developed beyond our expectations.
What did we pay for this? 
Equity and/or benefits of our software and relationships.
Some of our partners are shareholders, while others are service partners who were willing to exchange their expert services for our software and relationship.
There is a choice you as a business owner must make. Are you going to be a solo-preneur (self employed) or an entrepreneur?
A solo-preneur runs and operates their business alone. And that situation is often similar to life as an employee…. Emotionally speaking.
An entrepreneur runs and operates their business with a team.
If you weren’t aware, there are no billionaire solo-preneurs. If you think of any Fortune 500 companies owned by a solo-...wait. They wouldn’t be listed on the stock exchange since they would have no board of directors. Scratch that.
The fact is, the most efficient and sensible way to build a sustainable business is with a team of experts. Not your cousin or best friend, unless they are experts. How you choose to add experts to your team is completely up to you. But again, get some help even in doing that. Figure out what works for you and your business.
If you are on a bootstrap budget or like us when we started, no budget at all, then how we accomplished this may be of some help to you and your baby.
The first thing we did was figure out every possible skill we needed, but didn’t have, to build our business. Then we shared our ideas and passion with those we networked with and connected with. Not just those who had the skills we needed, but EVERYONE. Why? Because referrals are awesome! Sometimes the person you’re talking to doesn’t have the skills, but they may know someone who does. And, if they believe in your idea, they will make that introduction.
We didn’t post any ads on social media, though we did reach out to experts on Fiverr. Again, we talked about our idea, the need of an expert, and willingness to create some sort of partnership. We didn’t have a pre-developed format for all of this. Rather than spending time creating various partner type models, we went out and talked to our peers.
Here is the most important thing in building your team.
THEY MUST BELIEVE IN YOUR IDEA!
If their eyes don’t light up or they say anything less than, “OMG! That’s something I’ve thought about.” Or, “I’ve always wanted to solve that problem.” Then run away, don’t walk.
Don’t waste your time trying to convince someone how great your idea is. Everyone isn’t going to be the right fit. And I must say, this requires getting out and networking with your peers. This isn’t going to happen over night. And it’s very unlikely that everyone you talk to is going to be a great fit for your team.
No matter what, if you lead with your passion, it is either going to become contagious or a repellant.
The bottom line is, find what you love to do and attach it to a purpose you are passionate about. Then, team up with others who have the same passion, purpose, and necessary expertise.
So…”I have no money to afford an expert,” is no longer a reason to not have a team, unless you choose.
If you’re goal is to be an entrepreneur and build a sustainable business, BUILD A TEAM!
Now go be an entrepreneur!