This is everyone’s ideal situation, because having your own business allows you to make your own money. You no longer need to drain your time or energy at a company that you could care less about. Scott in your introduction, and one of the main reason you started this group, you mentioned how you tried to jump head first into your own business, but it didn’t quite work as planned… Could you tell your story, where you think you went wrong, what you learned, and honestly this is the most important question… after failing, how did you forgive yourself, how long did it take for you to be ready to try again. I ask that question because I feel most people don’t talk about the mental and emotional bandwidth that happens when you run a business.

Just like my idea to save a couple of bucks on my web domain, I had the bright idea to go shop all the bonus offers for opening bank accounts at various banks. I found one that had a $450 bonus, so I opened that account to use as my business account. (yes, I'll need to wait 90 days to get my money, but free money is free money.) How is this a mistake? Well it isn't in and of itself. The idea is fine. What is tough is transferring funds between that account and my personal account ("paying myself"). When I transfer funds from account to account WITH THE SAME INSTITUTION, the money moves instantly and I can use it as needed. But now that I have a new account at a DIFFERENT bank, the transfer is taking several days, and the funds are just "gone" - not available for use in either account until the transaction is completed. Thankfully, this hasn't caused me too many real problems (overdrafts, NSF, etc), but it certainly could. So in my attempt to get a few extra bucks for free, I have created a drag on funds available. Sure, I could learn to live with it and just account for the extra time, but when things move at the speed of business, I want to be ready to act immediately. Takeaway: Consider how one decision can impact other areas of your life and your business. Chasing the shiny object can cause otherwise well-oiled processes in your business to start rusting. Just be careful. Me? I'll likely end up closing this account and opening a separate one at my current bank - you know, AFTER they pay me my $450. 8^P

I've been using Chat GPT quite a lot lately. It has been useful for everything from exploring business names, researching competitors, forecasting business projections, creating social media posts, AI image generation, and a whole lot more. It has been insanely helpful. But the more I use it, the more I am becoming aware of its limitations and its ability to "lie" to me, particularly about its own capabilities. It has been super frustrating to have Chat GPT tell me that it can do a given task and then ask for round after round of clarification from me, only to ultimately tell me that it can't actually do the task. This is a huge waste of time and my expectation of getting work done. The biggest issue I found was Chat GPTs limited ability to remember the contents of one chat inside another. It can remember things like your name, things you like, things you've discussed, likes, etc. From Chat GPT: ---------- "You’re right to be annoyed. The reason is: the “memory” tool is not designed for massive structured data. It’s designed for simple user preferences Example of what memory likes: - “call me Scott” - “I like woodworking” - “my business sells furniture” Not: - “here is a 700-page operational franchise system with ADA compliance rules and SEL mapping and municipal procurement decks” It’s like trying to store an elephant in a backpack." ---------- That's when I decided to build my own custom GPT, and I am suuuuuper happy with the results. It took about 10 days for me to fully describe every aspect of my new business to Chat GPT, have it ask me questions to fill in any holes, and then compile it all into a "Knowledge Base" for my new custom GPT to draw from. The result? I uploaded 13 documents totaling well over 1,600 pages, plus created instructions for how the GPT should use the information they contain to answer my questions. As a result, it can now create templates, documents, contracts, marketing collateral, forecasts & projections, training manuals, checklists, SOPs, job descriptions, and a ton more. All of these things are measured against the documents I've uploaded so that they remain consistent across all future chats that use this GPT.

This Skool journey is really helping me with something I've struggled with a lot in the past. I'm something of a perfectionist. This sounds cool, like I have high expectations for myself (which I do), but what it actually means is that I am often the victim of self-sabotage because I'll make every excuse not to release something because it is not yet "perfect." Well in Module 1 in the Classroom, I have talked about just getting started rather than worrying about making your very best builds your first business product offering. It is much better to get something built and sold, generating both revenue, and importantly, feedback. This has been the case with the videos I have recorded for this group. I cringe at how amateurish they are. Low production value. Bad lighting. Goofy looking guy. You get it. But hopefully some valuable content that can help you with your new woodworking business. Rather than re-recording and over-editing my videos a thousand times until they would make professionals in the field drool, I just want to get them out there. Get started. I know I will get better at scripting, performing, lighting, recording, editing, etc. over time. And I may even choose to one day go back and re-record these early videos after I've got more of a clue what I'm doing. But that's not why you are here. The business of woodworking is much more important than putting out polished videos at this point. And helping others get a start with a solid foundation is THE point, right? So I'm happy to announce that I am (with great struggle) taking my own advice, and prioritizing progress over perfection. It is helping me get started here, just as it can help you get started wherever you are at.

I thought I would be slick and try to save myself a few bucks by shopping different registrars in order to reserve the domain for my new business website. I have been hosting on Squarespace for a few years and already know their platform, so that's where I intend to host this site as well. However, I decided to see if prices were the same across different companies, just for the domain purchase. I looked through several different sites and then found that GoDaddy had the cheapest domain price for my domain (different domain names can cost different amounts, depending on how popular or in-demand they might be.). Well I though I was being a savvy shopper by doing this, so I bought the domain through GoDaddy. Then I tried to transfer it over to Squarespace. That's when I learned the first important lesson of this story... You have to wait 60 days before you can transfer a domain. Doh! Well here we are, 60 days later, and I went ahead with the transfer, only to find out that Squarespace is going to charge me for the transfer! $14! So in an effort to save $6 on a domain, I ended up having to wait 2 months before I could even use it, and then it cost me another $14 on top of that. So, saving $6 actually cost me about $54 (the $8 difference, plus about $23/month in hosting that I couldn't use). Takeaway: Don't be as cheap as I tried to be. Just take the easy way and don't overcomplicate things.