Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with great shows like My First Million.

Today we'll be telling the story of going from broke to tech founder and CEO to drop these vibe bombs, I bought Chris Shang into EO Fire Studios, Chris is a three times founder and growth marketing expert.

Chris worked with over 200 venture back SaaS companies on go to market and growth. Additionally he is a resident growth advisor at Muckercaperal and works closely with other top VC firms and their portfolio companies.

He is currently the CEO of leader pro, the first software marketplace directly catching sellers with buyers of software.

Today's foundation we'll talk about going from making $12 an hour answering phones to launching a startup. We'll talk about validating your idea. We'll talk about some key takeaways from over 800 founders and so much more.

And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Chris in our sponsors.

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Online marketing made easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield is brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business Amy and her guests break down big ideas and strategies and actionable step by step processes in a recent episode Amy talks and Michael Hyatt about science back data on how thoughts influence your success.

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Chris say what's up to fire nation and sure something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

Hey John yeah hey everybody so going back to that question that you just asked something I believe in that's instrumental to success that maybe most people disagree with except for maybe a handful would be.

I think the idea of being back into a corner or starting from scratch. I'm a big believer in like David Goggins and growth tends to come from being in those moments where you are back to get to corner and be personally you know whether that's been you know financially or personally or whatever that might look like you know I think a lot of your most creative ideas tend to come from those types of moments.

Well fire nation we're already off to a fiery start and as I mentioned in the intro we're talking about going from broke to tech founder and CEO and to start off I want to talk about your beginnings Chris because you went from answering phones for 12 bucks an hour to launching a startup tell us that story.

Up until my mid like early to mid 30s I would say it's fairly directionless I started off in finance I did a 180 pivot to to entertainment because that was like a childhood dream in mind so I ended up doing TV and film production which you know for all intensive purposes is is very unstable at best.

And so I ended up having to answer phones at a cancer care clinic just to make ends way for 12 dollars an hour you know going into my early to mid 30s which is super disheartening probably one of my lowest moments in my life and I had fortunately friends that I've known for since high school at that point now 30 plus years but that that we're in the tech scene one had a digital agency and another you know worked for Silicon Valley tech companies.

As project manager manager and they wanted to do this startup called simple talks which was online to aceto rentals and I think just I don't know what it was in terms of like that drove them or motivated them to ask me to participate in it maybe it was like out of pity for my direction list list direction listness but but the eventually like asked me to participate and join and I just really had nothing else better going at the time and and that's how I started my first.

For a entrepreneurship and I haven't turned back since you know I think for all purposes like I didn't have anything really to fall back on so this was kind of like all full ghost team ahead kind of deal but there is that epiphany moment in going to that first start of experience that I think is super important for a lot of entrepreneurs or watch printers out there which is you know you can pretty much build anything with code and that's set in that sense matrix the matrix is real I think there's creator.

There's consumers and you can choose which side of the spectrum you want to be on the matrix is real fire nation we just need to accept it it's real and listen Chris a lot of my listeners are entrepreneurs are small business owners are want your panewars are coming up with their side hustle right now they have ideas fire nation is full of ideas but how could we validate if the idea that we have right now in our mind is good.

Yeah I think simplicity focus on percentages and what I mean by that is like start with you know people that are around you to start understanding how you're going to pitch that business idea and then start working outside of that circle further further out of it from you know warm to cold cold intro is a cold audiences and that way allows you to refine your messaging over time answer you're not starting off you know talking to a cold audience and then try to get feedback on it.

But you're starting you know from from friendlies and by doing so you know when you get to that outside circle and starting to talk to cold audiences which are essentially you know prospectively would look like a good fit as a customer for you on paper you start looking at percentages so if you talk to say 10 people.

Three people say that's a great idea I would pay money for you know you might be on to something but then validated even further so talk to another 10 if that percentage holds true over time.

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