How to Know If You're Cut Out for Entrepreneurship Before You Risk Everything, with Grant Sabatier

Afford Anything

Paula Pant | Cumulus Podcast Network

Entrepreneurship, Business, Investing

4.6 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2025

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Grant Sabatier never worked in retail, never worked in a bookstore, and had no idea what he was doing when he opened Clintonville Books in Columbus, Ohio. But that's exactly the point. The experiment required 1,200 hours of solo work — measuring spaces, moving 40,000 books, and navigating city regulations. But it taught him something crucial: even experienced entrepreneurs face steep learning curves when they try something new. The serial entrepreneur and author of "Inner Entrepreneur" joins us to share his unconventional journey from online businesses to brick-and-mortar retail. He also explains why he believes everyone will become an entrepreneur within the next decade — whether they want to or not. We dive deep into Sabatier's framework for the four stages of entrepreneurship. The first stage is experimental — you're figuring out how entrepreneurship feels and testing ideas with minimal risk. Most people skip the crucial research phase and invest too much money too quickly. The second stage focuses on building sustainable systems as a solopreneur. Thanks to AI and modern tools, Sabatier launched a new website in 10 minutes recently — something that would have taken two weeks just five years ago. Stage three involves intentional growth. Sabatier warns against the common trap of scaling rapidly without considering how you want entrepreneurship to fit into your life. The final stage is empire entrepreneurship — using cash flow from successful businesses to acquire other companies rather than investing in traditional assets like stocks or real estate. Throughout our conversation, we explore the most common reasons businesses fail, how to avoid fragmented attention, and why Sabatier believes your story is your competitive advantage in an AI-driven world. Timestamps: Note: Timestamps will vary on individual listening devices based on dynamic advertising run times. The provided timestamps are approximate and may be several minutes off due to changing ad lengths. (00:00) Introduction (01:15) Grant opens bookstore with zero retail experience (03:45) Four stages of entrepreneurship framework (05:20) Creative lease negotiation and getting the space (08:30) Why entrepreneurs invest too much money too early (10:45) Stage two solopreneur and building systems (13:20) Stage three growth and avoiding scaling traps (17:15) Three main reasons businesses die (21:45) Stage four empire building and holding companies (28:30) Four types of holding company structures (32:15) Managing multiple businesses without losing focus (48:20) Why everyone should try entrepreneurship (59:30) Three business types products services productized services (01:04:45) Sell to people with money Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, so imagine that you've never worked retail, not even as a summer job in high school.
0:04.1	But as you approach your 40s, you decide to spend 12,100 hours learning how to open your own brick-and-mortar retail store, specifically a bookstore.
0:17.4	That's exactly what Grant Sabatier did, and it taught him some crucial lessons about the four stages that every entrepreneur needs to navigate.
0:26.8	The four stages of entrepreneurship, which we're going to talk about today, it applies not just to people who want to become business owners, entrepreneurs in the literal sense, but to anyone who has at heart an entrepreneurial spirit, regardless of your
0:41.3	job description. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford
0:45.8	anything, but not everything. This show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing
0:51.2	your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double-eye fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant, and today we're deep diving into Grant's
0:58.3	framework for entrepreneurial success, which means for the FAA-E five pillars that we cover on this
1:05.4	podcast, today's episode focuses on that letter E, entrepreneurship. Grant is the best-selling author of the book Financial Freedom and the founder of a
1:14.4	personal finance website called Millennial Money, which was acquired by the Motley Fool in 2020
1:19.6	and then reacquired by him a couple years later.
1:24.1	He recently opened up a bookstore in Columbus, Ohio, which we're going to talk about, and published a new book called Inner Entrepreneur.
1:31.3	Here he is, Grant Sabatier.
1:36.1	Grant, you opened a bookstore in Columbus, Ohio. Tell us about that.
1:39.8	I did. So I opened Clintonville Books, which is a new, used, and rare bookstore in the
1:45.8	Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus. It's like a really old space and really, really beautiful.
1:50.5	The oldest book in the store is from 1517, and then we have new releases as well. Okay, but my question is why,
1:57.9	because bookstores are high overhead, low margin, and you can easily run out of money.
2:05.8	100%. Right? There's a lot riding on the line.
2:08.5	Yeah. So this is one of the things about entrepreneurship. So I've never worked in retail. I've never worked in a bookstore.
2:15.4	And I've always wanted to work in a bookstore.
2:17.9	So I'm at a point in my career where I moved to Columbus about five years ago.
	...

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