What Business Should People Start in 2023?

Boom. Welcome back to episode number two of the diamond download. We're here with chase diamond and your boy Cardinal Mason. We're gonna talk about some pretty interesting stuff about business and life and all kinds of things today. How are you doing? Well, it's been a day. It's been a stressful day coming off a full day off yesterday at Disneyland with my daughter for her birthday, but, um, I'm excited to chat. How are you doing? I'm doing good, man. Um, yeah, same, same for me. It's been an absolute day, but you know what, this is probably my favorite part. I've been waiting for this all day. So, I mean, let's get straight into it. Um, seasons of entrepreneurship. So everyone talks about this, like guys like Hermozy talking with us, Sean, Sean Puri talks about this, like seasons, right? Where it's like, you kind of go through like different versions of the same thing. You have talked about, I think we did a podcast a while ago. We, uh, but where you talked about like how you used to be super like a type, like work, work, work all the time. And then you have family and then you started different stuff and you were working in the agency and then you started doing personal brand stuff. Like, can you sort of map us through. Like how you like all the different phases or seasons that you've kind of been through, like before today. Yes. It's interesting timing too. Cause like I'm coming off this season of my youngest daughter is now three months and I kind of took like a couple weeks, maybe about a month and a half like on a full paternity leave or literally all I did was post to like Twitter and LinkedIn and keep up with like my newsletter, but I didn't take calls, I didn't do anything. And for me, this was like this discovery of like, I actually don't like calls. Like I'm now trying to make my life. Like I want to do this podcast once a week and maybe one or two other calls, but I'm trying to like minimize calls. Um, one, because my life is chaotic at home. Like my daughter just hit her head and we were up at Disneyland and just stuff happens to come up. You know, my wife stays at home with two kids and it's a lot. Um, so, so for me, like I'm in this season now of like, I was off for a period of time, I'm slowly coming back online. I actually want to grind, you know, as much as I can. You know, from the hours I'm on, the hours are limited, but while I'm on, like it's go time and I'm actually restructuring a lot of things. So that way I don't have to do calls and I can focus on things that I want to do and I can offer some new things. So I'm actually in the season right now, just like restructuring and getting rid of anything I don't want to do and just having new offerings and new things. So it's kind of a stressful, exciting time where I've got a bunch of new things launching, but over the past, I'd say three or so years since I had my oldest it's been a mixture of like, all right, it's go time. Okay. It's family time. And I've just been trying to find like this perfect balance between like, how do I give enough to the things I have already? Um, how do I add things? And I've added a lot of things and I was like, how do I remove the things? So yeah, it's kind of been like this rollercoaster of like trying to figure out every quarter. Like what's a priority for me? What can give what's making me money? What's burning me out? What's giving me energy. So kind of been a rollercoaster. Yeah. It's kind of cool because I've kind of, I've seen you go through that kind of, I mean, I've known you since 2020, it's been like three years now actually probably coming up on our three year anniversary chase, but whatever. We'll save that for another time. But, um, dude, I totally agree. I don't know. Maybe for you, maybe you feel the same. Like my seasons have kind of sort of blended together where it's not a clear, like, all right, today is a new day. It's a new season kind of thing. I can't really pinpoint where it is, but I know that like, I've had, I guess, three seasons so far. And the first one was like, do more where it's like, I was a freelance copywriter, so my entire thing was like, get more clients, make more money, do more work. Right. Like, it makes more sense to like, just do more stuff. And then somewhere between like Q1 and Q2 of 2022, like last year is when it switched and I, I stopped wanting to do more and I wanted to like actually just subtract things where it's like, how can I like sustain what I'm making while doing less? And so that was probably until like a month or two ago. And now I'm out of sort of like delegation mode. And I realized that like, if I put a certain amount of effort personally into a certain number of things, like then the money printer will turn back on. I mean, so like, yeah, like you kind of have to ramp up and then ramp down so you can like see what you're capable of doing yourself and then see who you can hand it off to and hope it doesn't just like fall off a cliff. Yeah. And I think the season that like you're in person right now is like you were doing a lot of things, you were having a lot of success and I think you found like the vehicle in this case, it's copy MBA, where it just makes sense for you to, to go as much in as you can on that one vehicle. And, and you know, we're partners there. So I see the numbers, like you deciding to focus your time and attention on that versus some other things you're doing before. Did you five or 10 X your best previous months, like pretty quickly. Right. And it's just like onward and up and the sky's the limit. So you kind of have to do the point that you made and kind of through kind of what I've tried to say before was like, you have to try a couple of things. You have to say yes. And then you have to be like, okay, I've had three, six, nine, 12 months, whatever it might be of history with these things. Here's what I like about each one. Here's what I dislike. And here's where I think the most opportunity is. And I don't know if you consciously did that or subconsciously did that, but your decision over the past couple of weeks, past couple of months to focus more and more copy MBA and now seeing the growth of it, you got to feel good about that. Like, what was that process? And what was that? Like, you know, those inputs that allows you to be like, I need to do more of this because of what does that look like? I just thought like, I mean, copy MBA is obviously the best vehicle for me. Like it's a dream business. You know what I mean? Um, it's something I can easily talk about and, you know, attract attention on social media, which I've been doing for a while. And I just feel like copy MBA is, you know, the, the model, you know, the model that we're using to, to get people these products, um, the funnel that we're using to, you know, move people along and teach them more and more as they grow sort of with me. Like, I think it's just a really cool way to run it. Um, like I'm doing a group call for everyone who was on the last two free classes, um, in like two hours after this. So like, it's just a cool, like just a really cool business, but I think coaching is a great business for a lot of people and, um, it's not, you know, it's not gonna last forever. I'm sure, you know, in three years, like there's going to be, you know, a downturn and I'm gonna have to figure out what to do next, but hopefully by that time, like I'll have, you know, thousands of students and everyone's happy and yeah, but I'm enjoying it now. That's for sure. Yeah. It's interesting. Like I've been having, as I have kids, like a lot of conversations, like financial advisors and planning and building out of states and doing all the, like these retirement things. So it's like, I think what the state that you're in right now, and some of the states that I've been is like, while something's good and you can double down and just maximize cash, you have to do that, right? So you're going to hopefully over the next one to three years, continue the rate and pace of what you're doing, which is going to give you a lot of cash to then think about, you know, how do I invest? Do I invest into real estate? Do I invest in the stocks? Do I invest in crypto? Do I invest in car washes? Do I invest in, you know, there's a million things, right? Do I, do I buy companies? Do I invest in companies? What do I do? So I think the path right now is cool, right? You're making great cash. You're having a really big impact. And I think like the cash is cool, but for both of us, like the impact is like the greatest thing possible. Can you help someone change their livelihood? Can you help them make more money? Can you help them spend more time doing the things that they want to do by focusing on a high leverage thing? So yeah, these seasons, uh, definitely a good topic. Uh, people are going to go through kind of the ebbs and the flows. And I'm kind of in the season two right now. I'm just saying now note everything. I went through a period of time where I was doing nothing because of paternity leave, I came back and I said yes to way too many things and now I'm trying to minimize again. So it's kind of like this tug and pull. And now I'm just like, man, I want to have time. I don't want to have hauls just to be able to think strategically. And I think that's the piece that most people miss is they're so stuck in the day to day that they don't actually get to think strategically six months go by 12 months go by 18 months go by. And you realize that like the plan that you had is so different for where you're at for better or for worse. So it's really great to do weekly, monthly, quarterly check-ins and be like, am I steering in the direction that I want? Am I going down the right thing? And not just operating subconsciously, but thinking about it consciously. Like there's kind of a difference. Sometimes they overlap and intertwine, but we think about things strategically. Like for me late at night on the treadmill, I'm thinking about these things, like, Oh my God, why am I doing this? I don't even like it. Right. Does that kind of make sense? Yeah, dude. Yeah. I think like, I remember you had a tweet a while ago, like probably 2020 when I was starting to do copywriting and I remember it's burned into my memory. It was like, if you can't, you know, take a week off your business and it doesn't fall apart and you don't have a business, I think you've tweeted that a couple of times actually. It's just like, every time I see it, I'm just like, Oh, like it feels like a stake to the heart. You know what I mean? Cause like, I mean, if you're not building it within, you know, intent to be able to like, kind of let it run itself, then, um, I think that, yeah, that's something that everyone should try to do. That's also what gives you like enterprise value. Anyway, uh, you want to move on? Let's do it. All right. So I wrote this down actually having no idea what my answer is going to be. So I'm interested to hear yours. Um, best and worst purchase you've ever made. That's the worst purchase. Dude. I've been using the, you know, the tonal, like the workout equipment. Oh yeah. I bought the tonal, um, probably about eight to 10 months ago and it's in my office. Um, at the time I didn't think much of it. I thought it was going to be cool. It'd be great. But it's literally been like the one thing keeping me saying that plus like the treadmill where I'm able to like be at home with my family, but I could get in like 15, 20 minute workouts throughout the day on the tonal. And then I can go on the treadmill for like 25, 30 minutes at night or otherwise like go into the gym, you know, it's like 15, 20 minute drive each way you're waiting for equipment. I just don't have like the luxury right now of going somewhere for like an hour and a half or two hours. So for me to be able to like work out and stay in shape and stay healthy while also being at the comfort of my home and, you know, having my daughters watch or having them do a workout class and just making it like this. Experience together. So I think the best purchase for me has been like this at home workout equipment, um, that, or our jacuzzi. I'm thinking about buying maybe like a sauna soon. So just really investing into like the health and wellness amenities at home, because let's be honest, I don't really leave the house that must, um, worse purchase, worse purchase, to be honest, I honestly don't buy a lot. Like I can't remember the last thing I bought anything in general. I think I bought like those things. I occasionally buy like a t-shirt from bill, which my buddy owns. And then it's funny wearing the hat. And then that's like, yeah, I don't spend really that much money. I don't know that I have a bad purchase. What about, I guess some of the stocks I probably bought when I didn't know what I was doing, some of the stocks in crypto that I bought, so that's probably the worst investment versus a purchase, but I just threw money at stupid things when I didn't know much. Yeah. What about you? Yeah. Um, dude, I'm the same way with the gym. I have like, I'm not kidding, like six different gym memberships. And some of them are like over a hundred dollars a month. And I use one of them kind of when I'm here and another one when I'm in Canada. Um, but I, I just use the gym in my building, bro. I, every time like today I had, I had someone cancel a call and I was like, all right, cool. I've got 30 minutes. I'm going to go down there. I hit shoulders. Um, so yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. Anyway, best purchase. I think like some of the early courses that I got when I was just getting into copywriting, not going to name names because mine's better, but, uh, I think like those were really good, um, just because like, obviously I wouldn't be here without them. Um, and I think like, again, like this is kind of an investment. I don't know if you can say I purchased a person because I didn't, she's a free woman, but, um, my director of ops at my agency who kind of just does everything with me in the business. Now, um, Abby shut out. She's like, say like, she saved my life. I would not be doing 75% of the stuff I'm doing now if she wasn't handling the day-to-day of the agency and, and some of the day-to-day of the other stuff that I don't want to think about. So like, she's like, she's my right hand. I'm, I'm, you know, stoked to have her. And then worst purchase. I don't know. Anytime I go out to a club purchase, so don't recommend that to anybody. Yeah. Quick, quickly, before we go on to the last segment, you just bought a couple of watches. How do you view watches? Are they for, do they bring you a lot of personal joy? Are you investing in them as like an asset class? How do you think about like the watches you bought two Rolexes recently? I have three now. Um, okay. So it is one of the main asset classes that I would like to own, which is, I guess, commodities. Um, I have, I have a collection of things that I think are just sick. I think they're just cool to look at. They also just happen. I learned this after I bought them that they happen to be discontinued. So I have a Datejust, a two-tone with a chocolate dial, which is like the best Datejust you can get. A lot of people like kind of talk smack about it. Cause it's not like a real watch, but it is. And then I have a black ceramic Daytona, which is discontinued as of last year. And then I have this, which is a, um, yellow gold motif dial day date presidential, which has been discontinued since 2019. So I'm up like across the entire collection, probably like 11,000 on everything. So not only do I just like looking at them and I think they're cool. And I like, you know, kind of fawning over them with other people that are also into watches. I just think there, there are, they are definitely a good investment. There's some good stuff. Congrats on that last one. I know you got that from the time of the recording a couple of days ago. So congrats on that. It's, it's really interesting to me. Like, I don't know a single thing about watches, but to be able to have like the utilization, like the personal joy of actually wearing it, but also like the appreciation of it, if you ever want to sell it, that's like a really cool, but like crazy thing to me, right? Where like, you can actually use it and you using it and the time in which you use it as it increases, it actually is worth more, right? It's kind of, it's kind of interesting with people that have like these old classic cars, right? Like they buy them, they fix them. And they're actually worth just as much, if not more when they go to sell them, but yet they got the usage. So that's kind of a cool thing. It's very unique. Here's the, here's a good way to think about both cars and watches, because I kind of think about watches the same way I think about cars. Like if I could buy a sick car and it wasn't going to go down in value and it was like 20, 30 grand, I'd be buying a car like every quarter, but like with, with cars and watches, like if you buy a car, right, you have to buy it, right. But if you buy it properly, you may only lose between one and $8,000 over the course of a year or two, right? If you drive it properly and you buy it properly. Um, same thing with a watch, like worst case scenario, you lose five grand. I think about it like, you know, even if you do lose money, instead of paying a hundred grand for a car or 50 grand for a watch, you only paid a couple grand to enjoy it for two years, and then it's going to go on to somebody else and you make connections from it and you've got cool pictures and you know what I mean? Like you had some fun with it. Like, so it's not about the sticker price. It's about like the difference between what you bought it for and what you actually sell it for. And so with a watch like this, you're not paying $50,000. You're paying, you know, actually you would make money on it, but cars are kind of the same thing. Like a buddy sold a Corvette, um, got it for like a hundred something, sold it and lost like five grand. He only paid five grand to drive that car and have a blast with it. So I don't know. Not everything has to be like net positive. That's what I don't like about a lot of these like financial gurus that they talk about. I know I'm kind of going nuts. I'll get off in a sec. But, um, a lot of these financial gurus, like they just, they don't understand like just things that you can have that you just like, you know what I mean? Where it's like, well, you could have saved that and put it into something else and bought stocks or something like that. And I was like, yeah, well I could have, but I can't like wear a stock stock. You know what I mean? Like there are things that have value if you like something, buy it, bro. Like, I don't know. I maybe I'm wrong about this, but I do think that that is like, that's how I see it. I have no problem spending a little bit of money on things that are going to bring you joy period. Yeah. I think as you make, you know, good to decent money, like you're going to be diversified across real estate, stocks, bonds, et cetera. So instead of putting more money into all of those other buckets, like you might want to put money into things that you're passionate about and you enjoy and you're interested in. And obviously like watch is a great hobbyist, a great thing. It's been around for what, a few hundred years and people over time have loved them and it increases in value. So that's awesome. What is the, what's the last idea for the last concept you want to talk through? You got what business should people start in 2023? So, I mean, and this is obviously like we both talk about freelancing. I think it's a great place for people to start, you know, if you're a beginner, but like if you have, you know, let's say a year to three years of like some business acumen under your belt and maybe you're just looking for something that can make you between half a mil and a million a year. Like what would you start today? Maybe bonus points if it doesn't rely on having a huge personal brand or if you don't need a ton of capital to start. Yeah, that's interesting. Um, it's, I'm thinking about selfishly about like my own stuff. Like I tried building a SAS last year. I sucked at it. I spent way too much money. It didn't work. So I think SAS are cool, but they're hard. Um, for me personally, I really like services. Whether it's freelancing agency, et cetera. And for me right now, like I'm really bullish on LinkedIn, so I probably would do services and content around LinkedIn. I think that could easily be combined with something like Twitter. I feel like a lot of like the Twitter type content, very written in nature, uh, really works well on LinkedIn and potentially vice versa. But I more amazingly go from Twitter to LinkedIn or just creating content specifically for LinkedIn. And I also think too, like newsletters are all that far off. So I think in terms of like building out like a content agency or personal brands, uh, or B2B companies is a huge untapped space, I believe. Uh, and, or, uh, doing B2B influencer marketing. So there's tons and tons of software and tools and agencies for B2C, right? You work with the celebrities and the big influencers, but I've seen almost no one do like B2B influencer marketing. Well, where they have like this agency and they rep talent where they're just kind of marking up the talent where they could go to someone like you, Mason, or someone like me, or name that person on like a LinkedIn or a Twitter or newsletter and just bundle them in and then have like the arbitrage of go charge XYZ company, a hundred grand and go pay out your influencers, 75 grand and keep the spread in the middle. So I really like services. And in particular, I really like things on LinkedIn, uh, Twitter school and building like newsletters out as well. I think it's a really cool service offering. I agree. I think that services are kind of the way to go right now, but I think people are kind of thinking about it the wrong way. They're like, all right, I'm going to start an email marketing agency or a Facebook guys agency or a short form content agency. You don't have to do that. Um, I guess we'll give a quick show. You know, you know, you talked to Daniel Fazio, cold email wizard, founder of client Ascension, um, I'm in client Ascension, I'm in the mastermind. So I, I, I didn't, I'm in like with all the cool Twitter guys basically. And, um, it's really interesting to see like what types of agencies people are starting. Like it's not all email marketing or Facebook ads or lead gen, like all the basic stuff that you hear about on Twitter. Um, it's like a lot of weird services that you wouldn't really think you could sell, but it's like very specialized. Like I talked to a guy who, um, he does like podcast marketing. I don't really understand, but I'm pretty sure how it works is like, um, they, they use podcasting as a lead gen mechanism. And so he'll like get podcasts, like podcasters to have you on. And then he'll like set up like interviews for customers, but it's also like video editing. Dude, it's pretty sick. I don't know what he charges, but I'm sure they're doing well. It's a thing that like pretty much any business owner can use, you know, it's pretty like that they have farmers that they sell stuff to and also like services can be down market too, or it doesn't have to be like a big agency. It can also be like, I have someone that recently just paid for a service to be reinstated on hinge because he was like false account got falsely deleted. Do you even know what hinges chase? I've heard of it. Never used it, but I've heard of it. I bet. Yeah. Me either. Uh, it's a dating app and, um, and yeah, you pay a couple hundred bucks and you get back on hinge, you know what I mean? Or, or the other business I like right now is communities because it's more of like an emotional cell, which it was like, people are kind of lonely. I don't know if you've seen the numbers, but like you and I have friends, but like, there are plenty of people listening to this that like, don't have someone that they can call their best friend or don't have a circle of five dudes or girls that they can go out to dinner with and celebrate their birthday or something like that. That kind of makes me sad. So I think like, if you can build a community business where it's like, maybe it's a subscription or a one-time entry fee, um, where, you know, it's just people rallied around one thing. It doesn't have to be my big money. It could be about, I thought of an idea. I thought my dad should open a community about like just doing dad's stuff. I thought that would be where it's like a guy like you, like my dad's 53. And he, he's like a dad's dad. You know what I mean? I feel like there's a lot of guys who are your age that like, don't really know a lot about like how to be a dad. Yeah. Um, and like they, you could just charge, you know, like an entry fee plus monthly and just like post dad content in there and sort of like a, like a subscription group. Um, yeah. On the flip side of your community idea, I think like maybe people have friends, but they don't have like business friends. So like it could be a business thing. So I think like the route in which you said like, um, maybe friendships around topics like music or anime or whatever, like really kind of passionate. You know, hobbies are, are even watches, right? Like a community of watch collectors. That's, that's a really lucrative group that you could start where you can make money on membership, but you also can probably make a lot of money on transactions. Right. And you see all these accounts on Twitter popping out that are like for watches and cars and et cetera. But I think like even ones around like connecting people and communities of business, and obviously there's plenty of these, but I always hear from people reaching out to me, like, Hey, I'm from this small town in the Midwest or I'm from this small country in Europe or Asia or wherever. And I just don't have anyone like minded with me. Like you have a group. Are there things I can get into? It feels like right now, like people are slowly starting to invest in themselves, invest in their personal brand, invest in their learning, invest in all these other things. So I think communities is a great one. And then the last one I'd say, and then if there's any others that you had is like, AI is so hot right now, whether it's going to be a fad or trend or et cetera, I don't know, but I think building like newsletters and content and personalities and media around AI. That's a great one. There's only going to be more AI tools. There's only going to be people looking for AI information. I think doing like the scam and the hustle in the morning group for AI. That's amazing. I think just doing that type of stuff is really interesting and relevant right now. Yeah. I won't lie, dude. I've muted the phrase AI chat, GBT, GBT three, GBT four. I've muted all that on Twitter. I've unsubscribed to a bunch of it. I do this today. I unsubscribed to a bunch of newsletters that were talking about that for a handful of people that I like. I think you're doing some funny stuff where it was like, you had like the chat, GBT is going to like make me a, what was it? It was like a 10 K. Yeah. Like a challenge. Yeah. That's interesting. Um, and then there was a guy who was like doing this similar thing where it's like, yeah, like chat, GBT is where, you know, we're running a business together or something like that. But like, bro, if I have to see another thread boy talking about and chat, GBT prompts that number seven should be illegal. Like, dude, I don't want to see that. It's just so crazy. Like, I understand. I know exactly what you're talking about. I think like, I think that people should definitely be paying attention. Um, but yeah, no, that's a great business. I think like, so you're talking more about like AI content and monetizing that. Do you think that you have any like cool AI business idea? I told you about one, but it ended up being taken. Someone else was doing it and already making like eight figures from it. Wow. I think, yeah. Remember I was in a hotel and you told me about that. Do you have any like other, I mean, only if you want to give it away, but if you have something you're going to use, maybe don't tell people, but like any like actual AI business ideas where it's like, it's tech, you know, tech based instead of like content based. Uh, no. I've been, I've been trying to think about some of this stuff, but I've, I've been intentionally trying to stay away from tech just cause I'm not good at tech, like I burned a lot of money and a lot of time on tech. Um, but I think like going back to like the services piece, like moving away from just content, I think services around AI, like for example, I think there's a lot of money if like, you are good with building out like AI systems and, and AI processes, like going to large corporations and helping them become AI enabled, helping them build out like their SOPs and their processes and their content engines and their sales engines around AI, almost like, you know, a Salesforce, like there's all these Salesforce implementation agencies that are charging tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. Sometimes I think doing that with like chat GPT and some of the other tools, like teaching them what tools that they could use that integrate with their system, training their people become more efficient. I think that's a really interesting business. So it's service focused in the AI space. Um, you know, again, like obviously people need to get more experience and build it out and whatnot. But I have a buddy that's doing this with like ClickUp, he's helping ClickUp launch their AI stuff and just build out this whole process. And you can make a lot of money if you become the guy or the gal for that. Wow. Yeah. Like there's gotta be someone who's like, going to go do like seminars, like charge, like speaking fee seminars for like big fortune 500 companies and show people what chat GPT can do. I am, I imagine that's probably going to be a thing, dude. There's so it's just like an entirely new thing. Entirely new economy. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know what's going to happen. Um, the CTO or yeah, is it CTO of HubSpot, Dharmesh Shah talked about how this is bigger than mobile. I don't know if that's true, but we'll see. I mean, listen, who am I? He's worth like how many billions and I'm worth zero billion. So I don't know. I'm just a kid, but it just sounds a little bit funny. Everyone's like drugs. It's the same people who are like, you know, 40 days ago, they said Bitcoin was going to hit a hundred K in 30 days. You know what I mean? There's all kinds of people just like blowing whistles left and right. So I don't know. What do you think? Do you think that AI is actually going to be like the next big thing or is it gonna be like web three? No, I think, I think it is. I think right now there's a lot of hype around it. Cause it's super new and early. And I think in like five or 10 years, everything's going to be AI enabled. So it's going to be like less hypey. Um, where I don't think it's going to be a phallic. I think AI is here to stay and it's going to like change the world drastically. But it's like, everything's going to be AI in the future that I like. It's not going to be different or unique or weird or even talk about like it is now, like, um, if that makes sense, because like right now it's like this craze and it's new and yeah, people are like, is it going to work? Is it not going to work? Is it going to help? Is it not going to help? I definitely think it's going to be here, but I think everything's going to be AI powered that like. If you're not AI powered, like you're, you're left behind type of a thing. So I just feel like the playing field in some degree is going to be level just with the tech that's coming out. Interesting. Well, um, let's see. Let's see what happens. I think this is a great one. Any finals? Awesome. No, let us know if you have feedback, hit us up. Uh, Cardinal Mason on Twitter. Are you also Cardinal Mason on Tik TOK? Cool. Tweet at us. Let us know if you have any questions or any thoughts. We'll see you guys soon. See it.