don’t try to start a $1M business, start a side quest instead.

If you have at least five business ideas sitting in your notes app untouched, I don't think you have an ideas problem. I think the problem is starting a business feels way too serious, way too big, way too high pressure. Might I suggest an alternative? Because I know from my experience that the easiest way to start a business is to treat it like it's a side quest. Tiny, low pressure, fun. That's how this whole YouTube channel started. Now it has over 200,000 subscribers. It's how I started my first six-figure business. It's how I started my second six-figure business, which has now gone on to make over a million dollars. I would even say every single cool thing I have in my life has started as a side quest because that was the only way I could realistically start because I'm so risk averse and so terrified of taking huge jumps. So I feel like the secret hack to side quest is an idea starts as a side quest. You don't take it very seriously. I'm just trying to have fun. It's like the spark, the energy, the magic. When I first get it, I try to get that out as fast as I can. Then depending on what people say, tiny audience is like, we like this. This is interesting. Give us more. That validates the demand for me to potentially invest more time and energy into it, to turn it into a bigger thing. And then slowly it might shift into a main quest and I take it more seriously. AKA I'm more committed. I'm more dedicated. I'm more disciplined versus when I'm loosey goosey with it. And I actually think this is also more strategic because it only makes sense to go all in on something once it's actually validated and you've confirmed that people want this thing from you versus you investing two years and all of your time, money, energy, heart into something and then realizing, wait, this was not validated and nobody actually wants this and I shouldn't have spent so much time on it. It has happened to me before as well. So that's really my strategy. I build the proof first. I never make any crazy leap. I don't burn all my boat. Most of the time I have one foot in one boat and another foot in another boat. And then if that boat seems secure and I like it, then I might hop on over to that boat. Also, I feel like if you have more side quests, you have more opportunities for success versus if you always take everything super seriously and make it your main quest. There's no experimentation. There's no fun to figure out what's going on. I feel like most successful people didn't really have a master plan of like, step one, I'm going to do stuff. They're just like, took a lot of shots, tried a bunch of things and then eventually one thing really stuck and they were like, that's the thing. But you don't know that until you take a bunch of shots. Even Emma Chamberlain was like, my family wasn't shocked by my success, but I was like, she didn't have a master plan. She just took it step by step and then she was like, oh, I really like coffee. Okay, then maybe I start the coffee brand. Okay, from there. Oh, maybe I want to open a cafe. So I've made the case. I've presented the case to you. Do you buy the case? That side quests are the way to go? Yes. Okay, awesome. Then let's talk about what even a side quest really is. So to me, a side quest is a small, low risk, fun project that helps you test out an idea before you overthink it to death. So I know as ambitious people, you and I, we have about a trillion ideas flowing through our minds. And I feel like a lot of the pressure is like, how do we know which one's going to work? Which one's my magical one idea that if I go all in on it, this is the one that's going to make me super happy and a millionaire and then get me all these things that I want. You don't. That's the answer. The secret is you don't know which one it is. The only way to find out is to try a bunch of things. And the easiest way to try a bunch of things is to do them as side quests. Fun is the best productivity hack. A lot of pressure can come with starting a business. There's a lot of things that you have to figure out. Fun lowers that pressure, lowers the stakes. So you stay in that sweet spot where you feel interested and invested and energized to care without getting into the area where you're like stressed, right? So we kind of made this little graph here. Comfort zone is a little bit boring, low commitment. There's no real urgency. You're just like vibing and you're like, this is fine. But maybe I could do a little bit more. Then we get into the side quest zone. Side quest zone is like, it's fun. It's engaging. It's easier to take action because we're not taking it that seriously yet. The pressure is not all the way at the end. When we start to increase the pressure, which happens very easily when we start to take things very seriously, then I feel like it veers into main quest zone where there's a lot of overthinking, perfectionism, analysis, paralysis, which we don't want. And I love the discourse that's coming up around fun, especially Alyssa Liu, because I think it's so true. You can't beat someone who's having fun. She quit figure skating for two years because it wasn't fun anymore. She felt like she was being totally controlled. And that sucked the fun out of it. She couldn't control what to wear. She couldn't control the music. She couldn't control her diet. So she quit and she only came back because she genuinely loved skating and missed it so much. And she ended up winning the Olympics. So the point is to lower the stakes. You keep your normal life, your normal job. You don't have to give up anything. Lowering the stakes means you actually start and actually starting is the entire point. It's the entire game. Starting is like 80% of the game, I feel like, because most people never even begin. So instead of a million to do's, what you actually need is just to follow the little trail, the little breadcrumbs one at a time. All right, so that is what a side quest is. Now let's talk about how to pick a really good side quest. So there are three things that we consider the criteria for side quest. The first one is it has to be tiny. What is the tiniest, smallest, microest version of what you actually want to create one day? If your dream is like a seven-figure, eight-figure empire that helps people with ADHD, what is the smallest portion of that? Like 0.0001% version of that that you could do this month. So if your huge thing is maybe like an entire program, tools, templates, coaches, all this stuff, maybe your tiniest version is a 10, 15-minute workshop that you deliver to five people. It should be so tiny that it doesn't trigger an emotional response. That's how tiny it is. You know, like when you're like, oh, I could do blank. Yeah, I could do that. That's the response I want you to have. That's when you know it's tiny enough. If you're still like, oh, that's like, oh, that's a lot. Or, oh, that's like, that's too big. Make it smaller, right? So for example, starting a YouTube channel, for me, I was like, I'm not even going to worry about filming a video. I am just going to sit down, grab a piece of paper and pull it out three ideas for YouTube. I could do that. Next criteria, useful enough, right? Does it solve one specific problem for at least one specific person? And that could be you, because chances are, you're not the only person in the world that has that specific problem. Most of us are not as unique as we like to think we are. We are very universally the same. Now, the keyword here is useful enough. I don't mean make the most useful thing in the history of the world. It needs to blow every single person away. I'm saying useful enough because putting tons of effort into perfecting a product before its launch is really a good idea. People talk about this all the time. 80-20, get it to 80% of the way there. That's good enough, right? It's useful enough. If it solves one specific problem, get it to 80%. That's it, period. Do not get it to 100%. You're going to be in trouble if you get it to 100%. And the magical thing about SideQuest is it's crazy good market research. By treating your business as a SideQuest, you get it out onto the market faster. You get the data back faster. That data is what helps you make more money later on in your business. Your first few customers, your first few people giving you data, those are your business partners. They are helping you sculpt and shape this to become the huge thing that you are dreaming about. All right, the next SideQuest criteria. Please do not forget this one. Take this extremely seriously. It has to be fun enough. You have to be like, oh, I can't wait until later when I get to blah, blah, blah. SideQuest can, of course, still be time consuming if you are working it on the side of something else. So the fun is really what carries you through that beginning weird part where you're still trying to establish a routine or habit. So make sure you pick something you're genuinely interested in and that you can stick with for a while. Of course, I'm not saying you're going to make a lifelong commitment to this. That's, again, taking it too seriously. I'm just saying, does this sound fun enough that I would like to work on it for like a couple of weeks? Yes. Good. All right, let's talk ideas. Let me give you my library of SideQuest. I'll tell you lots of examples that I've had. I'm also going to show you some SideQuest that I currently have in progress. And then I was thinking we could build a SideQuest together. First one, make a tiny offer, low Google Doc of just what you're thinking. If you want to do a service, send it to five people, family, friends, cold DM, anything like that. I actually have a whole video about how I did this to launch my YouTube service offer, which has made thousands of dollars for me. Other one, create a cheap, no brainer mini product. I have created so many of these business book club. If you've watched that video, that was a complete SideQuest. I was like, this sounds potentially like fun. I filmed a video, posted it, and it did surprisingly well. Tools, hourly rate calculators, one week challenges. I've created those a SideQuest templates. I have started a podcast, a private podcast as a SideQuest. I created a waitlist page for a YouTube program that I had not begun creating yet as a SideQuest just to see like, do people care? Are they interested? What does not count as a SideQuest? Spending days choosing a business name. Buying another course because you're scared to take action. You know enough to do a SideQuest, do it for fun. Researching forever. Spending three months secretly building a product. Building a full funnel before you've checked that anyone cares. Creating an entire branding strategy doc. Creating an entire business plan. Rebranding for the 17th time. Spending days creating a content plan. That's too long. Making a 29 page Notion productivity template to help you be more productive in creating your business. No. Remember how earlier I said brand sponsorships were one of my SideQuests that ended up making me about $80,000 last year? You're about to see one in the wild. This video is sponsored by Lovable. Notice the segue? Notice the awkward laughter? So I have been using Lovable to prototype a bunch of my SideQuests because I don't know about you, but when I have a great idea I want to see it immediately. I want to see what it would actually look like to be like, ooh, is this as good as I thought it was? And I feel like Lovable has been the fastest way that I've found to see my idea immediately. So I thought I would show you guys some of the SideQuests I have prototyped in Lovable so you see real examples. And then we recently had a new idea. So I thought we could do that one together live in Lovable. How about that? Do ourselves a little show and tell. Okay, this is my business idea vending machine and I'm really proud of it. So basically what it is, it's a little vending machine where you can press the buttons. You basically put in what skills you currently have. You're really good at writing. Then you press A1, just like, you know, on a vending machine. There's like A1, A2. Or if you have a skill that's not on here, then you type it in. And then you want to twist it with a niche that you're curious about. So are you interested in pets or vintage or your local niche? A nightlife, wedding, sports, seniors. You can also type your own niche. If you're like, ooh, I really want to work with, I don't know, course creators or membership owners. So type it in there. So for me, I think I want to do writing and pets. And then you will just tap the little slot because you got to pay the vending machine. And then you will dispense a business idea. The last leash, professional ghostwriting for pet obituaries and legacy tribute books. Most pet owners want to honor a deceased animal. Oh, this is like such a good idea. I feel like this is so sweet. Okay, let's try a different one where I type it in. So like project management as my skill. And let's say I want to work with YouTubers. I'm going to drop my little coin and then I'm going to dispense the idea. Clip Tracker Pro. We manage the chaos so creators can focus on the camera. High volume often struggle with bottleneck production schedules involving so many people. So I'm going to be a dedicated project manager to build Trello or Monday templates and oversee specific video life cycles for my ideation to upload. That's basically what I did as a business manager. So that's even validated as a service. And I love that it also tells you the first thing. The very first thing I should do is send a Loom video to five mid-size educational YouTubers identifying a specific delay in their recent upload schedule and offering a free workflow audit. And look at how much I talked back and forth with Lovable about it. It was like one, two, three, four, five messages. And it built this for me. All right, let me show you some other stuff that I have. I've made a one second click clinic where you can paste in your YouTube video URL and it will pull in your thumbnail and title and it will diagnose what's wrong with your packaging. Like what's wrong with the thumbnail or title? Why is it not getting the clicks it wants? I made an escape room digital experience to escape corporate. So essentially it's like a little game you play where there are little puzzles and you're trying to create a plan for how you can quit your nine to five to work online. I mean, look at this with one prompt and then it generates a resignation letter once your four puzzles are filled. How fun is this? I know Lovable is the sponsor of this video but I have told so many people about Lovable because I just think it is so powerful for getting your idea out fast. Like I had the idea like, ooh, what if it's like an escape room to escape corporate? And then I was like, I have to see it to believe it. If you've watched some of my other videos then you will have seen this one already. It is a little quest. It's like if building a business was a video game instead you like add new quests. It breaks it down into small tasks. When you finish it, you get XP to level up your little like Tamagotchi and you collect coins. And with those coins, you can redeem them in the reward shop. And that's really fun. I love this idea. And then I also had the idea, what about like Tinder for business ideas? And so I wrote that to Lovable to see like, what would it look like? It's like, start swiping. It's like, okay, do you want to be a virtual assistant? That is best for people who love being organized or not. You're like, nope. If you're nope, then you swipe no. If yes, then you're like, oh, maybe you swipe yes. And then it asks you a couple of questions and then it gives you your business match with like 72% confidence. I should be an online course creator. So now I thought we could prototype something together live with Lovable because we had an idea last week as a team. What about we made like a content slot machine where you put in your niche and we mix it with some title formats that we have internally saved. And then you get a bunch of content ideas. You get like content ideas that are validated for your content platform. Let's do it. I'm actually going to just use audio because I'm a yapper. I want to make a like content slot machine where basically I'm going to give you a CSV of like a bunch of title formats that we have saved internally for our channel. And I want the person to like put in their niche or topic. I think topic because that's more specific and then pull the slot machines to really like gamify it visually to be a slot machine where they pull the slot machine and then it spits out like three different ideas for that topic using one of the sentence formats that I give you. Okay, I'm gonna give you a CSV file and make it really fun. I like it like a retro vibe maybe. So how are you doing? How's the weather where you are? I love that it tells me what it's currently doing. Generating fresh slot ideas. I'm like, yeah, you go girl. Yeah, you do that. This cat break is sponsored by Loveable. All right, here's what it generated as the first go. Okay, so let me just try it out, right? Free. Let's say my topic is side quests. I'm gonna pull. Okay, I actually tried every side quest in Skyrim. Oh, that's funny. Oh, I get it. So I feel like aesthetically, I don't love that it's showing the title format. So I'm just gonna ask it like, can you please just change it to emojis so that it's cuter? What I love is that Loveable is actually pretty good at branding things to look good. All right, so now it did emojis because I prefer the emojis. So let's put in a topic. How to start a business. Okay, that's my topic. Let's spin. A full guide to start a business in six to 12 months. 20 plus hour content. This one's pretty good. The side hustle playbook you haven't seen yet. That one's pretty good. I tested every free business idea. Wait, these are really good. Okay, so that's an example. And then what I do at this point, if I like how the side quest looks, is I go to publish. I publish it into a live link and then I send it to a bunch of people. And I'm like, what do you think? Do you like it? Then I have more thoughts about like, okay, should this be a free thing? Should it be a paid thing? How should I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then maybe it becomes a main quest. Maybe it becomes a lead magnet. Funnels people into my list. Maybe it becomes just a random fun thing. So if you have a business idea sitting in your notes app, use my link, open up Loveable. They have a great free plan as well. Pop your idea and see what it looks like. So here's your task. Pick a side quest this quarter. The only rule is it has to be fun. Okay, that's the only rule. Your next step is knowing what to do when your business is at $0. I highly recommend watching this video where I break down everything I would do at $0, at $1,000 a month, at $10,000 a month with your business. The biggest things to focus on. As always, thank you so much for watching this video and I hope to see you in the next one. Okay.