how did I get started so I got a great
question from one of my readers Dennis
love you guys
Dennis wrote in to me he’s on my
newsletter list and I wrote in to say
Evan you didn’t tell me how you got
started with what you’re doing man so
would you care to tell me a short tale
on that dude
Dennis thanks for the question so quick
story I’ll put together when I was in
university I had job offers from
companies that I thought would be
awesome to work with a couple years ago
and I felt like I wanted to better
myself and just try my own business and
I had a biotech software company with
two friends and we struggled in the
beginning I was making nothing and we
turned it around and in a couple years I
got the company acquired and my partners
went to California as part of the deal I
stayed here and that’s when I I
struggled to figure out what am I gonna
do next you know I’m like I’m in my
early 20s I had two success with this
company I didn’t want to go get a job
but I didn’t have a burning idea for
what to do with my next company and I’ve
always been a big believer that if
you’re not sure what you want to do next
you don’t have a burning passion for
anything yet go out and explore try
stuff and a lot of it won’t work and you
get a sense of that pretty quickly and
some of it will stick and you’ll love it
and opportunities will come from that
they’ll try to force an idea all right I
know that’s hard like that was me I’m
like I want to do something now I got to
figure this out now you know I’d always
had an interest in venture capital I
never needed it for my business but I
wanted to learn about it so through a
connection I ended up with a position at
a venture capital company in Toronto
helping companies raise half a million
to 15 million dollars for companies and
I learned how the process worked and I
connected with the three founders who
are all in their sixties or seventies
and had all the experience in the world
and I had a position with them as an
associate wasn’t it wasn’t a formal
employee relationship I could still do
whatever I wanted
but I help bring in deals and I learned
the process cuz I wanted to learn about
it I didn’t think this would be a
long-term thing for me but it was
something I was curious about at the
same time I was I was in the media lot I
was asked to speak at events because I
was a young entrepreneur so the business
had that success and my first speaking
gig in Toronto was at the YMCA they had
a group of entrepreneurs who were I
think fired or laid off from their jobs
and they want to start their own company
as a way to create their own pack for
themselves and so I said sure I’d be
happy to come and speak and share my
lessons what I’ve learned that it love
to help and I spent a lot of time
figuring out everything I wanted to say
and all the things that I had learned
through my failure and then success and
I remember the day came and I was
promoting it for two weeks to my you
know friends and circles and and the
YMCA was pointing it to their audience
and I spend so much time on this concept
the presentation and I was nervous you
know I wanted to be perfect and I you
know come up on that day and remember
going through the doors and my heart’s
beating I’m starting to sweat like oh my
god it’s coming I’ve been working so
hard for this moment and I go out
familiar with this huge room ready to go
tons of chairs and I walk into the room
open the door and I just sink for a
minute because after all of this work
three people showed up to listen to me
and I’m wow
like I I was promoting this for two
weeks and the YMCA was pointing it to
their audience and they had a student
base already who was interested in this
and I felt like such a failure you know
like I spent all this time on something
and for a free event and I could I can
only get three people to come out and
that was a big turning point for me
because I could have given a crappy
presentation and and felt like this
wasn’t for me and tried something else
but what I discovered was I was there we
had three people like I’m gonna I did
all this work on the presentation so I’m
gonna make it the best presentation the
three people have ever seen
and it ended up being amazing and those
sweeper board changed that day and I
felt a way that I had to keep doing this
it felt so natural felt so amazing on
such a high helping these people out and
change in their lives that I felt like I
had to keep going and doing this even
though anybody who looked at this woulda
said everything you’re crazy would you
want to turn this into a business you
this is gonna be your thing now you
can’t get more than three people to come
to a free event man what are you doing
this is stupid and by all logical
reasoning it was right it was it was
stupid to think that I could turn this
into a business and yet I loved it and
so I knew I had to find a way to keep
going and if you talk to successful
entrepreneurs that’s what you’ll often
find is they’d love what they did so
much that they had to find the way to
keep going and people would do it even
if they weren’t getting paid because
they loved it so much like I love
helping entrepreneurs and I do a lot of
it without getting paid just because it
brings me happiness and then I found the
way to turn it into a business
eventually right it wasn’t I wish I said
I had this whole plan worked out like I
sat down and I wrote my plan and this is
how it’s gonna work I had I didn’t have
a plan you know I was following my
passion and tried to find something that
would take me in a direction that I
would enjoy doing and it turned from the
speaking into my website that I used to
say where I was speaking and then people
started asking could they share content
on there it said sure you can write an
article for my website this is a time
before article marketing was anything
people want just to be on my site and I
used it as lead generation for the
venture capital business that I was part
of then I started talking about modeling
the Masters and I started talking about
how to raise capital put those articles
up there realizing I could sell
advertising against that and then
started making money from advertising it
was a little side thing I’m just
whatever it’s something I was having
some fun with
and then more and more people started
writing into me and saying we want to
know more about your story wanna know
more about what got you here and your
advice and at that time everything was
behind the scenes for me I was always
sharing stories of famous entrepreneurs
and their success and showing examples
but not too much about my story and I
was shocked like why do people care
about my story so I started sharing it
more and more you know my face wasn’t
even on the homepage and so it got more
and more me telling my story and then I
got invited to do more speaking and then
I started my youtube channel and social
media and Twitter and all that stuff and
it’s it’s built it’s built in this
amazing community right every video I
put up we get comments we get views and
get subscribers I love it like the best
part of my day now is being I wake up in
the morning I grab my bowl of lentils
and I go to the computer and look at the
comments that I get from YouTube and my
social media channels I love that stuff
and it all came out of following what I
love doing having the courage to not
know where I’m going and just explore
things and when I found something that I
really liked to do even though it made
no sense to continue doing it I
continued on and found a way to turn it
into a business and something I’m still
passionate about I don’t know 12 years
later 11 usually there 12 weeks till
whatever doesn’t matter still pass him
about it so that’s my story
I don’t know hopefully that helps give
you some inspiration or helps answer
your question let me know what you guys
think you know if you want more videos
like this leave a comment below let me
know what are the questions you have I’m
happy to do a video for you if you like
the video give it a thumbs up click on
my face there subscribe to the channel
thank you so much I’ll see you soon
question from one of my readers Dennis
love you guys
Dennis wrote in to me he’s on my
newsletter list and I wrote in to say
Evan you didn’t tell me how you got
started with what you’re doing man so
would you care to tell me a short tale
on that dude
Dennis thanks for the question so quick
story I’ll put together when I was in
university I had job offers from
companies that I thought would be
awesome to work with a couple years ago
and I felt like I wanted to better
myself and just try my own business and
I had a biotech software company with
two friends and we struggled in the
beginning I was making nothing and we
turned it around and in a couple years I
got the company acquired and my partners
went to California as part of the deal I
stayed here and that’s when I I
struggled to figure out what am I gonna
do next you know I’m like I’m in my
early 20s I had two success with this
company I didn’t want to go get a job
but I didn’t have a burning idea for
what to do with my next company and I’ve
always been a big believer that if
you’re not sure what you want to do next
you don’t have a burning passion for
anything yet go out and explore try
stuff and a lot of it won’t work and you
get a sense of that pretty quickly and
some of it will stick and you’ll love it
and opportunities will come from that
they’ll try to force an idea all right I
know that’s hard like that was me I’m
like I want to do something now I got to
figure this out now you know I’d always
had an interest in venture capital I
never needed it for my business but I
wanted to learn about it so through a
connection I ended up with a position at
a venture capital company in Toronto
helping companies raise half a million
to 15 million dollars for companies and
I learned how the process worked and I
connected with the three founders who
are all in their sixties or seventies
and had all the experience in the world
and I had a position with them as an
associate wasn’t it wasn’t a formal
employee relationship I could still do
whatever I wanted
but I help bring in deals and I learned
the process cuz I wanted to learn about
it I didn’t think this would be a
long-term thing for me but it was
something I was curious about at the
same time I was I was in the media lot I
was asked to speak at events because I
was a young entrepreneur so the business
had that success and my first speaking
gig in Toronto was at the YMCA they had
a group of entrepreneurs who were I
think fired or laid off from their jobs
and they want to start their own company
as a way to create their own pack for
themselves and so I said sure I’d be
happy to come and speak and share my
lessons what I’ve learned that it love
to help and I spent a lot of time
figuring out everything I wanted to say
and all the things that I had learned
through my failure and then success and
I remember the day came and I was
promoting it for two weeks to my you
know friends and circles and and the
YMCA was pointing it to their audience
and I spend so much time on this concept
the presentation and I was nervous you
know I wanted to be perfect and I you
know come up on that day and remember
going through the doors and my heart’s
beating I’m starting to sweat like oh my
god it’s coming I’ve been working so
hard for this moment and I go out
familiar with this huge room ready to go
tons of chairs and I walk into the room
open the door and I just sink for a
minute because after all of this work
three people showed up to listen to me
and I’m wow
like I I was promoting this for two
weeks and the YMCA was pointing it to
their audience and they had a student
base already who was interested in this
and I felt like such a failure you know
like I spent all this time on something
and for a free event and I could I can
only get three people to come out and
that was a big turning point for me
because I could have given a crappy
presentation and and felt like this
wasn’t for me and tried something else
but what I discovered was I was there we
had three people like I’m gonna I did
all this work on the presentation so I’m
gonna make it the best presentation the
three people have ever seen
and it ended up being amazing and those
sweeper board changed that day and I
felt a way that I had to keep doing this
it felt so natural felt so amazing on
such a high helping these people out and
change in their lives that I felt like I
had to keep going and doing this even
though anybody who looked at this woulda
said everything you’re crazy would you
want to turn this into a business you
this is gonna be your thing now you
can’t get more than three people to come
to a free event man what are you doing
this is stupid and by all logical
reasoning it was right it was it was
stupid to think that I could turn this
into a business and yet I loved it and
so I knew I had to find a way to keep
going and if you talk to successful
entrepreneurs that’s what you’ll often
find is they’d love what they did so
much that they had to find the way to
keep going and people would do it even
if they weren’t getting paid because
they loved it so much like I love
helping entrepreneurs and I do a lot of
it without getting paid just because it
brings me happiness and then I found the
way to turn it into a business
eventually right it wasn’t I wish I said
I had this whole plan worked out like I
sat down and I wrote my plan and this is
how it’s gonna work I had I didn’t have
a plan you know I was following my
passion and tried to find something that
would take me in a direction that I
would enjoy doing and it turned from the
speaking into my website that I used to
say where I was speaking and then people
started asking could they share content
on there it said sure you can write an
article for my website this is a time
before article marketing was anything
people want just to be on my site and I
used it as lead generation for the
venture capital business that I was part
of then I started talking about modeling
the Masters and I started talking about
how to raise capital put those articles
up there realizing I could sell
advertising against that and then
started making money from advertising it
was a little side thing I’m just
whatever it’s something I was having
some fun with
and then more and more people started
writing into me and saying we want to
know more about your story wanna know
more about what got you here and your
advice and at that time everything was
behind the scenes for me I was always
sharing stories of famous entrepreneurs
and their success and showing examples
but not too much about my story and I
was shocked like why do people care
about my story so I started sharing it
more and more you know my face wasn’t
even on the homepage and so it got more
and more me telling my story and then I
got invited to do more speaking and then
I started my youtube channel and social
media and Twitter and all that stuff and
it’s it’s built it’s built in this
amazing community right every video I
put up we get comments we get views and
get subscribers I love it like the best
part of my day now is being I wake up in
the morning I grab my bowl of lentils
and I go to the computer and look at the
comments that I get from YouTube and my
social media channels I love that stuff
and it all came out of following what I
love doing having the courage to not
know where I’m going and just explore
things and when I found something that I
really liked to do even though it made
no sense to continue doing it I
continued on and found a way to turn it
into a business and something I’m still
passionate about I don’t know 12 years
later 11 usually there 12 weeks till
whatever doesn’t matter still pass him
about it so that’s my story
I don’t know hopefully that helps give
you some inspiration or helps answer
your question let me know what you guys
think you know if you want more videos
like this leave a comment below let me
know what are the questions you have I’m
happy to do a video for you if you like
the video give it a thumbs up click on
my face there subscribe to the channel
thank you so much I’ll see you soon
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