Austin Gray: Hey, welcome back to the OWNR OPS podcast! It's your host, Austin Gray. In this episode, we're going to be talking about how bad do you want it. Do you actually want to start a business?

I get so many people who reach out to me and say, "Hey, man, what do I need to do? I'm ready to start a business in my own local service market." I'll tell you what: if you're not willing to wake up at 4:00 a.m. consistently and get to work, you probably don't want to start a business. So we're going to talk about the realities behind the scenes of starting a small business.

This morning, I woke up at 3:30 a.m. I was wired and ready to go—my mind runs a million miles an hour, and I need an outlet for this stuff. This is why I'm doing the podcast. It's wintertime, our busy season is slowing down, and we've got one more tree job that I'm wrapping up right now.

But the reality of running a small business is that it doesn't matter if you're in busy season or offseason; there's always something that you could be doing. I tell you what, it's been interesting over the past two weeks around here. People know that my busy season is slowing down, and they're asking, "What are you going to do for the winter?" It's like, man, we are literally year 1.5 into the business. I've only had about 10 operating months under my belt. What in your right mind thinks that you can take your foot off the gas at 10 operating months?

Yes, my busy season is slowing down, but look, I've got a list right here. I'm recording the podcast first thing at 3:50 a.m. I should be done by 4:00 a.m. here, and then I'm going to jump in on BCL at Bearclaw Land Services financials. I have to review all our financials and make sure everything is in order so that our taxes and our P&Ls are showing everything correctly.

I've got a meeting set up this Friday with another very successful small business owner. He owns three businesses in the trades: a painting company, a drywall company, and a remodeling company. I'm pretty sure the painting company does about $12 million a year in revenue, the drywall company is about $8 million, and the remodeling company is about $7 million from our last conversation. So the guy knows what he's doing.

I texted him the other day and said, "Hey, can I pay you for year-end consulting? I want somebody who knows what they're doing, who's been in this game a long time, to go through the financials, look at things, and say, 'You know, maybe this looks a little bit out of line.' I want someone to ask me questions on different line items: 'Hey, why were you spending money here?' Talk to me about that subcontractor line item: 'Why was that so expensive?' All these little questions need to be understood first and foremost from your financials.

Then we're going to put a strategy together for the 2024 season. All that takes time, and you cannot take your foot off the gas in this game of small business. If you do, your competitors are going to get ahead of you.

I'm telling you right now, when I started a small business, my mindset was that I'm committing to delivering five-star service, and I will not be outworked by any of my competition. I will not be outworked.

The same goes for the podcast; it's a very similar mindset. I know I keep coming back to this, but it's how bad do you want it? Are you willing to wake up earlier than your competition and just get to work? That's what it takes. You don't need any special morning routine. Stop worrying about all that bullcrap; it's a bunch of BS. You don't need to jump in a cold shower, go work out, meditate, or do any of this stuff.

If you want to start a small business, stop worrying about all that other crap and just start the business. Start working on the business.

I've said it a couple of times on Twitter recently; I think people from the Baby Boomer generation were really good at this, and there's a big push in the whole SMB Twitter community right now of people buying Baby Boomers out. The only reason those Baby Boomers have successful businesses is that they woke up, put their boots on, showed up, and solved problems every single day.

Okay, most of them weren't good at taking a day off. Now, that's something that's very important to me because I think our generation—Millennials and Gen Z—care more about work-life balance. If you want work-life balance, keep your remote tech job, because you've got to fight hard to keep it in this small business game.

But a balance and focusing on family is essential to me. Here's what you don't want to hear: you're going to have to make sacrifices.

I had zero social life over the last 18 months. I built my house and built a business. My wife and I had an agreement: if we want to build a house in the mountains and pay for it, I need to start a very successful business, and that's going to take sacrifice. So you can go ahead and RSVP me no to any social function on the weekend, and that's fine with me, because I knew that putting in the work now is going to pay off in the long run.

I'm 32 years old; I've already coined my 30s as my "grind years." My 20s were for consuming information and trying out different things. Maybe some of you who are listening are in your 20s and trying to start a remote tech business, a SaaS business, or the whole e-commerce thing.

If that's you, that's fine, but just know your odds of success are way lower than if you start a local service-based business. The bar is set so low right now in local service that you can apply everything you know.

The reality is, you're probably a very digitally savvy person. You understand how to throw together a basic website. If I had to guess, you understand how to start a social media account, and you understand how to post on social media. Guess what? All your Baby Boomer competition doesn't care about that. They don’t. And that is why there is an opportunity.

They may have the majority of market share, but if they're not willing to invest in digital right now, someone like you has an opportunity to come in and start taking market share over the next decade. That person is likely at retirement age, so they're going to do one of two things: either sell that business or just shut it down.

I talked about that in the first episode, and it presents an opportunity for someone like you to start a local service business. But it takes work.

This is probably going to be a very unpopular opinion, and I'm going to talk about some things you don't want to hear about small business ownership. You are going to have to sacrifice things; that's it.

This past week, I hit five workouts. It's the first time in 18 months I've done five workouts in one week. I grew up working out, playing sports, and training; it's in my blood. I have to be physical.

But guess what? I was out in the field all summer long. We were ripping trees, throwing trees around, running heavy equipment, throwing chains around—all that stuff. You're moving and active whenever you're in a service business. If you're cleaning windows, you're going to be moving, and you're going to be active. And guess what? You're probably going to have to make a sacrifice on your health.

On any given day, unless you're David Goggins (which most of you aren't), you have a set amount of resources to work with. That's why when I wake up at 3:30 or 4:00 a.m., I jump right into the most important thing that I need to get done. This is why I'm recording the podcast before 4:00 a.m. right now; I've got the most mental energy.

This is the topic I woke up thinking about: you either want it, or you don't. It’s very simple. You either want it, or you don't.

So next time you say, "Oh, I’m going to start a business," ask yourself: Do you want to wake up at 3:30 a.m. consistently? The reality is, if you're driving the ship from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., you're going to have people relying on you. You're going to have people calling you all the time. You're going to have to be willing to answer your phone and be pushed by other people.

Your customers are going to push on you. When we did that federal job, I've never had someone push on me as hard as a superintendent pushed on us at that job. But I loved it. I loved every single minute of it.

But I just knew that I wasn't going to be sitting here working on the business type stuff. I was out in the field every single day for several months getting driven by the superintendent, an old 72-year-old ex-logger from Washington, the Kiwanis Superintendent of the Year on big government jobs. He pushed us, but every single day I was working in the business.

And look, it's just about showing up and being reactive. If you want to get anything done on the business, you’ve got to wake up early. Right now, I've got between 4:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. when my daughter wakes up, so I've got three hours that I can work on the business right now. Dive into those financials—nobody else is going to do that in the early days.

Everybody thinks, "Oh, you can hire and delegate this stuff." No, you have to drive the ship. That's why I'm passionate about this OWNR OPS brand. If you can put on your OWNR OPS hat, you can get stuff done. You can hire and delegate in certain areas, but there are specific portions of the business that you're just not going to be able to delegate.

Those of you who want to sit behind and play armchair quarterback, listen up! If you have this idea of business ownership where you're going to buy a business or start a business and tell everybody what to do, it’s just not the case. I don’t think it's a great way to do things, anyway.

People want to come work for someone who cares about what they do. They want to work for someone who takes pride in their work.

So I’m going to jump off this soapbox, but my question for you is: Do you really want it? Next time you find yourself saying, "I want to start a business," stop and ask yourself: Do you really want it?

Do you really want to grind from 4:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. before your normal workday starts? That's my question for you.

Thank you for joining me on this episode. That was a rant, but let me know if you like these episodes. Reach out to me on Twitter at the OWNR OPS and let me know what other topics you'd like me to discuss.

Once again, my name is Austin Gray. Thanks for joining and listening in on this episode. We'll see you in the next one.

Don't forget: Work hard, do your best, never settle for less, and good things will come. Thanks!