139. The Mindset Holding You Back from Starting a Business

Tori Dunlap: 

Hello, team. Hello, welcome back to Financial Feminist. Thank you so much for being here. If you’re an oldie but a goodie, welcome back. And if you’re a new, welcome to the show. My name is Tori. I am a money expert, I’m a millionaire, I’m obviously a podcast host, and I’m a New York Times bestselling author. And I fight the patriarchy by making you rich.

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Today we’re discussing a topic that is near and dear to my heart, which is not only starting a business, but all of the things that you are telling yourself, or that society has told you, that keep you from starting a business. I would say with everything personal finance and entrepreneurship, the getting started is the hardest part. We often put barriers in our way to get started as a way of weirdly feeling productive.

And I’ll talk about what I mean in a second with this, but I think that we’re so scared of failing. We’re so scared of showing up imperfectly. We’re so scared that maybe our wildest dreams are out of reach, and too big that we don’t ever get started. We tell ourselves, oh, we’re going to start next month. Oh, I’m going to start next year. Oh, when things settle down right now, I’ll get started.

And so today we’re talking about the mindsets holding you back from starting a business. And before we actually talk about those specific narratives or beliefs that you’re telling yourself, that society is telling you, that are keeping you from entrepreneurship if that’s something that you crave and that’s something that you want, I first just want to say that getting started is the hardest part. The getting started, doing something you’ve never done before, is so scary and daunting, and feels like literally you’re staring down a mountain. And you’re like, how the hell do I climb this thing?

And it’s a very similar feeling for starting on a personal finance journey. Or starting anything; a new workout plan, a new language, a new job, right? It’s like you’re excited, but you’re also deeply, deeply nervous. And you’re wondering, at least for me, I do the thing where I am looking not at what I need to do in the next day, or the next week. Because I have big dreams and because I have big expectations for myself, I’m looking at what can I accomplish in three years?

Then you realize, I don’t have the experience or the answers for any of the three years away questions, or situations, or circumstances. And I just want to say, of course you don’t. Of course you don’t have the answers that you need for questions that are three years away right now. You will figure out the things that are three years away when it’s three years away.

You will figure out the things in the future when they actually come around. And I think this anxiety and this fear of the unknown is what keeps us playing small, and what holds us back often. Because we think we need all of the answers. We think we need all of the answers to all of the questions, even though we don’t even know what the fucking questions are.

So before we even fully get into the episode, I just want to do a little polite call-out. Maybe you feel read for filth and if so, great. That was the intent, in a kind way. But the getting started is the hardest part. So I just want to acknowledge that if you’re on the precipice of getting started with anything new in life, maybe that is launching a business or thinking about a business for the first time, just know that you have to give yourself the constant reassurance that, it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to not know everything, because it’s impossible to know everything.

And that this is something that you can either decide is an incredibly scary, frightening, overwhelming, intimidating thing, or you can decide is something really exciting and fully-committed to you and your success. You can decide, this is going to be an exciting part of my life. And truly, what if everything goes great? So let me talk about some of the mindsets that hold entrepreneurs back, or hold want-to-be entrepreneurs back, and also some of the things that hold me back.

Because fun fact, I started this business in 2016. I started it right outside of college, it was about six months after graduation. But I actually wanted to start a business way sooner than that, but a lot of these narratives kept me playing small. They held me back from actually growing a business. And now that I work one-on-one with business owners that I do consulting, I do coaching, I literally talk with business owners every single day, I wanted to share some of the myths and mindsets holding you back from the dream of entrepreneurship.

The first one we have to talk about, there’s this myth that, you know what? Now’s not the right time. Now’s not the right time. It’s not a good time for entrepreneurship. We can say, oh my gosh, it’s post-pandemic. Inflation’s really high. There’s always a million reasons not to do something. And I actually remember, it’s an episode of The Office where, I’m trying to remember what character tells … Oh, it’s Jan. Jan tells Pam, “There’s always a million reasons not to do something.”

If you’re an Office fan and you’ve seen episodes or seasons three through five, 25 times like I have, literally 25, you know that Pam has this dream of going to art school. And she immediately hears about it and gets excited. But then this other part of herself kicks in, which is the quote-unquote “rational” part, and I’m using rational as a derogatory term here.

But this moment where she’s like, oh my gosh, I can take this design program at Dunder Mifflin corporate, New York. And then she goes, “Well, I have things to do on weekends,” and I have this and I have that.

And Jan looks at her and says, “There’s always a million reasons not to do something.”

And I will say that there is this myth that like, oh, I want to start a business. But now is not a good time because, I don’t know. The thing that happens is that we want to believe that now is not a good time because it lets us off the hook. Even though the thing we want is to start a business, even though the thing we want is entrepreneurship, it’s so much easier to just tell ourselves, wait, now’s not a good time. Because then we don’t have to take action. We don’t have to do anything. If we convince ourselves that now’s not a good time.

This is just like investing, this is just like asking for a raise. There is no perfect time, there’s just not. And on the flip side, if it means that there’s no perfect time, well then every time’s a perfect time. If there’s no perfect, opportune time where the stars align and everything’s great because that’s just not how life works, well then actually every time is a great time.

So I don’t want you using this mindset of, it’s not the right time, as a crutch for you to, again, actually get started. There’s always going to be things standing in your way. There’s always going to be reasons, to Jan’s point, to not do something. But if this is something that you truly want, and something that you really want to engage with, and you really want to seek out and see if this makes sense for you, then you can’t wait. You can’t wait. It’s never going to be a good time. So every time’s a great time.

So that’s our first mindset holding us back from entrepreneurship, or holding us back from being a business owner, is this fallacy that there’s a right time, and a wrong time, and now is not the right time.

The second one. There is this mindset that is all too common, and I especially see this in women, which is, well, someone else is already doing it, so I can’t do it. And we had my friend Janice on to talk about side-hustles a couple, probably a year ago. We’ll link it. It was a great episode all about growing a business and a side hustle.

And one of the things she said, because we brought this up of okay, this mindset of, well, somebody else is doing it, somebody else is a photographer, somebody else is a graphic designer, somebody else is a financial expert, and so I can’t do it, is she gave this idea or this example of the bread aisle in a grocery store. Right?

If you walk down … Which, by the way, there’s an entire aisle just for one thing. Bread, right? And if I was a bread maker or a bread owner, or just bread, if I was bread and I’m walking down the bread aisle and I’m looking at all of this different kinds of bread, english muffins, bagels, white bread, wheat bread, multi-grain bread, gluten-free bread, you have something to offer. Look at the fucking bread aisle. There are so many different kinds of bread, but they’re all inherently the same thing.

But the key with entrepreneurship is, you can do something that maybe somebody else is already doing, but in a different way. Not every photographer’s photos look the same. If you design a logo for a company, you’re going to design a very different logo than somebody else who’s also a graphic designer.

For me, if I would’ve let this hold me back of, you know what? Somebody’s already doing it. I looked at people who are now my colleagues and thought, well, they’re already doing it, so I can’t do it. I can’t be a financial expert. I can’t talk about money for women. Somebody else is already doing it.

Yeah, but they weren’t me. They weren’t me, they didn’t have the experience I did. They didn’t have the angle that I take. And so this is the classic version of a little bit of imposter syndrome, I can’t do it as well as somebody else that I see doing it. And that’s what I want to do, so why would I do it?

And also just this belief that there’s only one seat at the table. There’s only one person who can talk about women and money. There’s only one person who can photograph weddings in my town. There’s only one person who can blog about food. Of course not. Look at the fucking bread aisle. There are many different kinds of bread, many different shapes of bread. And the more you tell yourself, oh, well someone’s already doing it, the more that again holds you back.

There are so many things that you can offer. And I know that sounds like a platitude, but it’s truly not. There are so many things that you can offer, and there are so many things that you have to say, and ways you do things that are necessary to the world. And every time you tell yourself, you know what, somebody’s already doing it, you are denying the world that gift. You are denying the world what you can bring if you have the audacity to say, why not me?

Again, if I would’ve followed this, there are already people doing similar things to what I do out there. And there are people who have come after me who do similar things to what I do.

There is enough seats at the table for all of us, because we fucking build our own tables as women. And you have something to give; some angle, some stories, some ways of looking at things that are different, right? Maybe that’s who you are. Maybe that is, part of your identity is different, right? I’ll just take personal finance, because obviously I know it better than anything else.

There are people who are queer, who are neurodivergent, who are people of color, who are first-gen, who are disabled, who are women, who are from specifically one city or talk to one group of people. There are people who just do personal finance for non-compensated working parents, stay at home parents. There are people who just do content on YouTube. There are just people who talk about investing for people who make over a million dollars a year.

There are so many different angles or different attributes that you can speak to. So this myth, this mindset that, you know what? Somebody else is already doing it so I can’t, let that go. You have something valuable to say, you have something valuable to produce, and we need you. We need your voice, we need your perspective. Please don’t let that hold you back.

All right, let’s talk about number three, I don’t have starting capital. I don’t have money. I don’t have money to start a business. I don’t have a rich I uncle. I can’t get a loan from a bank. I don’t even know how to go out and raise a bunch of money, because doesn’t every business need venture capital or else it’s not a legitimate business? I don’t have enough money. Businesses are really expensive, and I don’t have enough money.

I’m going to caveat this immediately. If you are trying to build an app that’s going to require three software engineers to code, that’s going to be a more expensive business to run. If you are trying to invent a product and you need a team of inventors to go out and build that for you, I don’t know why I just thought of fucking Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, that’s a lot of money that you’re going to need. So you kind of have to pick what kind of business, or what your business’s focus is, depending on how much money you have.

I have discussed this many times before, but I literally started Her First 100K with $40. That was my upfront starting capital. I have taken no outside investment. I’ve never raised money from angel investors or from venture capitalists. I’ve never received a personal loan either from a family member or a friend or a bank. I self-funded it with $40.

I literally signed up for a website and bought a domain, that was my investment in my business. Because it was a blog at the time, it started with a blog in 2016. And for what I wanted to do, I didn’t need upfront capital. So there is this myth that every single business, in order for it to be successful, to be legitimate, needs a shit-ton of money upfront. And there are some companies that need a shit-ton of money upfront.

But if you are not able to raise money, if you’re not wanting to do that, if you don’t have a lot of money right now, there are plenty of businesses that you can start. I kind of had this theory that starting a business either requires your investment in time or your investment in money. I was a 22-year-old just out of college marketer. I didn’t have a lot of money. I didn’t have a lot of money to invest, but I did have time.

I had this passion and this ability for me to manage my time accordingly, so that I could take some time after my nine to five job, and the occasional Saturday, and I had that passion and that want to grow a business. And so I invested time instead. Now, it took a couple years for it to really get off the ground and get traction. I started it in December of 2016, so let’s call it 2017. And I didn’t see real traction on the business until 2019, right? So two to three years later.

But that was something I was willing to do because I was building my skillset, I was building my experience, and also I was slowly making more money, both in the business and also my nine to five, that I could put back into the business in order to grow it.

So not all businesses need a bunch of money to get started, and I would argue some of the most powerful ones don’t need money at all, or don’t need substantial investment. There’s great things about getting outside investment, whether that is from a bank or from friends and family, if you’ve got it. Which is a massive privilege, right? Or venture capitalists. But you also have people to answer to, then.

Right? You have a bank to answer to, you have a family member to answer to. You have venture capitalists, a board to answer to. And for me, it just was a lot more flexible to just say, okay, I’m going to grow this business on my own terms.

Oh, number four. We’ve got to talk about number four. This mindset holds so many people back. It’s kind of a two-parter. It’s either, I don’t have an MBA and you need an MBA to run a business. I’ve actually heard this so many times. Or, kind of adjacent to that, I don’t have a business plan. I don’t have a 35-page document outlining my business, and I need to put that together before I launch a business.

First of all, I don’t have an MBA. You don’t need an MBA. I have plenty of friends who have MBAs who are super smart and successful. I have plenty of friends who never got an MBA, maybe even didn’t go to four-year college and are successful business owners. You do not need an MBA to run a business. You don’t.

The closest thing I got to an MBA was an entrepreneurship program in college in my senior year, and I learned very little that I apply to my general life now as a business owner. It was a great experience, I highly recommend it. But in terms of actual, real-world application, very little. And I hear a lot of that with MBAs as well, that there’s some programs that are really helpful, and there’s some programs that are not so helpful. So you don’t need an MBA to be a successful business owner, and definitely not to even get started.

The business plan thing, I got my little dirty secret that I’m going to confess to you right now. I never wrote a business plan. I still technically have never written, at least a 35-page document of a business plan. One of the most helpful things I learned in my entrepreneurship program was figuring out what your value proposition is. If you know your value proposition, that at the bare minimum is what you need to get started. Your value proposition is, what is the thing that you are bringing that is unique?

That’s it. Is it, again, your different way of viewing things? Is it a different product? Is it some sort of innovation? Knowing your value proposition, plus, who is your ideal customer? That’s enough to get started. You don’t need a business plan.

In addition, something that I teach with my incredible friend Mallory, who is also a seven-figure business owner, is a business bootcamp program. Where literally in three hours we walk you through a marketing plan, a business plan, a how to actually create revenue streams kind of plan. We call it a mini-MBA in three hours. Again, it’s called the Business Bootcamp, we will link it down below. And that is what we built as a way of showing you exactly what we did.

We have successful seven-figure businesses, and we never wrote a business plan, and neither of us have an MBA. And so I think, again, this is one of those mindsets. Is that you need a stack of paper for a business plan that goes like, thump, when you hit it against a desk. You don’t need anything that crazy, and you definitely don’t need anything that big.

You just need to define what it is you’re trying to do, and to whom. And, how are you going to make money doing it? Which again, the Business Bootcamp goes into detail and helps you outline. So that’s one big thing; you don’t need an MBA and you don’t need a business plan.

Number five, this is the most pervasive one I see. So if you’ve been tuning me out, I need you to come back. Remember I was talking before at the beginning about this belief that we need to have all of our shit together before we embark on this entrepreneurship journey? We need to know all of the answers to all of the questions that we don’t even know, either. We don’t know the questions, so of course we don’t know the answers. And we think we’re being productive by doing this, right? We think we are being productive by worrying about all of the things that we think we need answers to.

And number five is very specific, but I see it. This is the most common thing I see. This mindset is the most pervasive and damaging mindset. Which is, well, I need a website. And I need a brand color, and I need a logo, and I need all of these things before I can launch. And they need to be perfect, right?

And this looks like different things for different businesses, but this is the most common thing I see. Which is, I don’t have a website, or I don’t have a perfect website. Or, I don’t have a logo, or I don’t have the perfect logo. Or, I don’t have brand colors, and I need to have brand colors before I launch.

If you have been here since 2016, I doubt it, but props to you, bless you. Hello, thank you for being here. You know that the brand that I ran, which wasn’t even called Her First 100K for another three years, was messy as fuck. If you have time and you want to do this, you can literally go to the Her First 100K Instagram and you can scroll back to content I was creating in 2018. It is bad. It’s not good.

It’s really messy, and I can look at it and feel a little cringey and a little embarrassed. I was doing the best I could with what I had at the time. And something so powerful that I decided to do was take on the mindset that done was better than perfect. If there’s one mindset I can get you to actually take on as opposed to get rid of, it is that done is better than perfect, especially when it comes to being an entrepreneur.

I launched my first website with three blog posts literally in a night. I woke up that morning and I decided, Hey, I think it’s time to stop talking and actually launch the blog. The website was ugly. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t pretty. But I did it. I did it, I got it launched. Okay, cool.

And then a week later, I fixed this part of it. Great. A week after that, I designed myself a logo in Canva. It wasn’t pretty, it was enough. We put these hoops in front of ourselves that we think we need to jump through. Like, oh, well, I can’t get started because I need a website. You know what? I can’t get started because I need the perfect branding. You know what? I can’t get started because I need the perfect logo or the perfect name, or whatever that looks like.

Done is better than perfect. You will figure out what it should look like along the way. You can constantly improve. You can constantly iterate on your original idea. And you should, right? But you cannot wait for it to be perfect before you even launch it, because then you will never get started. And weirdly, your brain is doing this like, well, I have to have all of these things, and you feel like you’re being productive because you’re worrying about all of these things.

No, it’s just your excuse for not getting started. You don’t need the perfect brand color. You don’t need the perfect logo, or the perfect website, or the perfect name. Her First 100K didn’t come about, the name didn’t come about until three years after I originally launched the blog. Because I found that name, I found the mission, I found the brand color, I found what the vibe of the brand was through the three years working on it. Through conversations with you all. Through understanding where my own passions and my own gifts were.

Done is better than perfect. Let go of the mindset that you need to have all of your ducks in a row before you can get started. Just start. You’re going to figure it out along the way.

And finally, number six. We talked about this with Amy Porterfield on a previous episode, we will also link it down below. It’s a great companion for this episode that you’re listening to now. We also believe, especially as women, that I cannot teach somebody because I’m not an expert. We always feel like there’s more we could be doing, more we could be learning, more that we could know before we brand ourselves as an expert.

I still remember the first time that I got any sort of major press, and they were asking what my title was.

They were going to write Tori Dunlap, comma, title, comma, and then my quote. And I remember thinking, am I allowed to put money expert? Am I allowed to say that I’m a money expert if the money expert unicorns or fairies didn’t come down from on high and bequeath me with that title? I was trying to find, I don’t know, the Council of Nicaea for Money Experts. That’s a Catholic school deep cut.

But I was trying to think of who or what gives me the permission to say that? And I realized, I give myself permission. Now, I’m not out here saying I’m a money expert, and then I can’t teach you anything about money, right? That’s a scam, that’s a fraud. But, as Amy said in the episode, you’re just trying to teach the people who are slightly behind where you’re at now. You don’t need a PhD in economics to teach somebody how the economy works at the basic level.

You don’t need to be the world’s foremost expert in what you’re doing, you just need to be able to offer value to people. And if you are going to teach something, teach it to the people who are just behind you, or who are a couple steps behind you. That’s so important to keep in mind, especially when imposter syndrome creeps in. Where we’re like, oh my God, I’m not an expert.

What kind of questions are your friends asking you? That’s a perfect place to start. What kind of questions do your friends ask you about something? That’s how I discovered my passion for teaching women about money. And then I went out and taught myself more to make sure that I felt confident enough to teach it, right? But I say this all the time as part of my story, I was the friend that all my friends were coming to for advice and guidance.

Did I have multiple degrees in finance? Was I a financial professor? Did I have certifications out the wazoo? No. But I could teach money in a way that was accessible, in a way that broke it down in millennial English, and felt like you were just having brunch with me. Not sitting in a stuffy office learning about the stock market.

So this idea that you need to be a complete and total expert, you need to have, again, everything figured out, and you need to be the foremost thought leader on whatever you’re trying to do or teach, is just bullshit. I always hate when people do this, but white men do this shit all the time. And you know way more than a fucking white man. You do. You are way better at your job, you’re way more qualified to teach. But you think you have to be an expert and it’s holding you back.

So when it comes to building a business that’s teaching somebody something, when it comes to building a business that’s offering a service, and you’re trying to gain credibility and brand yourself as the person that somebody should trust, you don’t have to be the person who’s read every single book about the topic. And frankly, you shouldn’t be, right? You don’t have to be the world’s foremost experts.

Think about what people ask you about all of the time, what your friends come to you for advice for. What you can offer somebody who’s just a few steps behind you. Team, I’m so excited for you to throw away these mindsets that are holding you back from entrepreneurship. If this is something that you want to pursue, if you’ve always wanted to be a business owner, I encourage you to maybe journal after you listen to this episode.

What takeaways do you have? What thoughts do you have? Are any of these mindsets things that are actively keeping you playing small, keeping you from getting started, or from progressing in your business? And I would love to hear, especially if you’re on Spotify down below, feel free to share your thoughts with us in the little question box.

I love doing these kinds of entrepreneurship-focused episodes, these are questions we get all of the time. Which is, how do I increase my income? How do I become an entrepreneur? How do I do this full-time? And if for some reason you listen to all of this and you have never wanted to be an entrepreneur, that’s also okay. Entrepreneurship isn’t for everybody. I am the first to tell you that there are many great things about entrepreneurship, and there are also many, many painful things about entrepreneurship.

So you may have gotten to the end of this episode thinking, yeah, I want to do this. And maybe this isn’t for you, that’s okay. But I will say that if you are telling yourself any of these, that it’s not the right time, or that somebody else is already doing it, or that I don’t have money and I need a bunch of money, or I don’t have this stack of paper for a business plan, or I don’t have the perfect website, or I don’t feel like the world’s foremost expert, let all that go. Leave all that behind.

The world needs your voice, the world needs what you have to offer. And frankly, I need you to get fucking rich doing it. I need you to go out and pursue entrepreneurship if that’s a passion of yours. Because the world needs you, and also you need you. You need the investment in yourself in order to boost your confidence, but also to make a bunch of money for yourself and for your community.

So, thank you for being here as always, financial feminists. I’m cheering you on every step of the way. I can’t wait to see you back here soon, and I’ll talk to you later.

Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields. Associate Producer, Tamisha Grant. Research by Ariel Johnson, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Medcalf. Marketing and operations by Corina Patel, Amanda Lafew, Elizabeth McCumber, Masha [inaudible 00:32:19], Taylor Cho, Kaylinn Sprinkle, Sasha Bonnar, Claire Coronan, Daryl-Ann Engman, and Janelle Reasoner. Promotional Graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.

A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting this show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com.