Avoid Analysis Paralysis by Releasing Your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and Going From There (with Marian Saint)

Welcome to the Frugalpreneur podcast. I am your host, Sarah St. John.This episode is what I refer to as a showcase episode where I feature a bootstrapped entrepreneur and they briefly share their tips, tricks, tactics, techniques and tools that help them bootstrap their business and the successes and failures along the way.My hope is that each of these showcase episodes will provide at least one valuable takeaway that you can implement with right away in your own bootstrap business journey. Now onto the episode.

My name is Marian Saint. I am a marketing consultant for business owners and creatives that want to simplify their business, make more money and live a better life.I started my corporate career after grad school. I got my MBA and then I started working in the corporate world.I was in the insurance industry and I was working with agency owners and their teams, telling them, hey, this is what corporate wants you to do. This is the thing. It's going to help you grow your business.And what I realized is that, man, I'm working with a lot of older men and they have been successful in their careers and now they're trying this new venture, but they really have a lot of stuff together and I should be bringing something to the table that's more than just, hey, corporate side, you should do this.So during that time, I had started in photography with my creative outlet and I realized that I could use that as a business venture to test some ideas on the side. Marketing, sales, all that sort of thing. Put a lot of the stuff that I was teaching into practice and that just exploded. It continued to grow.So in 2020, when Allstate had done a big corporate restructuring, I decided, you know what, now is the time I'm going to take it full time. And then in 2022, I moved the photography studio from Hawaii to Dallas.During that period of time too, I had just been helping other business owners on the side. Just word of mouth with their systems and processes.And if you can get your business foundation into place, then you can just really grow everything so much better. And so after working with so many people just as they came along, I decided, you know what, I'm going to start my sales and marketing agency.We have a good thing going here and I need to spread the word to more people. And this year we launched Agency Ignite. Also, making sure that your financial position is in order is really important.And I have not always been the best at that. So don't think that I have all the answers, but more so that I've made all the mistakes. So if you want to bootstrap your business.I do think it's important for you to be running two things at the same time.So if that means getting a boring job working for somebody else, but it's reliable and it's steady, you can still work on your business on nights and weekends. You can wake up early. All this extra work is going to build dedication.And I think it's really important to try to reduce financial stress as much as possible. If you can pay your bills, if you have a roof over your head, it's just going to help the that much more.You still are going to have probably have stressed from long days, nights and weekends, that sort of thing. You're going to have to say no to more things. You're not going to be able to go out like before.You probably really should save money, but this is what's going to allow you to grow your business and eventually live the life that you want. So my biggest thing get something else on the side. Be really frugal.Know that it's going to be a little bit of a grind for a while and just know that on the other side you're gonna have a business you love, but more importantly, you're gonna have built the dedication and discipline in your own life that's really gonna set you up for success forevermore.

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Business biggest success was being smart about saving money. And putting money away. When I was working in my corporate job, I really loved the corporate work I did.And the only reason that I left is because I felt like I was splitting my attention too much. It got to the point where I was not being a good employee on both sides of the equation.But getting that extra money and being able to put it away made a big difference when there was lean times. And in my startup business, the biggest failure in bootstrapping my business was relying on people.I made a really bad business investment decision with somebody who promised the world, and I didn't do my due research to make sure that they were actually legitimately doing what they said they were doing. Lost a ton of money. That's a huge problem. So I would say do your research and if you don't understand something, do not invest in it.And if you don't really, really know somebody, even if you do, it's probably a better idea to not invest in something somebody too. Trust and honesty are huge, huge in life. You do not want to work with liars and you don't want to work with scam artists.And remember, they're going to make themselves look good.So whether it's an employee, whether it's a potential partner, be really, really careful that you protect your resources, protect your energy, protect the business that you've built and make just really smart decisions. Don't let anybody take you for a ride. The biggest technique that I would say when you're trying to bootstrap your business is to just start.So a lot of times I've been in a little bit of analysis paralysis, but you can't get stuck there for too long. Think of the minimally viable product that you can get to market and go with that you're going to learn so much along the way.Don't get distracted by shiny object syndrome. Don't waste your money on things that are hacks or are designed to be a shortcut.If it's a shortcut that you learn something on the other side and that you're getting through like that, then that is potentially a good answer to your problems. But if you're not learning something and you're not being able to iterate, it's just a waste of time and energy. Your network is so, so important.It really is your net worth. I know that's the saying that goes around, but you need to leverage your network.You need to be out there creating relationships and looking for ways that you could potentially work with other people. That was another huge thing for me and I'm really grateful for the people I know that could either give advice or business or business alliances.That is a really important thing. The other thing that I would say is that you need to quickly figure out how to spread your message and get your face on social media.It is definitely intimidating for some people to record themselves, to create videos, to put themselves really out there.Dig into those feelings and figure out what's holding you back and what lie that you're telling yourself about why you can't make it, why you shouldn't be front and center and push past that because that's another aspect of bootstrapping your business. Free exposure online, word of mouth, all those sorts of things means that you need to put your face out there. It's difficult.I've had a really hard time with it. I'm still learning how to do it better, but that's going to be a huge key to your business growth.Building a business is one of the most exciting, stressful, exhilarating personal growth. Developing journeys that you can take.Every time I thought I had it figured out, something else came along to make me realize, wow, life is really a journey and I am still learning. And that's one of the most exciting things about business. Building a business, managing a team, creating the life that you want.It's not easy and it is not for everyone and that is okay. But if you have an idea that you want to put out into the world, you need to go for it. Don't let anybody hold you back.Don't let doubt get in the way.Be willing to pivot and change as you need to and understand that you're going to take this amazing journey of self development and growth and that's really, really cool. I would love to connect with your audience and just learn more about them, provide more value.If you go to the marianmethod.com you can find a free marketing audit. We can schedule call if you have some quick questions. I would love to be helpful and you can ask me. Be anything there but get in touch.Follow along on all social media but the first place to go would be themarianmethod.com thank you so much and good luck in your journey of business growth.

I hope you enjoyed that episode and were able to take away a valuable nugget of information that you can implement right away in your own business. If you feel your story would be valuable for the listeners of this show, please visit Frugal Show Guest.