Today we have a great interview in store with Josh Hellman, a man who won the Forbes 30 Under 30 award in 2022. In this article, we expand on some of his answers to give great insights and actionable tips for you to implement into your business.
The best part (for a starting entrepreneur) about Josh is that he hosts a community space on X called “Innovators Think Tank” every Saturday at 4 p.m. EST. With this, you can join and listen to him and many other entrepreneurs talk about their ideas and actions every week. As a starting entrepreneur, a community of other entrepreneurs is one of the best resources you can utilize to become successful, and Josh is doing the work for you by rounding people up!
Let’s get into the questions and his answers:
What were your original ideas if you didn’t start the company you’re currently running?
“I originally wanted to own and develop land for renewable energy production”
His original idea is extremely hard to work with for most. To start your first business by buying land and getting into renewable energy for production comes with a big startup cost, a big running cost, and an extremely large, competitive market.
Something like this probably isn’t the best thing to get into as your first business, as you probably won’t have the proper capital built up, knowledge of the industry, or knowledge of managing a business that large.
This is where his second response comes in useful, and we will talk more about it after the next question.
Why didn’t you go through with your original idea?
“I didn’t create a company that did that – I created a company that finances those endeavors. I created the first green bank in Colorado and won a 30U30 award in 2022”
This response is an absolute golden nugget. See as he had an original idea and a market he wanted to get into, he didn’t back down from it because he couldn’t start that company. He took a different position in the same market in order to be involved.
Businesses are often started because people are passionate about something. The problem with his original idea (If you’re into that type of thing) is that it takes a lot of capital to buy that much land and work against very large, long-time-running energy businesses.
Josh found a way to stay in the market by offering a different service, and creating a company that was still involved in the market, but not what he originally wanted to do.
Now the company he started wasn’t exactly easy to start either, as banks aren’t easy to start especially when you’re the first one in the market in the entire state. But the concept is a great one to take notes from.
If you’re looking to get into a field like real estate flipping, as many like to do to start their investing/business journey, sometimes it’s not exactly easy to cough up $10,000 or more for an initial down payment and $20,000 for a remodel before you sell and actually make a profit.
In this case, you could take a different position in the same market. One idea would be to become a real estate agent that focuses on flipping deals. This would be an excellent choice for two reasons:
- It gets you into the market you want to work in, getting you experience in roadblocks, investing, bad decisions, good decisions, etc…
- It gets you working with the people in the market who would more than likely be interested in helping you start your journey as well.
From there, you could sell some houses and save money to flip your first house at the same time all while being in the market the whole time!
If you catch the drift, you’re getting your foot in the door in a positive way.
How would you have launched it if you think it can still work?
”I would buy land and put renewable production assets on it with PPAs”
Launching any business isn’t a one-line answer, and not even a 100-page answer. If someone could exactly say how to start a business and run it successfully on a document it would never happen anyway because every business is so different.
Take that into consideration, running a successful business isn’t about knowing how to start it, it’s more about starting it and running it until you figure it out and find success with it.
Before we move on to the next one, I’ll briefly mention that PPAs are power purchase agreements in the form of a long-term contract usually between an electricity generator and a customer. PPAs may last anywhere between 5 and 20 years as well.
What is a trendy business model you think is overrated and overhyped? Why?
“Web3 – just many scammers and low intellect / low business acumen individuals”
Josh isn’t wrong, and if you read more of these blogs you’ll see a common theme here. Many different successful entrepreneurs will tell you the same thing: Web3 and AI. When it comes to things like this and crypto, you see people get scammed and chipped from deals every day that cost them anywhere from 2 cents to the cost of their house.
In any market, it’s a great idea to be sure of the trustworthiness of the market, who you’ll be working for, who you’ll be working with, etc.
We aren’t going to go in-depth specifically about Web3, but the general tips about all forms of business are useful for it.
All in all, Josh gave great answers to expand on and bring great actionable tips to starting entrepreneurs and even veteran entrepreneurs. If you’d like to check out his 30 under 30 article take a look here
