Growing Your Passion into a Business with Oprah and Jürgen Ingels

So I think one of the things that is important to point out is that your origin story and my origin story are similar. Had fathers who were very strict, and even though we were born on opposite sides of the ocean and under very different circumstances, what we were good at as young people, what we were interested in and focused on growing, yours was parties, mine was speaking, led to a career. Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Oprah podcast. I thank you for giving us your time to be here. I know that life gets busy and you want to be mindful about how you spend the minutes of your day. It does mean a great deal to me that you join me here for conversations that, for these times we're living in, or any time that we'd be living in, give us ideas on how to live better, how to live more fully. So I just want to tell you, I met my guest today when he invited me to Belgium, a place I'd never been, to speak at his conference that he called the Supernova Conference. And I was intrigued by that title. You know, a good title is everything. And I was also intrigued by the invitation because I really enjoy discovering new experiences and new places. And I would say I'm in one of the biggest periods of exploration in my life than I've ever been, because all those years I was working for the show, I just work, work, work, work, work all the time. So when I got the invitation to go to Brussels, I said yes and met Juergen Ingels, who is one of the great tech entrepreneurs. Born and raised in Belgium, Juergen Ingels is a tech pioneer, entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He attained global business renown as the founder of Clear2Pay, which became the world leader in payment software. In 2014, with more than 1,200 employees in 14 countries, Clear2Pay was sold to tech giant FIS. Juergen has appeared as a judge on the Flemish version of Shark Tank. And he is the author of Start, Grow, Sell, a book that reveals 50 important lessons, not just for business, but also the business of life. That's why I invited him to the Oprah podcast to share them with you. He hosts an epic gathering of the most innovative minds in the heart of Europe. And we had such a great conversation. Juergen was interviewing me on the stage, but I really wanted to talk to Juergen about his book, which I said, shared this with you on the stage. So I guess I don't know who sent me this. somebody who's running the conference said, oh, you know, he wrote a book. So my comms person said, oh, oh, send us the book. So I said, oh, I'll just skim through the book to see what the book is. The book is called Starch Grow Cell. So I started skimming it just so that when I met you, I'd be able to say, oh, yeah, I know you wrote a book. And then because I was jet lag, I stayed up and I read the whole thing until 4.30 in the morning. And afterwards, I thought, this is so helpful, will be so useful to people who are starting out and don't know the ins and outs, or even if you are already in the ins and outs. And so that's why I invited you here. You're here. Yeah, I'm very, very glad to be here. You flew all the way from Brussels to be here. Just to come to this tea house, and then you're flying back. Exactly. So I want to talk about Start, Grow, Sell, 50 Tips for Entrepreneurial Greatness. And the reason why I wanted to talk to him, because I know so many of you want to start your own business and people have great ideas, but you need more than a great idea. I think that this becomes a blueprint for life, not just business. but let's go back to how you got started because i think knowing how you got started will help a lot of people understand what i say here in this podcast a lot nothing you've ever done is lost so i love the story that you tell in the beginning of the book when you had a strict father yes very nice father but he was very nice father but a strict father who didn't want you partying past a certain hour 12 o'clock and to get around that you created a way that you could party and then eventually started the business yeah well i wanted to go out i was 16 years old and my dad said yeah you can go out but you have you have to be home at 12 and i said that it's it only starts at 11 he said i don't care you you'll be home at 12. how many of us have had said that to our fathers the party doesn't get started until 12 yes and i thought well this isn't gonna be fun So I told about it creatively and went back to my father and said, if I organize the party, can I stay longer? And he said, well, if you organize it, you'll learn something. You can stay as long as you want. So I started organizing parties in my hometown, which was fun. You were organizing parties for yourself or for other people? No, for other people. So I invited like first 100 people and 200 people. And then I started once a month and then the other week, twice a month, three times a month, every week, and then other cities. So the lesson for this is you're told you can't have a party. You can't stay out late at parties. You have to be home by midnight. You want to be able to get around that. You are an enterprising teenager who then decides, I'm going to just create parties, invent parties for other people. That way, I have to stay at the parties, also clean up after the parties. And so what happened to that midnight curfew? It went by the wayside. It went by the way. And also, I think my dad knew that I was going to learn a lot about, okay, if you organize a party, you have to organize, make a budget. You have to find sponsors. You have to sell tickets, all of that stuff. And I think, well, I couldn't ask anymore because my father died in 99. But I think in the back of his mind, he probably thought my son, maybe that's a good push for my son to be a bit more entrepreneurial, I guess. And so what was so striking to me about that story is you started out as a teenager organizing parties. And then I get invited to come to Brussels for one of the biggest entrepreneurial parties. It's like a summit of all the entrepreneurs all around the world coming to Brussels. So you took this small idea and turned it into this big thing that at the time, of course, you didn't know you were growing it into that. No, no, no, for sure. I mean, if you would have told me that, I would have said, but it's because of the experience and also like inspiring people from the conference is something I really enjoy doing a lot. And that's also why I started Supernova to take what I've learned organizing parties because it's very similar, but then also showing how you can inspire people by inviting people to come and talk about the future, about technology, about life and so on. So I think one of the things that's important to point out is that your origin story and my origin story are similar. Had fathers who were very strict, and even though we were born on opposite sides of the ocean and under very different circumstances, what we were good at as young people, what we were interested in and focused on growing, yours was parties, mine was speaking, led to a career. And one of the things, one of the many points you make in the 50 lessons for successful entrepreneurship is that you need to not be engaged in what you call sterile mediocrity. Can you talk about that? Yeah, it's in the chapter Focus on Your Talents. And what I mean with that is basically, give an example, if you have children and they come home with their school results, sometimes let's say that they have three straight A's and they have a D. then as a parent you typically say to the child focus on the d focus on the d and so the child says okay i need to focus on the d gets maybe the d into a c because he didn't like it he doesn't have the talent for it but while he's doing that because time is restricted his a's also go to b and so what you see actually in my case i've been like educated to be average and average is not wrong but in these days today your average is not good enough anymore because you have to actually compete with the rest of the world and so you have to focus on educated to be average yes because the system. Exactly. Yes. And so my point is you really have to focus on your talents. You have to look at what you're good at. Everybody has a talent. Look at what you're good at and try to improve on the talents and work with people who also are very good at these talents and create like a kind of company with talented people. And so focus on your talent. Don't waste time on stuff that you're not good at. Well, not only that, but you always had the mind for, as you'll see, because you decided to switch majors in college from engineering to political and social sciences, Is that correct? And your father said that you would have to pay for it on your own. And because of that, you took a job at a fast food restaurant. What did you learn from working there? You're one of those guys that no matter what you were doing, you took a lesson from whatever you were doing and you use that lesson to move you forward, which is why I wanted to have this conversation, because everybody has a life where they've done things they didn't want to do. You're one of those people who did the things you didn't want to do and turn that into something that was more palatable for you? Well, when I started, my parents were not very rich, and so they were not rich people. And so when I moved and I wanted to study political and social sciences, my dad said, okay, I'm not going to pay for it. And so I said, fine, I'm going to work. So I worked in the Quik, which is like the Belgian equivalent of McDonald's. And I really learned, first of all, I learned the hard work because it's hard work. And I also learned to appreciate really people who don't have an educational degree because the people there are people who work there for 20, 30 years. And I've really learned there to work with those kind of people, to collaborate with them, but also to inspire them because those people are not necessarily inspired. They have to do the same job every day. And so I really learned also how to work in a team, how to inspire people, how to say, come on, guys, let's do this. And you had to balance work in classes. So you started to ask your friends for their lecture notes. I love the story in the book. And that gave you the idea for another business to sell notes and exam questions to other students. And where did this hustle, this work ethic come from? Well, I had to work 30 hours a week, so I couldn't always go to the lessons. And I saw that there were these girls who really have, and boys who really have very good notes of the professor. So I went to them and said, okay, can I use your notes for myself? But also then I saw these notes are really good quality, And I also had friends who didn't work, but were in the pub a lot. And then I started commercializing the notes, but also the exam questions. And it started very small. But after three or four years, I had all the universities and all the different directions and selling copies. You say you've always been inquisitive by nature. But one of your favorite questions has always been, why is that so? Why is that so? Talk more about that. Yeah, I mean, I'm very curious. I'm very curious at why things are what they are. And I worked in a bank as well, where basically, when I was working in New York, I had to send money back and forth between Belgium and the US. And money was always took a long time to hit to send money from Belgium to the US. And I thought, why is that? And so I went in the bank and talked with the people in the banking and said, what kind of system do you use to actually transfer money? Why does it take so long? And why is it so expensive? And they said to me, well, it's the financial system. Your money is somewhere in the financial system. And I thought, what's that? I mean how can money how can you don know as a bank where the money is You talking about clear to pay Yes And then I basically came up with an idea but it was more curious I wanted to figure out how it worked And because I saw well this is crazy to do it like this And so it started not really as I saw a problem, but it was more out of curiosity that I saw the problem. And I came up with a solution and then created my company. So this is what he did. He founded the company Clear2Pay, which revolutionized payment systems, built it to be a global powerhouse, then sold it about 10 years ago. And people told him how lucky he was. And here's what I think is so remarkable about you. Instead of just sitting back, you decided to find out if that luck was really real or to see if you could do it again. And what happened? Yeah. People said to me, oh, you're lucky. And I was lucky. And then I really realized that I was lucky. But on the other hand, I thought, can you do this again? Can you again build a company out of Belgium, a technology company into a global player. And rather than doing that as an entrepreneur, I said, let's do it as a kind of private equity fund. So I created an investment fund. And through the investment fund, we invest in technology companies in Europe, and we help them very early stage by helping those companies to become successful. And basically, with all the experience and the luck that I had in building my company, I tried to help those companies to be as successful because I believe that if you do things right, that you can actually squeeze time and be more successful by using your experience and what you've learned. One of the reasons, you know, as I said, I was invited to speak at the Supernova Conference in Belgium earlier this year. And the host had written a book and I was just going to scan the book and started reading it and then stayed up all night reading it. And one of the things that intrigued me about this book is that you share everything from how to choose board members, because a lot of people mess that up. How to find investors. A lot of people don't know how to do that. Creating a pitch deck. The pitch deck is always too much. Wow. Right down to how to make sure employees are not stealing toilet paper. True story? Yeah, true story. Somebody was stealing his toilet paper. Yeah, exactly. Somebody was in the evening. Well, basically, if you went to the morning in the building, there was no toilet paper. And so apparently one of the guys was having a small business on his own. So in the evening, he stayed until late. And then he took all the toilet paper and started selling toilet paper. Oh, my goodness. That's pretty generous of you to share all of this intel. What was your motivation? My first motivation, I have two children, Timon and Finn. They're 22 and 19. And my first motivation was that they're not really entrepreneurs, both of them. But my first was like, okay, if you ever want to become an entrepreneur, read the book of your dad. That was the intention of reading the book. And I wanted to write a very practical book because there's a lot of management books and so on on entrepreneurship. But I really wanted to write a book where if you start, I've made a lot of mistakes that you can actually learn from my mistakes and do things quicker or better. And that's the reason why I wrote it. But it's very practical because if you read it, you can immediately work with it and you get good information how to build a company. Thank you for joining us, dear listener, for this episode of the Oprah Podcast with one of the great tech entrepreneurs, Jürgen Ingels. He is the author of Start, Grow, Sell, 50 Tips for Entrepreneurial Greatness. Stay with us. Welcome back, listener. My guest today is Jürgen Ingels. He's one of the world's leading tech entrepreneurs, the author of Start, Grow, Sell, and the creator of the Supernova Tech Conference. It's a gathering of the best tech minds in the world. Let's get back to our conversation. Okay, let's talk about the biggest mistakes people often make. I think people start with a vision with no idea about how to execute. That's one of the things I think is one of the biggest problems. But I want to hear from you. First, my biggest mistakes. I think the team, for me, the team is the most important. And you start with people that you say, okay, I think this is a good guy, but they're not the best guys. And I think if you start a business and you have business partners, you really have to choose the right people that you can work with. And you can't start with somebody that you don't think is not the best guy. No, I wouldn't do that because ultimately – and also with friends because sometimes people start with friends. I mean it can work, but it's also difficult. And sometimes people also start with people that they're both engineers. They know each other from university. they're both engineers. It's always better, I think, in my opinion, to have somebody with a different background, with another background like history or philosophy, because it gives you other insights. So that's definitely a mistake. Second mistake, I think, is that they underestimate the costs that it will bring. Always people are optimistic. You're an entrepreneur, you're optimistic. And so you make a calculation of how much money you need. But in my experience, it's always more, You always need more. It's always at least 30% more. Yeah. Well, that's more or less what I think. And it also takes longer because you're optimistic. You say, okay, I'm going to have a first customer within two quarters. And it turned out it's four quarters. So everything you do and you say, well, I'm going to have – like my product is going to be ready in the second quarter. I always add two quarters because if you then look at reality, it's more or less like this. So I always add like two quarters in terms of when is it going to – I do that too. Especially – well, certainly in building a house. If you're doing anything with contractors, building a home, if you don't do that, you just end up frustrating. So I automatically do that. So you don't go in with the expecting whatever they tell you, add a third to a half. Whatever they tell you it's going to be in terms of time, add a third to a half more. And sometimes it's even longer, but at least you don't go in with, I thought it was going to be ready because it never is. Correct. And companies go bankrupt because of liquidity, because of cash. Yes. And so when you add that and you make your calculation, then you see, okay, I'll need more cash. But then if you raise that cash or you get that cash from the bank, then you know that you're not going to get into trouble because the reality is going to be 30% more and six months later. Yes. So you offer a mathematical formula. This struck me too, for what you call the power of the extra mile. And I told you when I was in Belgium doing your conference that I and my team embody this philosophy, even though I didn't know it was a philosophy. In chapter one, Jürgen writes, quote, there is no secret recipe or golden tip to becoming a successful entrepreneur. There is, however, a neat mathematical formula. In fact, it has never let me down. I've even given it a name, the power of the extra mile. I often work on Saturday mornings from 9 to 12. It's just three hours a week. But if you add up all those three-hour periods over the course of a year, you end up with an additional 20 or so working days, almost a full extra month. Imagine what you could achieve if you had your own 13th month. You know, I really bonded with Jürgen on his extra mile philosophy. Yeah, it's a mathematical formula. My experience is that if you're successful in life, the people who are successful just work harder than the rest. And so consequently working harder than the rest is basically that formula. I just love that formula. It's fantastic because it allows other people to see that going the extra mile actually creates extra miles in the future. You actually have extra time to learn new habits, to learn new stuff. And that is like the real power because it gives you the extra mile. It gives you like an advantage because you work harder. And that's also what I've done in my life. I've always tried to work harder and learn new things by taking more time and not watching television too much or just spending time and stuff that I really like. Yes. When we were speaking in Belgium, you were asking me about, you know, work-life balance. And I was saying one of the things that's so remarkable about my team and particularly during the years of the Oprah show where we're literally putting out a show every day, there was no work-life balance. And I don't see how anybody who is going to be an entrepreneur starting something from scratch, putting it out into the world. I don't know how you have work-life balance. I fully agree. Certainly in the beginning. I fully agree. The first five years are really tough. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And work-life balance for me is something you choose for. But if you really want to be successful in life, I think you really have to go for it and really spend a lot of time in it. And there is a certain time period where you're building momentum and that momentum matters. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And actually, most of the successful entrepreneurs, and they're not going to admit it to you, but most of the successful entrepreneurs that I don't know, they just have worked harder than the rest. And there's almost a direct correlation between hard work and success. And it's I mean, you have people who are lucky. And so luck is always a factor. Yeah. But but I think luck is preparation meeting opportunity. So it's being prepared for when the moment comes along. It's not like luck, you know. So, you know, you can have the opportunity. But if you weren't prepared, then it doesn't happen. I am so grateful you're here. Coming up, Juergen and I will be joined by a mother of four young children in Massachusetts who left a stable paycheck in finance to start her own business, a dream of hers for many years. We'll hear her story next. Thank you for being here. If you're an entrepreneur or have dreams of owning your own business, you'll want to get your hands on a copy of Jorgen Engel's book, Start, Grow, Sell, 50 Lessons for Successful Entrepreneurship. It is a must read for business owners and honestly, for life in general. Let's get back to our conversation. Because we have you hear a couple of our podcast listeners who are entrepreneurs wanted your advice okay so sauna is joining us as a mom of four from concord massachusetts mom of four that is already a huge job says she left a stable income in the finance industry to start a new business sauna what's your story about my hats off i take my sneakers my hat my shirt off to you four children what are their ages what are their ages yeah so i have uh they're all under the age of nines i have an eight-year-old a five-year-old an almost three-year-old and a one-year-old next week and we are done oh my gosh okay yeah it's wild but wild but great um but no i'm so i'm so grateful to be here and to to tell you a little bit uh about my story and and to ask this question but uh i left finance after 15 years and i loved leading teams and working on strategies specifically that was on products and solutions for women and wealth. But I always knew corporate life wasn't my passion. I had stayed for the stability to support these four children and the things that we hadn't wanted to do in our life. But I always dreamed of something of my own. And Juergen, like you, it started at the age of 16. But really, I didn't get the passion and the courage and the comfort to do it until a pivotal moment two years ago when my son reached age six. It was the same age that I was when I was sexually abused as a child. This is going to be a little heavy and then I'll get into the part, but I think it's important. I knew that I could not move forward in my life and as a parent without bringing my abuser accountable. And that happened. It was a lot of work. Twenty nine years later, the story became front page news in our town. It became public and it was really uncomfortable. But what I will say is that discomfort but that courage brought me to the point of saying I can do very hard things and I can be empowered to make this world a better place by helping ensure that my children are safe and other children are safe and it's never too late to do what's right. So what that brought me to was two years later in December, I left my corporate job and took on my passion of creating a small business that I hope to scale. And this is Happy on Main. So went from Wall Street to Main Street. And really what this is and what I've created is a retail experience that what I think is creating revolution. I want women to be able to be empowered. I want community to come together. And there's three revenue drivers that come with that, with shopping, connecting and celebrating the little moments in life that really make up our lives. So why I kind of have with that long story and what that comes to is that for me, asking for money or charging is more uncomfortable than telling you that story of the abuse that I endured as a child that affected me for so long. And I have a mission driven business within Happy on Maine to ensure that women are seen and empowered and brought together to make the community better. But with that, I also want to ensure that I can drive growth in scale and find other main streets over time to bring this to. And so my question is, is how do you ensure when you have a mission driven business, how do you ensure that you keep that mission, but are also able to drive the revenue and the scale required to grow? Yeah, I mean, I see you're in finances. So your background is finance, and I think it's probably something you should use, I mean, because you bring an added value in this world. And so maybe you should focus a bit on trying to show what the added value is and working out KPIs and also achieving those KPIs. Because if you achieve those KPIs and you have a happy customer, that happy customer will actually be able potentially to pay a bit more, but also will be a kind of guide for you to go to other customers and tell your story. And so packaging your story by focusing on the KPI, showing your added value, and then from that added value, try to convince other customers to come to your shop. I think that's what I would do. I would also say in terms of while you mentioned financial stability, I think I wouldn't focus on financial stability per se, because I think if you really focus on your added value and you have your passion and you can actually show that passion and tell your story to people, then people will be willing to pay for it. And you will also ultimately become successful. And the money will flow later on. Never mind it. One day it can be a bit later or so on. But I would really focus on your added value and making sure that people, if they come, that they also understand the story, that they say, okay, I'm paying something, maybe a bit more. And, well, there's a good gross margin on it. But on the other hand, the gross margin is also because I'm actually supporting something that's bigger than just purely the business. Yes. Yes. Now, that's really helpful. Thank you. Well, I just want to say how brave it was of you. Well, first of all, I, you know, done lots of stories and had the opportunity to interview many people over the years who for whom their children became the breaking open point for them. Your children are here to help you rise to the best of yourself as well as you being there to help them. And I think that your son reaching the same age you were when you were there, that happens a lot that you then see. You know what happens? And I know this probably happened for you, too. You see how innocent you were. You see how innocent you were. you see what six looks like and how you didn't deserve it you didn't deserve it and how you deserved better and how somebody needed to stand up for you and you couldn't stand up for yourself and you're being able to do that you did that for your son your daughters their future children the children in your community because you and i both know this anybody who has abused you has abused somebody else. And if they get the opportunity, they will abuse somebody else's child. So I cannot let this moment, I know we're discussing business and entrepreneurial work, I cannot let this moment pass without saying how proud I am of you as a woman, as a woman who has endured abuse myself, but just as a woman looking at another woman who had the courage this many years later in life to do what was necessary to put him behind bars and that you were successful. So if you don't do another damn thing, you've already done that. May I say you've already done that? And I don't know who your buyer is, but you've got some cute things back there. I'm looking at that little striped dress. I'm looking at the denim dress. I mean, you're on the right track. And I think you will be rewarded, as we were just saying here, that you will be rewarded. You don't even have to worry about the money thing now. you got to get the added value right. And you already have the added value. You have done the right thing. Thank you. I'm so grateful to hear that. It was a lot of work. And to be on this and be able to share my story and also be able to really learn from both of you is amazing. And I'm really, really grateful. Thank you. Thank you so much. Happy on Maine. Love it. Continued great success with that. I love the name too. I love the name. So much is in a title. Thank you so much. You write that in business and life, never promise things that you cannot make good. On page 40, Juergen writes, quote, never say things or promise things that you cannot make good. There will always be someone smarter than you who will be able to see through your bluff, end quote. Okay, that's another bing, bing, bing here from Juergen. My advice to you, dear listener, is don't learn this lesson the hard way. Be a person of your word. Let's go back to Sana's story. I think one of the problems women have is a lot of women have problems asking for money for investment for what they know they need. So what would you say is a remedy for that? Well, I would demystify it. Demystify it. Yeah, it's not because it's a woman that she should not be able to get money. I mean, make sure that all the things that you need in order to get money, make a great business plan, tell a story. Because for me, raising capital is obviously about the technicalities. It's about the fact that you have to have a business and a product and a market and so on. But you have to have a story. You have to catch the imagination of the investor because an investor is also human. And so he wants to hear the story. And in my position, I think if you tell a story as an entrepreneur, the chances that you get money are far higher than if you just tell the bare facts. These are my numbers and so on. And so I would say it's not because it's a woman who tells a story. It doesn't matter. I'm just saying women have trouble asking for money for investment. But sometimes they – yeah. Yeah, well, it's difficult for a woman because there are not that many women entrepreneurs and there should be much more women entrepreneurs. And that's also some of the things that we do in our portfolio. We actually push women because women always say, oh, maybe I cannot do it. I cannot do it. And a guy is going to say, I know 80%, but I'm going to do it anyway. A woman is going to say, I only know 80% and not 100%. I'm not going to do it. And so we have to sometimes push women because they can do it, but they're a bit more reserved because I think, oh, it's not going to work. Maybe not, maybe not. And so giving that extra push, I think, is important. Okay. Ashley lives in Virginia Beach, and she was a standout guest on Shark Tank. I'm seeking $300,000 for 5% equity into my business. Ashley, what happened? Hi. Hello. So much for the opportunity. My name is Ashley Jones. As Ms. Winfrey stated earlier, I'm the owner of Tones of Melanin. We're an HBCU advocacy group that specialize in licensed gear. Because of the traction that we've seen, we've been brought on to new retailers. And we really have a lot of traction within the HBCU world. HBCUs are historically black colleges and universities. The idea came from me attending Norfolk State University. And I didn't see anything in my bookstore that represented myself. I felt like everything was made for my grandparents. I was like, I'm an African-American young lady and nothing here, you know, really looks like that. But with that, I think my main question to you, Mr. Ingalls, is what are the top three nuggets that you could give me on expanding and going into new territory? What are the keys to expanding your business to something bigger? And when do you know when to expand to a new territory? Yeah, I would say if you are expanding, for me, you really have to look at your cash position as well, because sometimes you want to expand. and I think if you expand it costs cash because you need to have like more stock and you have to have like give like kind of payment times to your customers. All of that is actually something that is really a problem if you don't manage it properly. And so what I do, for instance, to give you an idea is every Monday I look at my cash position and I make a kind of graph of it to actually see how my cash evolves. It's a simple tool, but it shows you is my cash going up or is it going down because that's something you make mistakes against. You do it too quickly. I also think if you expand, you probably are going to hire quickly and you're going to put quickly people in and you might say, okay, I just need people because I want to grow, grow, grow. Be very careful at who you pick and make sure that you pick the right people that are also in line with your philosophy as an entrepreneur because if you choose the wrong people who are not really following your philosophy, that can also be a problem. And thirdly, I would say maybe the systems because you also are growing. You want to grow internationally. You have to have adapt systems, financial systems, accounting and so on. And there I think is also a challenge because you might say, okay, what kind of system? I'm going to quickly take something that does it for me and then that might work maybe for a year. But then two, three years later, you'll see that the system that you chose is not really very good enough for you for your expansion and you have to rebuild that system again. And that costs money and takes time. And so that I think is something that I will do. Look at your cash. Look at the people you hire and look at your systems. Thank you so much. I will really take this into play as we try to go into new territories. I appreciate you even answering that question. I appreciate you asking it. And you've been on Shark Tank. So, I mean, what was that experience like? It was amazing. I think we were already we had traction within the HBCU world, but I believe that it helped elevate our community even more to see it on national primetime. So I felt as though maybe I could help, you know, with the narrative of students potentially going to these smaller colleges that some people would, you know, say that they are. So I think this is a passion play for me. It's not about the money. I really my heart is to continue the works within the HBCU community to make sure that they stay open and to make sure that it's, you know, around for the next generation to come. What's your bigger dream for your business? My bigger dream is to launch into actual pro sports. I want to get I want to create product for different teams and things of that nature so that there's diversity on all levels. We have a lot of different NFL NBA players who you know rock the team paraphernalia But I believe that there aren too many black retailers that are actually having that has licenses So I want to come in and bring my own style and own flavor It a really kind of small, it's a small when it comes to the brands that are in there, but I want to come in and make my mark on their territory. Well, thank you, Ashley. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Ashley. Thanks. Thank you. Good luck with tones and melanin. Coming up, Juergen Ingalls, who flew 5,000 miles to join me here in my tea house, gives his advice on what he believes is the best age to start a new business. Can you take a guess? We'll talk about all of that after a quick break. Welcome back, Juergen Ingalls, one of the top tech entrepreneurs in the world, is offering his advice for anyone who has a business, wants to start a business, or just lessons on the business of business. So let's get back to it. You say that there is a, you believe entrepreneurs are at their best after their 40th. Why? There has been a study looking at, okay, what's the best age to start? And people intuitively think, okay, it's 20 years because you're young and you're dynamic and so on. But in fact, it's 45. And the reason why it's 45 is because if you're 45, you have a kind of network. You've experienced things, you know people. And I think in life, it's important what you know, but it's much more important who you know. And if you're 45, you have a network, you have an accountant already that you knew, that you worked with, you have a friend that as a sales guy. All the things that Ashley is building on now. Yes. So you can actually do it quicker. In life, in my opinion, it's obviously a good company that does have the product and you need to have money and so on. But the best companies in the world are the ones who can squeeze time. And squeeze time is something strange, but you can squeeze time by using technology to improve on your processes. But also you can squeeze time because you have somebody next to you that has experience or you have a network of people that you can go to and do things faster. Jurgen writes on page 31, quote, passion is far and away the most crucial characteristic. You have to have the sacred fire within you. All good entrepreneurs are passionate about their product, their service, or their company. They never tire of talking about these things. And you can almost see their eyes sparkle with enthusiasm as they do it. If you don't have this passion, there isn't really much point in trying to become an entrepreneur. You will never make it." And oh boy, that may sound harsh, but I agree. Passion is crucial. It's the thing that keeps you going when it seems like nothing else is working out. Passion is like the internal fuel that you have to actually go for it. Because being an entrepreneur, there's never the straight throwed up. There's always problems, there's challenges and so on. And then if you don't have this internal fire in you that wants to achieve things. Yes, that's why I think it's important, the lessons learned from your book is because you lay out for us, everybody has this vision that it's going to, I have this idea and I'm going to start this business, it's going to be great. What you show us is that you're going to have problems. You're going to have problems. Always. Ashley, you're going to have problems. And so you walk in trying to troubleshoot what those problems might be instead of thinking that you're not going to have that you're going to be the one person that starts and launches and is not going to have those problems. Yes. As you said, I mean, I've never had any company where there's no problems. I mean, sometimes they come up early, sometimes they're later in the process, but you always have problems. And I think having a network around you, having people around you who've experienced this is very important. In Juergen's chapter title, Why, he writes, Over the years, I developed a highly effective solution to every question I was asked. I immediately replied with a simple question in return. Why are you asking me that? When I started doing it, a lot of people didn't have a clear answer. They were surprised and hadn't thought about the reasons behind their question. But after a while, I gradually began to achieve my objective, getting everyone to think carefully and prepare the ground before they came to me with a query or problem, end quote. That is a great response. Why are you asking me that? What is your main intention? That's what I always ask. What's your intention? Because you have also started and run so many companies, your teams come to you with, you get barraged by so many questions. And your standard answer is usually, will you share with us what that is and why it's so effective? Oh, yeah. People come to me and say, I would like to have a new secretary or I would like to buy a server or this or that. And I always ask why. And in the beginning, it's strange if you just say why. They look at you and they say, well, why? Because? And I said, no, why? And after a while, they knew that I was going to say why. And so they started thinking. And so they started preparing stuff. And they said, OK, I need to have an investment of two more people because. And then they wrote a whole business plan on it. And so when they came to me, they already started thinking about why they wanted stuff. Yeah, that's the same thing I did. But I call mine intention. Yours is the why. Mine is the intention. Come to me with the intention and I can see if I can satisfy that intention or align with that intention. And then it improved a lot the way that people were asking stuff because they knew that, okay, if I'm going to go to him, he's going to ask why. And I will have to explain. So I better prepare myself very good. And that really helped to improve on the quality of the company. And you and I learned the same lesson, I think, early on, and that is to sign every check. And my thing is sign every check. I still do. And also show up for all the financial meetings, whether you know what they're talking about or not. You just need to know. Why do you think that's so vital? Well, I do that every month. I take from all the companies. I look at all the invoices and I just check them with a glass of wine and go through them. First of all, to let people know that I'm doing that, because the fact that they know that I'm doing it makes them behave in a proper way. They're not going to buy expensive wines of $400 if they're on a restaurant. I mean, stuff like that. I still see all the invoices. Some of them make... I have to... They do the same. I see them all. It makes me ill. I see them all. And do you find mistakes from time to time? I have found mistakes. I have found mistakes. But I think if you don't, then you're just sort of floating and you don't have any idea of how things operate, how things really run, what things really cost, what it costs to be you. Fully agree. Because there's a price to be you and to run your business. And nobody else knows what that is. And the person who really should know is the person who's in charge. I remember you write this about the 2008 financial crisis. You say, I remember telling my wife that it was going to be tough, touch and go. And if we could pull through, everything would be all right. But if we went under, we would lose everything we had, including the company. I slept badly for months on end and felt stressed out all the time. My hair was already graying before the financial crisis. By the time it finished, I was completely gray. I think a lot of people are feeling those same feelings right now. What did you learn about preparing for and managing crisis? Yeah. I mean, in 2008, we had banks as our customers and they wanted to pay the invoice, but they said in the financial system, we cannot have any liquidity anymore, so we can't pay the invoices and we had about, I think, 6 million euro in costs for salary. So we had to put all the money back into the company just to survive. And what I've learned there is to expect the unexpected because you always think, okay, things are going to move like I think. Well, they don't. And secondly, what I've learned is that you have to almost have like six months of where you have no revenue and you keep all your costs. And that amount is something you have to have as a bare minimum in your company so that if things really get bad, that at least for six months, you can turn around, you can do some reorganization in your business, you can deal with the problem. And if you don't have that, you don't have the liquidity to do that, then you get into trouble. And so people say, well, it's never going to happen. But I've seen and I experienced in all these years that things happen that are like a crisis that you don't foresee. There's always something. Yes, like what happened with the war or what happens with diseases and so forth. So there's always something that you cannot expect. So expect the unexpected. it. Expect it. Be prepared for it. Now, you created the annual gathering Supernova that you invited me to. Thank you. And you describe it as a place to shoot for the moon. It's the largest event dedicated to innovative ideas. And this year, there were over 200 speakers. I happen to be one of them. So I appreciate you including me. But why did you start that? Shoot for the moon, it says itself. I mean, people sometimes they want to set up something, but I think you have to dream big. people don't necessarily dream big enough and you have to be realistic when you dream it's not like something crazy but i think you have to like have the aspiration or the inspiration to like change something in the world and to like do something really cool and and i've i feel that sometimes people we talked about tell a story they sometimes come in and they want to have money but they don't really like show what they what they want what they they they don't show like what what's their their biggest dreams, what they want to achieve, what's their North Star. And I kind of like people to think about entrepreneurship as a kind of North Star. I mean, think about where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve in life? And yes, Shoot for the Moon is like, okay, just you have to be realistic, but share your dreams, share your passion, share where you want to go. Well, there's so much more in the book that we didn't get to. I thought your learnings about doing business in different cultures was also so interesting too. What's important to people from other countries, their customs, how they negotiate? You've done business all around the world. And I'm curious to know from your perspective, how would you describe a well-lived life? What does a well-lived life look like to you? For me personally, I think I like to inspire people. and that's also what I really like inspire people to say okay go for it but also give back pay it forward give something back to people because I've also had a hard time and I've had people who helped me and I know how important it is to have people there with you who can help you make your dreams come true and the nicest thing for me is the fact that you have like an idea in your head and then being able to realize that idea and one day see that what you're taught about and what people said to you, you're crazy, it's never going to work, it's never going to be successful. If you then push through and you see that as a success, that I think is important. And obviously, have fun while doing it. But it's like if you see a small rock and you've been able in your life to push the rock a little bit, even if it's only a tiny bit in the right direction, I think for me that's what really inspires me to do. Well, I think the book itself is inspiring. And I thank you, Jürgen, for flying all this way. Thanks for having me. From Belgium to be here in my tea house. The book is called Start, Grow, Sell. 50 Tips for Entrepreneurial Greatness. Hard copies are available via Amazon. You can find the link on our episodes resource page. And thank you for sharing your wisdom for not only business, but also for life. I think it applies to all of our life. Thanks for having me. And again, I mean, it's like you said, I mean, the book is it's not just a managerial entrepreneurship book. It's about life lessons. It's a life lesson. I love a good life lesson. And I really love 50 of them. Go well, everybody. You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.