How to Make $40K Per Month in Your 20's: Building a Side-Business

Ex-Google Tech Lead talks about building a side-hustle and making $40K/month in your 20's. Preparing for Technical Interviews? Join me in my new coding interview training program: http://techinterviewpro.com/ Get extra whiteboard coding practice with 50+ video sessions at: https://www.coderpro.com Sign up for my FREE daily coding interview practice: http://dailyinterviewpro.com/ Learn how I built a $1,000,000+ business on YouTube and the behind-the-scenes strategies of running a successful YouTube channel: http://youtubebackstage.com/ Get your 2 FREE stocks on WeBull (valued up to $1,400): https://act.webull.com/k/S4oOH2yGOtHk... My computer/camera gear: http://amazon.com/shop/techlead TechLead "ultra-thin" wallet gift: https://amzn.to/2WNhqEP TechLead custom coffee-maker gift: https://amzn.to/3dxwrzr 🎉 Party up: http://instagram.com/techleadhd/ http://twitter.com/techleadhd/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickshyu/ Disclosure: Some links are affiliate links to products. 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Video Transcript ( Note : This transcript is auto-generated by YouTube and may not be 100% correct.) 00:00 alright hey tech elite here and welcome 00:02 back to another episode today we're 00:04 going to be talking about how to start 00:06 and grow a small business and we're 00:08 going to be talking to somebody somebody 00:10 in their 20s who has founded a 00:12 multi-million dollar business a company 00:14 and that person is going to help us get 00:17 all started and/or gentleman what are 00:20 you doing here I'm not talking about you 00:22 Gemma what do you mean well maybe you 00:26 should go to sleep then gather here go 00:28 to bed it's past your curfew time not 00:30 talking about you either and start a 00:32 multi-million dollar business yeah here 00:36 let me get over here climate climate hey 00:41 Clement now Clement here has started and 00:44 grown a very successful business in his 00:47 20s Clement is going to tell us all 00:49 about how he got this started what were 00:50 the logistics and how to practically get 00:53 a business going and why it is so useful 00:55 for young people to be starting small 00:57 businesses he's going to take us all 00:59 through the steps what was this business 01:00 that you started and tell us all about 01:02 it 01:02 our business is called Aldo expert algo 01:04 expert gallo it's basically targeted at 01:07 software engineers who like you and I 01:09 who want to prepare for their coding 01:11 interviews especially a big tech 01:13 companies big startups and we provide 01:15 curated questions like the ones you find 01:18 these coding interviews and we give 01:20 video explanations for those questions 01:22 of coding work space etc etc so you can 01:24 go to algo exper do a slash tech we'd if 01:27 you want to check it out that's right 01:29 you want to make sure you use code 01:30 technically get discount check them out 01:32 now start your business sounds cool and 01:34 we are here all the time well just our 01:36 business list our business I'm gonna 01:38 start business but how exactly do you 01:40 start a business what are the steps that 01:42 you have to go through what are the 01:44 challenges and how do you concretely get 01:46 this off the ground yeah so the first 01:49 step I think is coming up with the idea 01:50 and to be honest I think a lot of ideas 01:53 can work it's just about finding a 01:55 problem and then coming up with a 01:56 solution to that problem and building it 01:59 and executing it and so in my case I was 02:02 prepping for coding interviews and I was 02:05 using a bunch of resources textbooks 02:07 websites online YouTube Wikipedia and I 02:10 thought there's got to be a better way 02:11 that's how I came up with the idea 02:13 sounds simple enough do you do it by 02:15 yourself do you have a co-founder do you 02:17 set up like a LLC do you incorporate 02:20 start partnership you can do it alone 02:22 I think alone is a bit tougher I ended 02:25 up having a co-founders so I contacted 02:27 one of my best friends who happens to be 02:29 a software engineer as well I pitched 02:31 him the idea and he was on board and we 02:34 got it up and running so we ended up 02:35 going with an LLC the reason being is it 02:38 fit our needs the best we wanted from a 02:41 tax point of view to have things be 02:43 simple we want to only be taxed once 02:45 right so now we'll see was good for us 02:47 from that point of view as opposed to 02:49 corporation for instance but we also 02:52 wanted that limited liability that a 02:55 partnership a general partnership may 02:57 give you yeah that's right because as I 03:00 understand that you have a sole 03:01 proprietorship and that is where anyone 03:03 can actually start a business you just 03:05 start making money and that's a business 03:07 already you're a sole proprietorship now 03:09 is that beyond that you can actually 03:10 form a partnership say with multiple 03:13 people but that's still pretty much ax 03:15 very similar to like a sole 03:16 proprietorship the level above that is 03:18 you for my OLC which acts more like a 03:21 corporation where you can pay yourself a 03:23 salary you get limited liability such 03:25 that if anyone sees you they don't have 03:28 access to your personal assets is simply 03:31 the company standing alone on its own 03:33 and then the company has its own bank 03:34 account its own social security number 03:37 for tax purposes 03:38 everything is very separate and then 03:40 it's easier in a way to separate your 03:42 business and personal expenses now how 03:44 do you go about forming an LLC isn't it 03:47 very complicated aren't there all sorts 03:49 of paperwork that you have to go through 03:51 so it's a little bit complicated there 03:53 are a few services like stripe Atlas 03:55 Legal Zoom Rocket Lawyer that'll give 03:58 you like services to make the LLC for 04:00 you or help you along the way we ended 04:03 up is doing it ourselves it's sort of 04:05 like old-fashioned rent 04:06 oh wow so you just filed the audit 04:08 paperwork on your own yeah we went to 04:09 the State Department and did all that by 04:11 ourselves how complicated was that to do 04:13 on your own it's intimidating but not 04:16 actually that complicated okay 04:18 interesting now I have formed a few 04:20 LLC's myself as well and generally I 04:23 just use a service like lemon mint 04:25 and that's an arrow it's very simple and 04:27 easy to get this all set up you just 04:29 fill out an online web application press 04:31 submit button and don't get a LLC all 04:33 set up for you what are the fees 04:34 involved in it I'll see here so you have 04:37 an incorporation fee it's escaping me 04:39 right now but it's roughly two hundred 04:42 to a thousand dollars something like 04:44 that might vary from state to its eight 04:45 hundred dollars in California and as I 04:48 understand that you choose a state to 04:50 incorporate in and then you can actually 04:52 operate in any other state yep 04:55 which state did you choose we ended up 04:56 giving New York we just fit well for us 04:58 okay cool 05:00 generally I will actually register in 05:02 Delaware which is very well known for 05:05 its business friendly laws and then you 05:07 can operate as a foreign business in 05:09 other states yep not working now once 05:11 you have to say I'll see you all set up 05:13 how did you fund the company so we 05:15 didn't need too much money at the 05:16 beginning so we just put $2,500 each up 05:19 front me and my co-founder and that was 05:21 it the company has been self-sustaining 05:23 ever since did you ever have issues 05:24 choose iam co-founder I find that they 05:27 say co-founders are often almost like 05:29 having a marriage because you get to 05:31 work with the co-founder so closely and 05:33 you have to work out so many different 05:34 issues how did you know that you could 05:36 trust your co-founder what would happen 05:38 if your co-founders decided to just stop 05:40 working at some point this is where I 05:42 totally agree I think choosing the right 05:44 co-founder is probably the most 05:45 important thing you can do me and my 05:48 co-founder are lucky in that we're very 05:51 good friends and we just have that trust 05:53 on top of that we have very 05:56 complementary skill sets and we also 05:58 have different sort of like goals so we 06:00 don't overstep on each other and it just 06:02 works out really beautifully we're able 06:04 to work remotely pretty seamlessly with 06:06 no personal issues no work issues 06:09 fighting someone who has a complementary 06:13 skill set it's probably gonna be one of 06:15 the most important things because so 06:16 that you it's actually useful to have 06:18 multiple people and then probably just 06:21 making sure that you have open 06:22 communication if you have open 06:24 communication and trust you will be able 06:26 to work together and you can maybe even 06:28 be creative instead of things where you 06:30 have to work a certain amount of time or 06:32 produce a certain amount until you get 06:35 your equity in the business so is your 06:37 business purely online 06:38 do you have office space yeah so we're 06:41 purely online that means that we don't 06:43 have an office space we can work 06:45 remotely from wherever we are in a 06:47 coffee shop on a beach if we want that's 06:49 one thing that's really cool about the 06:52 era that we live in where we can build 06:53 fully online businesses and not have to 06:58 deal with the difficulties of having a 07:01 physical product having to have an 07:03 office space or a warehouse or hold 07:05 inventory of course not everyone has 07:07 luxury to do this not everyone has a 07:08 purely online business but you can't 07:11 have that these days yeah I think that's 07:13 one interesting thing when that was 07:15 running the online businesses it 07:17 actually allowed me to take time off 07:18 work between jobs there wouldn't be like 07:21 a huge resume gap because I could say 07:23 well I'm working on this business during 07:25 that time I can do some traveling during 07:27 that time as well and I just get more 07:29 flexibility and freedom in what I'm 07:31 doing well at the same time still being 07:33 productive and living how I might choose 07:36 to live I remember I would work from 07:38 Hawaii sometimes or work on cruise boats 07:40 now you're painting a really good 07:41 picture of running your own business 07:43 what are the cons of this what are the 07:45 challenges of running the business yeah 07:48 I think that there there are three big 07:50 challenges but in some sense they are 07:53 also positives if you like this if you 07:55 have that sort of entrepreneurial itch 07:57 the first one is there's a lot of work a 08:00 lot of the work is gonna be stuff that 08:01 you don't like 08:02 like for instance forming the LLC 08:04 marketing I'm not the biggest fan of 08:06 running ad campaigns and all that but I 08:09 have to do it challenge number two is 08:10 that sometimes you're putting in all 08:12 this work and you're not getting much in 08:14 return especially like in the earlier 08:16 months or earlier years of your business 08:18 you might not be making that much money 08:20 you you might be losing money right 08:22 that's a challenge to stay motivated and 08:24 number three this one is really critical 08:27 it is that everything that goes along in 08:30 the business is your fault everything 08:33 that goes wrong is your fault and even 08:36 beyond that if you do something wrong 08:39 and you break something in the business 08:41 there's no one on the other side that's 08:43 gonna be able to fix things when you're 08:45 at a normal job and something goes wrong 08:48 for instance in software engineers some 08:50 system breaks even if you don't know how 08:52 to fix it you have this sort of mental 08:54 piece that oh some other expert here is 08:57 gonna be able to fix it here that's not 09:00 the case it's only me and my co-founder 09:02 and maybe you know one other person no 09:04 one's gonna fix it for you you got to do 09:06 it that's right you have to really be 09:08 accountable and have a good work ethic 09:10 and understand that it doesn't matter 09:12 how much time you put in in the normal 09:14 job it's just about putting in the hours 09:15 and many times people would just go in 09:18 and work and they're not going to worry 09:19 about being terribly productive all the 09:21 time but when you're running your own 09:23 business 09:23 you really need to make sure that the 09:25 effort that you put in translates into 09:27 real impact into the bottom line and 09:29 oftentimes it's not going to be that's 09:31 something that you really enjoy doing 09:32 sometimes you're going to find out that 09:34 all you want to do is maybe code but it 09:36 turns out that you know that marketing 09:39 is going to be what your company really 09:40 needs at this point and then you have to 09:42 spend all your time studying about how 09:43 to do Facebook advertising or Instagram 09:46 advertising or something like that 09:47 that's a key thing like it especially as 09:50 software engineers we have this tendency 09:52 to want to code code code want to build 09:54 sometimes you got to stop building and 09:56 you got to start maintaining and don't 10:01 sneak up on me like that now I hope 10:02 you've enjoyed part one of two of this 10:05 interview for the stunning and epic 10:07 conclusion to this interview head on 10:09 over to Clements channel is going to be 10:11 great link in the description below and 10:13 I'll see you over there English (auto-generated)