The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

The Biggest Shortcut for Solo Entrepreneurs in 2025? (Episode 117)

• Lewis Smith & James Eardley • Season 1 • Episode 117

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🗣 In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley discuss the importance of community for solopreneurs. 
We share personal experiences of feeling isolated in the early stages of our journeys and how connecting with others helped us grow our businesses. 

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Topics Discussed:
★ The Solopreneur Struggle
Lewis and James reflect on the loneliness and challenges that come with being a solopreneur.
★ The Power of Community
The value of building a network of like-minded individuals to share ideas, get support, and collaborate on business growth.
★ The Benefits of In-Person and Online Communities
How both in-person and online communities can provide immense value and how they complement each other.
★ Masterminds and Inner Circles
How exclusive mastermind groups and inner circles can provide the right environment for growth, accountability, and collaboration.


Links and Resources Mentioned:

Key Takeaways:
★ Community is Key: Being a solopreneur doesn’t mean you have to go it alone.
★ Networking Accelerates Growth: Whether online or in person, connecting with other entrepreneurs allows you to learn, share ideas, and collaborate.
★ Masterminds Provide Accountability: Joining a mastermind or inner circle creates a high-energy environment of like-minded people who help you stay accountable and grow together.

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Music. Welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Lewis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked, and with me is our Client Success Coach James Early. Now, when we're not recording podcast episodes or running our own e commerce businesses, you'll find us helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket drop shipping stores. So if you're ready to build your own six or even seven figure online business, then head over to dropship unlocked.com forward, slash, start now, sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the drop shift unlocked podcast. So we're in person today for the first ever podcast. In person. Camera one, camera two, capturing from two different angles today. Lewis, we've taken things up a level of production today as a high tech setup as a apart from which you didn't want me to point out, but the mic stand that you're using isn't necessarily a mic stand. It can also be used for getting scrambled eggs out of a pan if needed. Yes, it's a kitchen spat, but it does a job there's never known, but draw attention to it now. Anyway, perfect. Yeah, so we're here in person today. We'll have a chat about what we're doing today in person. And the point, though, I think other conversation will take forward, is community itself, and why we think it's a game changer for solopreneurs specifically. So perhaps give us a bit of story about when you started your business as a solopreneur, what was maybe some difficulties that you felt being a solopreneur? Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a lonely journey, especially with the online entrepreneurship, isn't it? It's, um, it's difficult. I mean, I know that in the olden days, when you went off and started a business, you would probably go and join, like business round table clubs and like after work, drinks, socials and things like that. I think the tendency is, when you create an E commerce business, you do so usually with the goal, if you're building this kind of business in that you want it to be a lifestyle business. You want it to be remote and create freedom. But by doing so, it's easy to create an extremely remote business in that suddenly you're cut off from the world, and it's like it's just you existing in your home office. So something I didn't realize until quite far into my journey, the benefit of getting around other people, and they're kind of, you know, the sharing of ideas. And it's not even necessarily just ideas, is it? It's like, you know, we're about to have our inner circle event today with our our members of our mastermind but also tonight, we've got our masterclass live meetup. And you just always come away from this feeling more connected. I guess, like, you know, you feel like you found your tribe. And I know we get such energy levels in our online community weeks after this to people talking about, like, the people they met and stuff that's happened and they can't wait till the next one. So, yeah, we did the first one of these. What about year ago? A year ago? Yeah, the last kind of rose in the anniversary of our first ever event. And this is number four, yeah, I was thinking today. Well, I thought when I was yesterday, traveling back to come here was it was a year ago that we had the first event, and how far on we've come as a community, as people together in 20, just 12 months. And suddenly this feels like entrenched now, these types of in person events every few months. Yeah, it kind of feels normal immediately. But no going back to your story and like being a solopreneur and be it being lonely and being remote. Why do you think we have a tendency of putting up, maybe draft going off into our own little worlds, in our own little studies or offices or bedrooms or whatever you're starting a business? Why do you think we have a tendency to do that. I mean, for me, it was, it was because I was, I had to make the traditional system the enemy. So it was like I had to pick an enemy, you know, because I had to, kind of fight to create something. And for me, because the nine to five world, the system, the kind of like, you know, like corporate masses, you know, trudging their way from the train station into the office to sit there all day, to then go home and repeat the cycle. I had to make that kind of that symbolic thing the enemy. And so what's the opposite of that, hanging around people in an office all day? It's being at home on your own, isn't it? And quite isolated. Also, I'm pretty good at just operating in isolation, I think possibly more than many people. And a lot of people are quite social beings, and they want to be around people, and they feed off the energy I'm I'm okay with that, and I see the value in it, but I'm certainly not someone that's like, God, I need to be around people, and if anything, I get way more than what I'm not. So I think it's almost like it's extremely productive, working at home on your own, therefore you assume that that's what you should always do. But after a while, it's like, what am I working for? What am I creating here? Like, what else is there that I don't know about and that I'm missing you get so much done. On your own, and you don't necessarily tell family and friends I didn't like I sort of went off into my own little rift to start my own business, because it worked so well, and I could work for hours in the morning or in the evening after my nine to five on my own, quite happily. You do that for months. Well, I did it for months, until you've got a business up and running, and then you sort of look around a little bit. I felt like that. I looked around a little bit and felt like, well, I needed a bit, get a bit more connection with people, and that initially came from the masterminds with you, but, I mean, yeah, there's things that I just thought you miss out on when you don't have people around you on a journey. I think enjoyment is probably a big one. Yeah, I think it's not as enjoyable you don't have people around you. But it's that, yeah, it's that making that different distinction between productivity being king versus enjoying it at the same time as well. Yeah, yeah. And just realizing the reason why you're doing it, you know, those moments that you miss from the nine to five world, from, you know, my background was in like, a corporate environment, there are good parts of that, you know, like, as much as you make that the kind of the enemy, and like, we're creating this, this business for complete freedom and independence, there are reasons why that world works. And, you know, after work drinks, for example, it's like a very social connective like this time of year, Christmas time, and you go into, like, Christmas parties and Christmas dues, and, you know, like networking and connecting with people at work, that when you are an entrepreneur on your own, you don't like that. There's no default for that. You have to seek that out. You have to look for that. And if you don't, the danger is that you become quite isolated, I think so we we did the first one of these didn't win, and saw a huge appetite for it. And we've probably got a few things wrong. You know, we kind of tweaked and refined. And we were like, I think we all did way too much alcohol for not enough soft drinks and then, but no food. And the next time it was, like, way too much food, but not enough alcohol. I can't remember the Oh, yeah. We had a few mistakes. We FLIX away doing but, but we found a really nice, um, kind of balance. Now, we found a good venue that works really well, and it's accessible, you know, good parking. It's like LeBron can kind of get here. People come from further than others, like granted, but it, it just feels like now people kind of know that every quarter there's going to be a in person meetup with their tribe, their community and energy. Later, we'll try and capture some of it, because it's it's really challenging. It is, yeah, it's huge. Maybe you'll travel from all around the country. We had somebody from Scotland last time, maybe with Newcastle, come down into outskirts of London, where we are today. Yeah, I flew in as it were yesterday, traveled back from where I was in Madeira as well. Spend time over Christmas with my family as well. But also for this event, I wouldn't miss it for the world, because how important it is to get around a tribe of people, and we say it's a tribe, because you immediately understand what everyone else is going through, and like the journey that we're on and the goals that we have and the success that we're all seeing. Yeah, it's nice to have that connection, is it with people that are also succeeding? Yeah, exactly. I mean, tell us about Madeira that was obviously fresh in we haven't really caught up about that since you've been back. You flew in late last night or into London over Yeah, yeah. So speaking of London and the work, so sure, I flew into Gatwick about in the afternoon, went through central London at about 5pm yesterday, went to Nando's in England. Got to do it, and it's like just outside the city Farringdon. Yeah, been there before, but there's hordes of people, sort of leaving work towards a train station or waiting outside in the pub together, yeah, which is that idea of sense of community, yeah, which, I guess is what we're bringing to the entrepreneurial community ourselves today. But yeah, Madeira, flight flow, direct from Madeira yesterday. Madeira is beautiful Ireland. Yeah. I really enjoyed the time they were there for about four weeks. And you find there's much of an entrepreneur community there. There was actually, yeah, funny enough, in Pontius soul, which is a little village we were in, part of the reason why we chose that part of an area, there was a, there's a digital nomad. Actually works co workspace. Nice for digital digital nomads. Yeah. We got chatting with a few people and all over Europe, people from Europe, from Ukraine, Poland and as well as the UK. Nice. And I mean, I'm me personally, I was there with my girlfriend, Rianne the whole time, but we're happy to be fairly independent, so we didn't go work from it all the time. Yeah, but it's nice to know that there are these communities out there that people that just don't follow the traditional societal nine to five path, which is, which is nice to experience. And I guess you saw a lot of that as well in Northern Thailand when you were Yeah, yeah. I mean, all over Asia, there are kind of like pockets of entrepreneurial like communities. Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand was a big one. I think when you say to people who aren't familiar with that part of Thailand, or we're moving to Thailand, they kind of picture you just like going off the grid and living in the jungle or something crazy. Something crazy. But you get there, you're like, actually, it's ultra fast fiber Internet that's probably faster than the internet had in London. It's a penthouse apartment with a pool, and it had, like, you know, less of $1,000 a month or whatever. And it's, you know, like, minutes from like, start. Bucks and the shopping mall and stuff. Yeah, I can go and do a trek up DOI suite mountain at the weekends, and then we can go and do like, you know, a Safari or whatever, like a, you know, completely like trek into the jungle. So there's a great community, same in Bali, you know, obviously more on the coast there, but the kind of, like surfer community, lots of little co working spaces, yeah. And less so I found in Vietnam, in Da Nang, that felt like it was kind of up and coming, and there was a nomad community, and we used to kind of go to, like a Mexican restaurant every Tuesday night and all meet up. But, um, there are a lot of people there that were, like, teaching English as a foreign language, Tifa, they call it yeah and yeah and so they're kind of like, there, but I don't know if you'd class that. I mean, I guess it is entrepreneurial, right? But you're just kind of working online there and by doing that, but they're all these like crazy apps that they teach English on them, yeah, and $10 an hour or whatever. And it's like, fair enough. Like, if you can do that and live on way less than you, and in a environment like that, then, yeah, and it's good, but it's inspirational. In some certain places, they're up and coming around. They like Vietnam, I wonder where it is now. But yeah, I was in, I was also in Montenegro. And, yeah, that was not digital Nova community like at all. Really. We just wanted to go and experience a more bit about out of the box sort of country that you don't go to beautiful place, was able to work there. And then the activities that you do, which I tended to do, or we tended to on the weekends or in the week nights, yeah, you'd have a choice, instead of being in the UK, which would be the, I don't know, meet up with friends, or go to the National Trust park for a walk with a dog, that sort of thing. It was go and walk a mountain or do a boat trip, or go to the beach, or go and see these viewpoints around Madeira, which absolutely stunning. So it's still being able to be as productive with the work side of things, which is really important to me. But then when you have the off time, whenever you take time away from whatever business you're growing, the different type of activities you get to do and the places you get to see completely different from living in the UK. Great experience. It's so refreshing, isn't it, to be able to, like, you've worked really hard from nine till one or something on a project, and you're like, what should we do in the afternoon? And rather than going for a walk, you know, around the rainy countryside in the UK, you're like, let's take a boat trip in the sun, or like, and Dubai used to be like, and go for a run on the beach in the morning, and then, like, go and get an aside smoothie bowl in the afternoon, and like, just these little things that kind of can add so much more, like a reward structure to your day as an entrepreneur. So I think that's another factor of changing your environment that really helps. Yeah, it is, as well as getting around the people that I met there. And it was so it was common, especially Madeira, to see people who were just working online, and then just, you'd have to start a conversation with somebody, and they'd almost be like, within the first few sentences. You just sort of get an understanding as you work online as well. Yeah, and it's because it's actually quite common where, in the UK, very unusual, yeah, in a way, to be somebody that just has a completely remote role, exactly, and you're the odd one out in the friendship group, yeah? If me in, like, hometown friendship groups, but then you go elsewhere, and suddenly you're the normal one, yeah, that has an online remote, don't you find everyone wants to help each other out as well. Like, as soon as you're in a cafe and you see someone's screen, and they've got one of those, like, roost next stands, you know, the laptops, like, propped up, and they're taking their work seriously, and you chat to me, Oh, you're in E commerce as well. And actually, I run a an app or something for Shopify, all right, we have a software or something, and then, like, actually, maybe we could help you, like that. Like, would you want to trial our software on your store or something? Before you know it, you're suddenly, like, there's a partnership formed from, like, a Starbucks and a tiny and conversation, but people just seems so much more open to that collaboration, just because I think they crave it. They do. I was a mastermind a few days ago in London and surrounded by, like the just like hordes of commuters, you know. So I it was funny, everyone was in like, shiny black shoes, slick back hair, you know, like long trench coats, just like storming to work out the station, and I'm like, walking the other way, looking for this, like coffee shop after coming out the mastermind wearing, like, my trainers and T shirt. I like, I was completely the odd one out. And so that, I think that's quite symbolic in life. It's like, if you do choose to kind of leave the herd and take a slightly different approach and put your family and your freedom and your enjoyment of life first and build a lifestyle business. Expect to feel a little bit ostracized from the pack. You've kind of chosen a different route. And sometimes people will want to protect their own decisions that they made and not be made to feel like they made the wrong path. And so they will kind of cast you out a little bit. And so it's important to be to actively seek out that that group and that pack, and that's why we do this, exactly. Yeah, I think it all comes down to the idea that we help each other to carry on with growing the businesses and not give up or, you know, keep going and enjoy the process. Because when things are tough, if you don't have that support group around you, but. Where, if you feel like you're oscillating people around you anyway, it would be easy to give up on your dreams. Yeah, a lot of people can resonate with the fact that they don't want to be in that horde of the pack of commuters leaving the train station to go to all the different offices in the center of London or wherever, at center of any city. But it's when you actually go and do it, and then you feel the downsides and negatives and not getting around people, then you can put yourself off. Yeah. So there, I think there has to be some kind of community that you get yourself around, so that you don't go on a on a raft, which might be fine for the first six months. Yeah, put your head down, get your business going. But beyond that, there has to be some sort of community around the business that you've grown. Yeah. I'm seeing this happen first hand now with a close family member, and they are leaving the corporate world to start their own business. And it's really interesting to watch the kind of because I completely empathize with it. But that feeling of like the cliff edge, like, if I leave this, what's on the other side, it's like the unknown, unknown, of like the, you know, the black abyss that you just enter when you're in entrepreneurship, and you're just floating through space and looking for like a reference point, something to grab onto, and they're feeling that it goes talking to the other day about it, and like feeling the kind of the nerves, the anxiety of like, what happens when I depart, what happens when I leave, and how does life look then it's really difficult to advise on because I think You can only know when you experience it. No, no, I wouldn't trade it now for anything. Like, if anyone ever said to me, like, you have to be in the office at this time, you have to do this. Like, this is, you know, you've got to wear a suit every day. I'd be like, get me out of here. But before, I guess I tolerated it for so many years because I didn't know there was an alternative. So I think you have to almost empathize as well. On the other side, those hordes of people coming from the tube station, they're not all actively choosing to to disregard this route in life. They just often don't know about it, or they don't believe it because they think it's something that only people on the internet do, and that, you know, everything they see they assume is a scam. And it's like that, you know, easy to write off and assume that is too good to be true. And it's like, well, if you go through life without mentality, probably is, and you will never do it, because at some point you have to take that leap of faith that Exactly, yeah, you write off the other opportunities. If you're too scared to move out of that, and if you have that thing inside you where you know that you want something different, then you have to take the different action. Yeah, you don't get exceptional results. There's that idea that I've heard recently is, if you want to be exceptional, then you have to take exceptional action, or you have to be an exception as well if you're going to be if you achieve exceptional results. So there has to be an element of being an exception within the initial friendship group, or the 95 work colleagues that you have when you left your role. Did you feel like you were going out on a on a ref away from that. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I, what I think I do as a like a defense, protection mechanism, is I start to alienate myself from the group before I'm about to depart, because I want to convince myself that I didn't need the group all a lot. You know, as humans, we're quite tribal, aren't we, so if I'm like, going to the work socials up until the last day of work, and I'm like, oh, best buds with all the colleagues, and everything's going great. The day I leave, I'm gonna be like, What have I just done? Like, I've completely, like, just thrown in a great life. I've got no connections, I've got no, you know, work colleagues. I've got no one to confide in. And I hit business problems, so I think I started to actively remove myself from that world in the lead up to it. You know, you don't burn bridges or anything, but you just kind of become less dependent on it. And I think that that happens again when you are in entrepreneurship. If you almost leave, you know, say you're in a group of very, very like beginner level business owners, and you want to rise to the next level, you almost have to seek out the people in that group that are at the next level, to get in the room with them and then start to level up. And so we noticed that was there was an appetite for that in our community, right? There were some people that were like, Okay, it's great, you know, showing up with lots of people who are just starting out their businesses and making their first sales. But I'm at like, 50k or 100k a month. Now, I kind of have the next set of challenges, and I need to be in the room with the next set of people. And so that's why we designed the inner circle, the dropship, unlocked mastermind, and to bring people together who are kind of ready to tackle the next set of challenges, get around the next set of people and normalize up to that level. Because that's I think we, you know, if we're the odd one out in the room and everyone else is above us, we kind of try and up our standards to to normalize that level. Yeah, yeah. It's like constantly not being the smartest person in the room. So it's a constant seeking for the next level of community, to make sure that you're around people that are one step ahead of you, yeah, which is why there's, I think, in every community there, there naturally becomes tiers to people at the level the lessons of the learnings that they want to teach. Yeah. So then, as the people running the community, we want to be able to provide those tiers naturally for people to ascend to as they go through Yeah, which is how the inner circle was born inside the dropship, or not, community, which we'll be hosting in this room soon, so that we people that are doing and have done the first 100k yeah. Can chat to us about, okay, now, how do I get to the seven figure mark after the first 100k because a whole new set of questions compared to the first 10k yeah, sales. The other thing I've noticed recently is that it's not like you have to scale to the point of misery, you know. Like, I think sometimes people make fall into that trap when they go into entrepreneurship and they're like, Well, I'm gonna start a business. And okay, all the billionaires scale up to the point where they're like, working crazy hours, and they have a team of 100 people, and then I've got so much profit, but then no time, and you don't enjoy life, and it's like, why'd you create the business in the first place? If you're just gonna do that? Yeah, you've got loads of money, but no time to enjoy life. So I think it's important to have a very clear intention going into and this is something I've been wrestling with recently on, like, how big does do my businesses need to be? Because there comes a point where it's like, to get to the next level, you almost have to, like, you have to install, almost like, a layer of middle management and structures and infrastructure that adds so much complexity cost, your margin percentage starts to really drop. And there's this, like difficult phase where you're trying to go from, I don't know, nice, high margins at a medium ish revenue, to when you make that jump, your margins are going to really shrink because of all the extra just staff and costs and software and ads and everything before you can kind of enter the territory again, where it gets so much higher that your margin is back, but it's like, we don't have to do that. You can just stay with a nice, healthy margin and be like, I'm happy with 100 grand a month business. Just, you know that that's fine to me. Then, like, you know, say you make 30 grand a month in profit. Do you need much more? Like, what do you need? 300 grand a month in profit? If so, maybe you have different goals. To me, maybe it's like, I'm striving to be a billionaire, and I'm not stop until I get there. But I've seen a lot of very wealthy people who are very unhappy, and so I'm like, I don't know if they've got it quite right or like, are they on the path I want to be on? And so I'm kind of like, in the midst of, like, where do I want to take this long term? And so it's, I think it's an ever evolving question, yeah, it is, it is it's always knowing or going back to whatever your North Star is. Was it ever money, or was it always freedom? Was it always having the freedom to choose what you do day in, day out? Yeah. And are you chasing money? Why are you chasing freedom? Or do you get lost chasing money in the pursuit of freedom. So then you lose the freedom that you were, yeah, going towards base, yeah. But I wonder if you got these insights from being around other people. You recently come back from a mastermind, do you think these insights have helped, because you've had people around you to kind of hold that out of you in a way? Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's people, it's fascinating. Yeah, there's people there who are, like, operating businesses at, I don't know, for example, 6 million pound a year turnover, but they're netting 3 million. So it's like they got really healthy margins. They are lean as a company, and they've decided not to scale beyond 6 million a year. There's other people in the room that are at 12 million, but are maybe making one net, if that, because they might have a bad year, and something happens, and then suddenly, like that, actually, that 1 million dries up and they overspend on ads or something. And so it's fascinating to kind of see these businesses at different scales of growth, and some people who are just like, breaking their back, you know, going around the country, networking, building things like the 150 team members and then other people who are like, it's me and five other people, super lean, we'll work from home. What? Like, it's you. It's very clear in a business like that, but like, freedom and time, flexibility was always the goal, and because the vision of the business owner has, like, been instilled in the rest of the business that came through. So I guess it's, what kind of business do you want to grow? And I think that changes as you go through life as well, like the phase of life I'm in right now with two young kids. I don't know if I want to be like, flying around the world, having to be away from them the whole time manage hundreds of people like that. Sounds like a nightmare to me, yeah. So you got to keep an eye on what it is you're actually doing it all for in the first place, yeah, but having people around you, I always found that having somebody else to talk to, or a community of people to talk to, they can bring you back to what it was that you did it for in the first place. Actually, when you're in your own world, can easily go after the wrong goals or go down the wrong rabbit hole without even realizing, without getting somebody else just to go back and forth with you. What do you want? What have you thought about your long term vision for your E commerce business? That what's the Yeah, that's the goal. It's to it's for it to be as automated and profitable as possible. That balance, the balance between the two. So it's whenever I go into a scaling mode, it takes more of me to go into to do the thing that is the next level, whether that's new suppliers, new products, new ad campaigns, or the new platform that we try out, it's normally something that involves me. So I'm finding that balance of how far can I scale it and also have the processes in place that don't break when I'm not there? Yeah? Because I want my E commerce businesses to be a semi passive income stream all the time. Yeah? And. And, yeah, it's about scaling gradually for me, making sure that it's always there as an income stream for the long term. So that's always been my goal. And I mean, but also the coaching side of things. I love that, in terms of spending my time coaching, yeah, is because I have the time from the E commerce businesses, and then I love getting around people and to find that rewarding. So, yeah, building my E commerce businesses, as well as doing the coaching. E commerce businesses to get like a semi passive income stream. That means that the coaching can always be fun, yeah? And I've always got that fu money, whatever you want to call it. That means you've got like a backup pot at all times, like, decisions, yeah, take big risks, big swings. Yeah, exactly. And when we want to go and live from elsewhere in the world, or do an experience, I want to be able to say yes, because I've got this money, yeah, coming in from the E commerce business. And then I want to be able to spend my time doing things that I love doing, as well as scale the business. I also know that I love getting around people that are ambitious, like minded like me. Yeah. So coaching ties in perfectly with Yeah, with that role, but you're incredibly good at it, and I think I'm quite like, socially energized, and, you know, I think it kind of like, and I can sense that, um, I think that's why you're so good at the role you do in that, you know, you feed off that energy from people. And certainly today, I know that, you know, there'll be lots of great conversations. But also, I think there are people in our community that I can think of that that are very on a very different path to what you described in that their North Star is like, they want a physical shop. So we've had people, haven't we, like, open high street stores and be like, I'm taking my business to the, you know, traditional high street approach. And I'm like, okay, so that means now you need staff, and you've got to be there in person. It's like, not for me, but that's not like, who am I to write off your goal? If that was your goal all along, and that that gives you a sense of purpose, and you want your money in like, bricks and mortar and like that gives you that security, then, yeah, who am I to say that's that's not the right path? Yeah, it's just an enabler, isn't it? This, this gets you off the ground. Where you take it is up to you exactly. And I think the business model that we run with E commerce. It does allow you to take it in lots of different areas. And the lessons you learn about entrepreneurship, about growing a business full stop, allows you to take it in whichever direction you want to take it, yeah, because the skills you get are going to be applied everywhere, supplier relationships, building an E commerce business, being able to take payments online, yeah. All incredibly valuable to no matter which way you want to take it. Some people have the goal of an E commerce empire, five to 10 different stores that they oversee. Some people have got the goal of one or two muses, like in the four hour work week, where it's just a it's about the income. It's not about a saleable asset. It's about an income every month to allow them to go and travel and live wherever they want. It's whatever resonates most with the person. And it's all about, always about going back to that goal without getting lost, which is easy to be done potentially, you know, to chase money without losing the sight of what it when you're doing it for in the first place. Yeah? So sure, we'll have lots of conversations about that today. They're the inner circle guys in the vast class members later today. Yeah, absolutely. I like that stuff, diving into people's goals. What do they want from it? Because then we can kind of work backwards and reverse engineer the process of like, what? Okay, well, based on the fact that you want that as an end goal, that's going to now inform like, right down to the kind of What apps do you install on the store? Where do you hire a VA? Do you not? Do you know? Do you leverage AI more? Um, kind of depends, because things like a VA will increase your freedom, but decrease your margin. It's like, well, can you, can you get nine 80% of the results that a VA would get with like an AI app that does live chat and order fulfillment and stuff like that, and without having to spend the 600 pounds a month on the VA? You know? Is that? That kind of balance? So, yeah, all these questions come into play, Zach, because we've been through the path that we can see people are about to go on. Then we can kind of revise it early on, yeah, so I love to ask that question about, all right, what's the end goal for you? What you're doing this for? What's the main reason why you're building this business in the first place? And then we can kind of advise on the steps to take in order to get to that end goal. Because we've seen the path that it takes to get to seven figure, e commerce, business. If that's their goal, to have a business, and they can leave their nine to five job, then we can kind of help to advise on right Well, the most important thing for you to do right now is x, you know, is to hire a VA so that you can then scale the ad spend without feeling like you're being burnt out because you've already been through and had to make those decisions. Yeah. So it's been able to speak to somebody, tell them the end goal, and we can kind of fill in the gaps of where they are now to where they need to be, we can help to advise anyway, based on our own experience. Yeah, otherwise, I'd have to go out and try trial and error, which, yeah, and you might end up finding you were climbing the wrong ladder the whole time you build, you build a monstrosity of a business that you hate and makes your life miserable, and you're really busy, and you're like, Why did I do this? And you know, there's lots of different kinds of entrepreneurship and different types of business, and even within the same type of business, there's lots of different end results in terms of the lifestyle for the business owner. You know, you could install a project manager slash CEO in your business and just be like, I'm happy to take a lower margin because I'm paying a higher salary, but I don't want to have to actively be involved in the day to day, and I'd rather run three of the. As businesses, get the same income as if I ran one myself, but not have to do anything. That, for some people, might be the way. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I think the way we run dropship, a lot of the way that we've always run our E commerce businesses, and for me anyway, is to for it to be a lifestyle business. Speak to a lot of people in the room later today, a lot of people come to us and say that they're building it for a lifestyle business. They don't see themselves as this massive e commerce operator, with all these e comm businesses that they run under. It's about lifestyle. So the more we can do to help people to always keep that in mind, that it is a lifestyle business. You know, it's easy to get pulled in, isn't it, to create a behemoth, yeah. But the more we can bring people back to the end goal, the better. And I think sometimes the misconception with like lifestyle business is that you can build it in a lifestyle way from like you only have to put in a lifestyle amount of work to build it. That's not true. Is that if you want something that replaces your income and means you never have to work again, expect there to be some hard work. Expect there to be some front loading of that work. So the way I thought of it is like, okay, so I work 40 hours a week at my job. If I need to double the amount of hours I put in for six months in order to never have to work a job again, I'm doing it like, why not? Why would you not like to me if you can't see past that level of delayed gratification, like you're almost just going into this with the complete wrong frame of mind from the start. So I yeah, I think you got to know that it's going to be hard work, but if the end result is a lifestyle you enjoy, is it worth it? Do you or do you just want to continue working for the next 40 years for someone else, in a company that you don't like, and being tied to a desk? And yeah, it's weighing up the upside versus the downside of any investment. And the upside being potentially a life without having to get out to nine to five, the downside being a sacrifice for six months or 12 months that you put in to get your business off the ground and running fully functioning without you having to do a lift a finger each day to keep it running. So, yeah, it's a it's a noble pursuit for anyone that does it. And you know, they get themselves to positions which are very impressive. Hence why we're going to be speaking to people in the inner circle very soon. On the massive fast tonight, I'm very excited about catching up with the guys again, because it's only been three months since the last one, and in fact, it was the last place that I was back in the UK. Was at the last event in September. I remember telling everyone that I was flying off. I had to leave the hotel about 4am VA the next morning, and immediately coming back, I'm here again. It's like I never left. The last three months back home, perhaps I've been in the whole time. I just didn't tell you I was in the in the back room learning. But, yeah, trust me, I have been away, and then I've come back, and here we are to do all over again. Yeah, looking forward to it be great to have some of the members back in the room today. And, yeah, we've got a exciting activity lined up for the inner circle members later today as well. Maybe we can try and capture some footage of that as well. And, yeah, yeah. VR experience happening later. Company coming in with VR headsets to is it like a VR escape room? What's the Yeah, but you get a choice. You can do an escape room, or you can do, like, this Apocalypse style thing that's, yeah, I think we chose the escape room. Okay, should be good fun, because I think virtually, We're escaping from a virtual room together, so you have to work together. So that's gonna be good for people, like smashing into the walls. And, yeah, there were kinds of stuff happening later in here, I imagine. Yeah, those are all set up on the right game. And one of us isn't like running from a zombie as we're all trying to escape a room, but it could be a bit bit confusing Yeah. And I know you've got a bit of a history with virtual reality. And, yeah, I mean, my little finger have a little bit of a history with that. Yeah, I may or may not have punched a wall in my garage accidentally while playing a boxing game called thrill of the fight, and got too into it. In fairness to me, I was in. It was very, very cold outside, I think, at the time, so I was inside the garage. I'd drawn the boundary, yeah, and I was, I think I was in like, round four, or four, or whatever I was. It was like, the last punch of the game, and it was this person that I hadn't been able to defeat for so long. And I'd tried every morning after like, doing a peloton or something, to, like, try and do this. It's good, good cardio workout. And the final hit was, like, it all came down to that. And I just went for it, and I dived right outside the VR boundary and to just smash it into the brick wall. And I remember like looking down and being like, Well, that didn't feel good. And like looking down at the headset, and my hand was just pouring with blood. And then I looked, I got a headset back on to see the result, and the referee granted me the win. So I was like, Well, I take the win for now. We got to go to the hospital. So then I went down. I went outside, and, yeah, we were mid school running. My wife was like, I think we need to take you to anything. Yeah, yeah. We look at down it. But the way you had to check to see if you won. Oh, there's no point going through that pain if you don't find out the result, right? That was the only reason I was doing it. So, yeah, like, defeated the boss. And then from since that day, it's been VR in the garden only, there you go, that's the rule, yeah, well, I'd say that we're doing it into inside today. Lewis, so you might have like we're in barked, yeah, you might be, I sit this one out. Yeah, should be good fun. Yeah, good stuff. I mean, you probably thinking about how good is this virtual reality that really felt realistic when I hit the last time there? Okay, the broken finger definitely felt real for a good six months. Yeah? Good stuff. Yeah. Excited for today. I think there'll be guys. We'll turn it up in the next few minutes or so, 557, minutes so we can wrap this up. But I've enjoyed this in person podcast, yes, with fun. Yeah. If you want to see more of these, then leave us a comment below this video. Like and Subscribe if you haven't already, that's the one thing we ask of you, if you've been watching this far, he's like. The least you can do is hit the subscribe button and give us a like and yeah, maybe we'll try and do more of these in person interviews with kitchen spatula soon. Exactly, if that's what worth it like, I don't know what else is. Yeah, good fun. So thanks guys for for watching today, catching the next see you soon. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. We hope you are leaving with new insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey to kick start your E commerce business, head over to dropship, unlocked.com forward slash, start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more episodes, packed with strategies, tips and success stories. Plus, if you enjoyed this episode today, a five star review would mean the world to us, and you might even get a shout out on the next episode. Thank you for choosing to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. You