What business is all about

What is a business? Have you thought about it? Can you give me a precise definition of what business is? I think it can vary honestly. It comes down to perspective and attitude.

What I want to make you guys take away from this story is to look at the life of a guy who is not an expert at building businesses and investing; on the contrary, I’m nothing more than a fool. I’m actually the guy who’s going to fail multiple times and get hit with the reality of life, but at the same time I’m also someone who I think can learn from all of those mistakes and experiences, and furthermore, continue to improve. I know this because I am so disproportionately in love with the world of business and investing that I can’t see myself doing anything else but that.

I’m Costa Rican. I’ve lived in Costa Rica all my life. Almost all of my family lives here as well and we have sort of like these typical family meetings for special days and holidays like Christmas, birthdays, and Thanksgiving sometimes. Last year I was at one of these meetings at my cousin’s house where I got to talk seriously with my cousin Dorian. Dorian is a hardcore entrepreneur, and what I mean by this is that he was born to make a living out of himself; not working for anybody else but himself. Now I, being the ambitious greedy son of a gun that I was, became incredibly interested in talking to the man. The truth is that I rarely see him. I can only interact with him at these different family meetings that happen probably twice a year. This time; however, I guess I wanted some feedback and tips on how to create Hubble, the business that I’m building right now. I was looking for some sort of exchange of ideas with him so that I could get the most out of the conversation for me and my project. Now pay close attention to that statement: me and my project. Me. You can see already the way that I was thinking about it back then.

Throughout my whole life I’ve thought of businessman and businesswoman as people who are highly competitive, bloodthirsty, lying sons of the gun who don’t give a single damn about anyone else but them. Funny enough, I saw all of that in myself. All of those attributes that I saw in the stereotypical businessman came natural to me. These were characteristics that I thought made someone successful. I don’t know you, but I can bet that if you saw all of those characteristics in you, you wouldn’t be particularly happy. As a functional member of society you don’t want to be any of that, but if you’re going into a war zone, only the fiercest survive. You want to be the strongest. That’s what I thought all throughout my life until this day.

My dad is a particular individual who knows how to connect people with each other. He does this in a selfless way because he really wants to make people happy around him. I think that is a very noble thing to do. I know I have that same trait except that I have always thought about it for myself and what I can gain from the other person in the connection. That was exactly what I was thinking when I was talking with Dorian. I immediately sensed that he was a shrewd guy who knew exactly what he was doing: he knew the industry he was in, he knew how to build a business from scratch, he even knew how to grow a brand and his own reputation. I was extremely interested in getting his advice because as a young dude who wants to create a business and get immersed in the world of business.

We started talking and we connected as soon as we opened our mouths. We began to talk about different personalities and famous people who are self made millionaires. Names like Mr. Wonderful and Mark Cuban came up and a bunch of different individuals. The strange thing was that for a large amount of time he explained to me how these people gave their money to help people in need or tried to make connections that were not necessarily for their own gain but for other people. I was hearing this and I was like “oh yeah yeah sure I mean yeah that’s pretty cool.” Inside; however, I was only interested in the lessons that I could use for my own project.

As we progressed in our conversation he continuously came back to talk about these charity and non-profit actions that these millionaires did. Basically I was thinking: “Okay sure man. I mean I get it, sure, okay. Why don’t you just stop talking about this and instead talk about something cool like how they made their money or how they strategized their business model which propelled them into wealth.”

At one point one of those stories struck a chord in my heart. I don’t remember the precise story right now but I do remember that it hit me emotionally. By that time he asked me this question:

“Andrés, you know what business is all about, right?

“Well no, actually I don’t.”

In my head I was like: “Dude you’ve been talking about nonsense for 30 minutes straight”

“Do want me to tell you?”

“Sure.”

He leaned forward a little bit as if he was telling me a secret. I leaned forward as well. He then said these words:

“Business is all about giving.”

By that time I was completely dumbfounded; I didn’t know what to say. He saw that he had blown my mind by my facial expression and then he explained further:

“Okay let me explain, I’ll tell you a story.”

Dorian sells a thermal insulation material which helps keep the heat inside a container. It’s very useful in industrialized areas and factories because you can basically brush the substance over a hot container so that the heat doesn’t come out. This lowers the risk of employees getting burned and it also saves up a lot of energy. It can also be used for houses to make them cooler inside which saves on air conditioner. It’s a pretty amazing product honestly.

Dorian’s story went like this:

I have this client and he’s buying thermal insulation material from me for say $5 per square feet of material. Meanwhile I also have a supplier who is selling me this material for $3 per square feet. So you know, I make a profit of $2 right? Okay so I realized that my client can’t pay all the material that he needs for his project because it’s very expensive for him. However, he needs it, he really needs it because he’s basically brushing it all over the surface of a large tube which can become unsafe for the people who live nearby. So you know, he’s paying for it like day by day or month by month, whenever he can, and well it just occurs to me that maybe I’ll lower the price! I’ll tell this guy that I can sell him the material for $3 per square feet. Yes I know, I’m just going to break even at best, if and only if my supplier doesn’t raise up the price. However, because now my client can buy more from me then I can ask my supplier for more material. Why is this important? If my supplier produces at scale he will not only be very happy that he can sell more of the product, he will also be able to make it more affordable. So that is exactly what happened! My supplier called me extremely excited that I was able to sell more material, and he also told me that, because he had produced at scale, the price per square feet was now $2. This is great! My client can buy all the material that he needs and I got more money than if I had never done that deal because I received all the money of the proyect at once. It’s a win-win-win; it’s triple win! Now, what would have happened if I would have been greedy? What if I never would have thought about this other person’s pain and tried to do something about it? What would have transpired was that I would have gained less, I would be in the same situation that I was back then. I wouldn’t have made anything better. I would’ve just stayed the same and that’s not progress, that’s not business.

Holy smokes. I wanted to cry honestly, like everything just turned upside down for me at that moment with that one story. It made sense to me, it really made sense. My mind was completely blown away because for my whole life I’ve been thinking about business people being these greedy sons of the gun, lying beasts who just want everything for themselves and don’t really care about anybody else. Nevertheless, after hearing this story my perspective changed dramatically.

I learned two things that day:

1. Everything that I knew about businesses and the business world in general was completely wrong. I had to learn it all over again from scratch.
2. I had found a mentor figure who could teach me what business was all about.

Dorian is a mentor, a consultant, and a friend who can teach me about the world of business from scratch. It’s also a great blessing for me because my mentor is in my family, he believes in God, and he really believes in a lot of things that are good for society. I think that it was God who put him in my life. With time we have developed a relationship that is pretty much like a mentor-mentee sort of relationship and I’m really getting a lot of knowledge and wisdom from him.He’ll start to write a book about his journey and his experiences shortly.

I have just begun the journey to really know what this is all about and the more I dive into the industry, the more I change and the more my thoughts change. Now I’m trying to become the person who selflessly gives expecting nothing in return from the people I interact with. In the words of my greatest inspirational figure, Gary Vaynerchuk: 51/49, give out more value in a relationship than the other person. I like to see it as giving out disproportionate amounts of value in any relationship, becoming the beacon of trust, hope, and help for all the people you interact with. The feeling of people willingly relying on you is what gets me hooked. It not only makes me feel more alive, it gives me a deeper sense of responsibility which consequently, gives me a deeper sense of meaning in my life. It’s a weird thing, I know. It’s also a very cheesy thing to say but it is true. I’m telling you this because it works, almost magically.

I’m just going to continue with this. I’m going to continue with my journey and giving my audience through my podcast and my youtube channel my perspective, my weekly updates about how I’m building Hubble, and of course what I learn: how I failed, how did I rarely succeed , and important updates.

So what is business all about? Well, think about others instead of yourself at least at the beginning of a conversation, or at the beginning of a connection. Always think how can you bring the value in a relationship. Think how can you bring value disproportionately and how can you make this other person’s life better. I’m honestly just trying to figure it out myself right now. I’m really having a hard time because it doesn’t add up in my logic, but weirdly enough if you go through that route you’ll find that you get into a very nice place. If you listen to Gary Vaynerchuk or some other dude like Tony Robbins, maybe you’ll see what I’m talking about. These guys are masters at this and I think that I’m just going to follow them. I’m not going to be a prick. I’m not going to be greedy. I’m really trying to change that. Honestly, it’s pretty tough, but I’m definitely going to follow those steps. Now, it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be competitive. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to give everything out for free. It means that I’m just going to be checking myself and see if I am the one who is providing the biggest amount of value in a relationship.