0 (2s):
Boom shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire,

HubSpot Podcast Network (8s):
brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Marketing Made Simple.

0 (15s):
Today we're pulling a timeless EOFire episode, from the archives, and we'll be breaking down proving the concept and crafting the solution. To drop these value bombs, I brought Omar Zenhom and Nicole Baldinu into EOFire Studios. They both have a decade of education experience. As university educators they learned how to not only teach, but how create and deliver lessons that actually foster learning and ensure comprehension and retention. They are the team behind The $100 MBA podcast and community, and co-founders of WebinarNinja. And today, we'll be talking about one way to find creativity. It's to change careers. We'll talk about having a great team means everything and being a user of your own product makes you an advocate.

0 (57s):
and so much more, Fire Nation. And a big thank you for sponsoring

The Gold Digger Podcast (1m 0s):
today's episode goes to Omar, Nicole and our sponsors, The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kutcher is brought to you by the Hubspot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business acts, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must listen episode is one of Jenna's recent on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing. Listen to Gold Digger, wherever you get your podcasts

Thought-Leader (1m 30s):
ever thought of giving a TEDx talk, it's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. In four time TEDx, speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought-Leader can help you get there. Visit Thought-Leader.com/fire to join Taylor's free training, where he teaches you how to land a TEDx Talk and spread your message to millions.

0 (1m 51s):
Omar, Nicole, you guys are halfway around the world, but I feel like it was just yesterday. We were walking the streets of Sydney, visiting your favorite restaurants, hanging out at your favorite places, getting to hang out with some of our favorite people, and we miss you guys. We love you guys. We can't wait till the next time we get to hang out. and we also admire you guys, like for what you've built over the years and you've built something real. And you know, I look back at like what we've done with like frankensteining different things together with Entrepreneurs on Fire, and you did the same thing. I mean, you went from Frankensteining webinars for the a hundred dollars MBA to launching this DIY WebinarNinja guide that you did, that I, by the way, purchased and used.

0 (2m 32s):
And then you decided to create WebinarNinja, which you know, is now doing amazing things and has been for years and years and years. So talk to us about this journey and the transition that you made.

1 (2m 45s):
It's definitely been a journey. I think one of the things that stands out the most for me at least, is how much both Nicole and I have had to change along the way. Change who we are, change what we do every day, change our habits, change the way we run our businesses. As you know, the actions we take today get the, get us the results that we see. So if we want to get different results, we had to, to do different things, which is, it's hard, it's hard to change, it's hard to also recognize, I don't, I'm not good enough right now to be what I wanna be in the future. And yeah, that journey is, has been an interesting journey. It's still going, we're still learning.

1 (3m 25s):
We're still improving and adapting and it's been great. 'cause I always say building a software company is very much like climbing a mountain as a metaphor. Because as you go up the mountain, the things that you did before, you still can't, you know, you can't do them anymore to do, do new things. So like in the beginning, you're hiking up the mountain, you don't need much, you know, special equipment, you feel okay, you're not winded. As you move closer, you're starting to climb vertical. Oh no. Now I need like some grappling tools. You know, I'm huffing and puffing now, it's a outta shape compared to what I was before. You know, and then as you move up, you're like, okay, I'm gonna need a Sherpa, maybe man, I need a coach.

1 (4m 6s):
Maybe I need some guidance here. Maybe somebody's been there before up this mountain before to help 'em along the way or that could even be hires. So it, it is just an interesting thing because you don't really realize that as you're moving along. And it's kind of a blessing because if you did know that, maybe you wouldn't have taken those take, take the chance or take that leap of starting a a, a software company. But it's definitely been fun. One

0 (4m 28s):
Thing that I mentioned in the introduction, Nicole, is that, you know, you were a university educator, which of course, you know, Omar was as well. And you know, you went from like that kind of environment, you know, which is, it's, it's a confined environment. You know, there's rules, there's regulations to just kind of saying, you know what, you know, here we are in New York City, we're gonna do our thing. We're gonna drive across the country, we're gonna move to San Diego, and we're just gonna kind of figure things out along the way with this a hundred dollars MBA thing and this DIY WebinarNinja thing. And then, you know, hey, let's just launch an entire SaaS company. Let's just launch WebinarNinja. And, you know, that must have been a little bit of a transition. So just like Omar kind of did, like what was your transition like?

2 (5m 8s):
Yeah, it's crazy to think about it. I suppose I, I distinctly remember when I decided to quit teaching that I was looking for something creative teachers, you know, they have a lot of creativity in the confines of that classroom, of the curriculum that they're teaching. But like you said, there's so many restrictions. There's timetables, there's schedules, there's the yearly calendar. So I was really searching for something creative and I think what, you know, what better way to find creativity than just changing careers? I started, you know, in film, joined up, teamed up with Omar, we started a podcast, we started the a hundred va. And then, you know, here we are years later with the software as well. So I mean, in a nutshell it's really hard to describe, you know, what that transition has been.

2 (5m 54s):
It's been, it's been fun. It's been, it is been an adventure. I think, you know, I've always looked back at, you know, oh gosh, I'm just thinking so many things. There's, there's just so, there's just so many things, you know, I wanted to kind of, you know, discount that, that career in teaching. But it's no wonder that Omar and I find ourselves right now, you know, producing a podcast that teaches business lessons. And so in love with the idea of, of webinars because, you know, they really are a form of teaching, teaching people about your products and services. So in a way it's been a, a very almost, you know, crazy transition, but in a way it almost feels really quite natural as well.

2 (6m 38s):
Yeah.

0 (6m 39s):
Well, Nicole let's stick with you for this one because one thing that I admire that you've done, you know, over the course of your career, but you know, specifically with WebinarNinja, is you prove the concept and then you crafted the solution, you prove the concept, then you crafted the solution. And most people do that backwards. So talk to us about the significance of First Proving, the concept before you go ahead and CRAFT this massive solution.

2 (7m 6s):
Yeah, for sure. I think the way it all started was, you know, we had the a hundred alarm va and we wanted to get more customers, more members into the community. And Omar's like, you know, his natural passion, his love for teaching, trying to get, you know, build that audience, you know, he gravitated to webinars. So we were just doing that ourselves. It was something that we just felt like, okay, we need to find new audience members. We need to reach more people. We wanna reach more people because we, we have something that we wanna share. How are we gonna do this? Right? Let's, let's, you know, let's do a WebinarNinja. And so it, it just felt like, okay, this is clearly something that we, we are doing ourselves. It's working.

2 (7m 46s):
People are attending, people are enjoying the interaction. You know what it's like, you know, when you're in on a WebinarNinja and you've got that interactivity with an audience, and this is working and you know, and you're just doing your thing because you're trying to solve that problem for yourself. And then when, as soon as you realize, oh, actually you know, this, this, this could actually help other people. And that's when, you know, when obviously people started asking like, oh, what, what software are you using? Can, can we buy it? Then we realized, okay, there is actually a need for this tool, this piece of software for other people. So I think in that experience we learned that, okay, we are solving something for ourselves. This is clearly, there's validation there. We are listening, we've got our ears to the ground as to what people are telling us, the feedback they're giving us.

2 (8m 31s):
And I think that's constantly, you know, inspired and fed the journey of WebinarNinja to continuously listen to our, excuse me, to continuously listen to our, our customers and our members so that we can continue to improve and solve that, that pain point, that problem that they have.

1 (8m 49s):
Yeah, it's a whole lot easier too to run a business where you have like a pull product rather than a push product where like, people are, they want this, they, they're asking for it. You don't have to convince or cajole anybody into it. You don't have to like really push it. And I feel like when you have that product market fit, it makes the whole business so much easier. It makes it a lot easier for you to focus on just improving it and serving your customers rather than, you know, how can I just convince every single person, including like all my friends and family that they need this. Like, if you need to convince people they need it, then maybe you don't have that product market fit.

2 (9m 23s):
Yeah. And then it becomes a part of a matter of refining actually all the feedback that you are getting. Yeah. So that you're, you know, because you wanna serve, you know, you're so passionate about serving everyone and giving everybody what they want. 'cause everyone's got their needs and their, you know, oh, it would be great if it did this because my business does this. Mm. And you do wanna serve everyone to the, those particular needs. But it's then a matter of like filtering out and going, okay, this is really gonna solve a problem for the majority of customers. This is really gonna enhance the experience for a majority of customers. And making those choices are really hard. But, you know, you have to do that to be sustainable.

0 (9m 57s):
I love that mentality of the pull, not push, and sometimes Fire Nation, it's okay, like, it's okay to go on that path of least resistance 'cause to the point that you made Omar. I mean, it's kind of like a reality that if people really have a pain point, they're gonna actually want that solution. If and if they're not asking for it, they're not screaming for the top of their lungs. Like that just may not be a path to go down. Because if you are going to spend your time to cRAFT a solution, they're really better beat not just a pain point, but like a pain point that people are willing to pay for. People are willing to vote with their wallet. And speaking of that, when we get back from thanking our sponsors, we don't do a deep dive into early birds. Stay with us.

0 (10m 38s):
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Thought-Leader (11m 39s):
Do you have a message inside that you know is meant to be shared with the world? Giving a TEDx talk is one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And Thought-Leader can help you get there. Thought-Leader is a speaker coaching company that has helped over 550 and counting coaches, speakers, entrepreneurs, authors, and experts land TEDx talks. Thought-Leader is not affiliated with Ted or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder Taylor Conroy is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EOFire guest. You might be thinking a TEDx talk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that is going to teach you how to land a TEDx talk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online and more. Visit Thought-Leader.com/fire, join Taylor for his free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's Thought-Leader.com/fire.

0 (12m 40s):
I wanna shift into the early bird status. You know, for me, looking back at Podcasters Paradise, man, the best thing we did was bring those early birds for a lot of reasons. I mean, you know, they, they helped CRAFT a direction, their feedback was critical, all this different stuff. You guys had a very similar experience with the Early Birds and WebinarNinja. So Omar, why don't you maybe start with this and kind of talk about the importance of your early bird and how you implemented and utilize them to make WebinarNinja as good as it could be,

1 (13m 11s):
They're incredibly important. They, they have shaped the company in so many ways, even till today. Those first 250 members we had are vital to who've become And a Lot of people ask us like, how did you get those first 250 members? They're, they're literally people we know by name, people we met in conferences, people like you, John, people like that. We became friends with people that literally just bought it to support us and give us feedback and to be part of that journey with us. Now, that is great and all but with that responsibility is maintaining that relationship, asking them questions, making sure that they didn't make a mistake by betting on you that, that they made the right investment, that they made the right call.

1 (13m 54s):
So that, that was a great kind of ex experience, those first six months to a year to learn what we can do better, what we can, what we can do differently, how we can improve the software and just get feedback from real people that I can just get on the phone and talk to or, you know, shoot a quick email to all that kind of stuff. Also, it, you know, it gave us a chance to understand what kind of company we wanna become. Sometimes we get so busy as entrepreneurs of creating a awesome business that makes money and fame and glory and all that kinda stuff that you forget that, hey, you're gonna inherit whatever you build, like whatever you build the type of customers you attract, the kind of things you're gonna have to do every day, depending on the product you build, all that kind of stuff.

1 (14m 36s):
It remix you, reevaluate when you're talking to these people on a daily basis. And a small group is wait a minute, like, do I wanna do this for the rest of my life or for the next foreseeable future? If not, I need to change, pivot my product to suit the way I wanna run my business. So I think that kind of small incubator of, of customers before you blow up is a, is a blessing in disguise. So you can kind of CRAFT it before it grows, kind of raise that child before it goes out in the, in the real world.

0 (15m 4s):
Nicole, anything you wanna add to your experience with the early bird members that Omar didn't get to, there's

2 (15m 9s):
Just a special connection with those people. I feel in the early days, you, you almost feel like there's less to, to lose. So there's this honesty, there's these, these conversations, this, I'm not saying that that, that that changes necessarily, but there's a different kind of connection that you have with the, with the people that you know in the beginning really wanna support you and you feel like you have their, their, their, their trust just because they know you or they, you know, they've come to you, you know, showing their support. So I think those conversations are really special. I think, you know, you need to be super grateful for, for those people that haven't entered that stage of your life in, at that stage of your business.

2 (15m 52s):
Yeah, it's just, yeah, nothing great people, great people for sure.

0 (15m 56s):
Well, once again, thank you both for your amazing contribution to the chapter in the book, the step in the roadmap of Proving the concepts and implementing the solution. As you can tell, Fire Nation, I found the right people for this contribution. I mean, they've been doing this for years and years and years now. You know, running a great business, serving a lot of people, you know, running a great company, making things happen. And how I wanna end our conversation here today is I pulled a quote from your contribution. I'm gonna read that quote and then I'm gonna hand it over to you and Nicole I'll start with you this time to really bring this home for us.

0 (16m 37s):
So your quote in the book is, your product solution is only as good as your team. And one of the best things that we've done is really understand the customer we are serving and being a part of the community by being a user as well. Be an ambassador to your community. Nicole, bring home that last part. Be an ambassador to your community. What do you mean by that?

2 (17m 3s):
Team is everything. I'm, you know, I feel blessed in, in what I get to do every day because I get to work with a great team. The people that you know, we talk to every single day, who are actually use, you know, serving our customers by being users ourselves. We were users ourselves of WebinarNinja. We see just everyone on, on the entire team. Whether it's a support per agent to, to an engineer. They're constantly inside the software so that they can be advocates. They, they can actually feel what it's like to be on the other end. It's opening up this app and going, okay, clicking around, I've, I've got things to do, I've got, you know, my WebinarNinja to get on with.

2 (17m 46s):
What does it, what does that experience feel like? So constantly being immersed in, in the app with our team, you know, bringing the voice of the customer to them every single day. Whether it's through a conversation from our support, whether it's sharing an email that they've sent. It's that constant re reminder to everyone that we are doing this because there's a, there's a customer out there, there's a member out there who is using our software and we never wanna lose sight of that. We always wanna stay close to them so that we're always feeling what they're feeling, you know, every time that they're experiencing our app.

0 (18m 22s):
Take this home for us. Omar, any final words you want to add about being that ambassador to your community?

1 (18m 29s):
I think sometimes we forget that people buy products because of the people behind the product. You know, Tesla would not be a company, the company it is today if it wasn't for Elon Musk. Same thing with Steve Jobs. Some, you know, some might say the same thing about Sarah Blakely and Spanx, you know, being that kind of in inspiration. People want leadership. They want people to say, Hey, you know, show me the way, show me what's the best way to do to, to do this. What's the best practices in delivering these webinars? What's the best way to utilize this app so I can grow my business? And if you are not willing to get in front of your audience and really work with them and try to improve your software, but also improve how they use it and how they can get the most out of it through your content, through your webinars themselves, you really need to question, are you in the right business?

1 (19m 22s):
'cause I was in a wrong business in my past, you know, eight, nine years ago. I had my own clothing line and my customers were more passionate about my product than I was. And I realized I'm in the wrong business here, man. These people really care about this. They're, they're more ambassadors than I am. So you need to really check yourself if you're in the right business, if you feel like you can't be that ambassador, if you can't get excited and passionate about what you do and, and motivate and inspire people to use your product. That's a big part of it. Some people don't use the product just because they just need a little push or maybe they don't understand the value and you need to convey that. So that's all part about, you know, being the ambassador and, and and leading that

The Common Path to Uncommon Success (19m 59s):
community. Forward Chapter 11, step 11, in that 17 step process, the roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment, Proving the concepts and Crafting the solution Fire Nation. You're only getting a glimpse of what this chapter is, of course, how I describe exactly what this means, how I share my story. And then Omar, Nicole going into their contribution, their journey, their story in much more depth than we got to today. So if you're hearing our voices before March 23rd, there's still time to pre-order this book and get all five pre-order bonuses, which disappear on March 23rd. No pre-order bonuses anymore on March 23rd. You just get the book, which is fantastic. But the bonuses you need to take action on right now, five bonuses, one of one of the bonuses, all three of my journals, freedom Mastering Podcast Journal shipped to your door, Fire Nation, $150 worth of Journal value shipped to your door for a pre-order of The Common Path To Uncommon Success. So if I've given you value over the years, if Omar Nicole are giving you value today, show your support, make that pre-order happen. Get one for your friends, family, loved ones, make that happen. We're going to be impacting so many people by getting them to their version of uncommon success. Omar Nicole, it's awesome to call you guys friends, it's awesome to see you living your version of Uncommon Success day in and day out. I'm proud of you, I'm excited for you and we'll catch you on the flip side,

The Gold Digger Podcast (21m 34s):
The Gold Digger podcast hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kutcher is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business acts, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must listen episode is one of Jenna's recent on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing. Listen to Gold Digger, wherever you get your podcasts

Thought-Leader (21m 60s):
ever thought of giving a TEDx talk. It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. In four time TEDx. Speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought-Leader can help you get there. Visit Thought-Leader.com/fire to join Taylor's free training, where he teaches you how to land a TEDx Talk and spread your message to millions.