Running a business · 21 journeys · 229 actions
Start it, get legal, win the work, get paid, grow it, hand it on.
The question this track answers: “What does my business need this week?” Your first 10 journeys are free to claim and stay yours forever — an account only makes the record follow you between devices.
Set Up the Business
“How do I go from cash jobs to an actual company?”
→ Someone with a real business, not a side hustle
The legal and financial spine, in the order the paperwork actually allows. Entity, EIN, bank account, card payments, books — with the waiting built into the plan instead of ambushing you.
Get Licensed, Insured & Bonded
“How do I become the contractor people are allowed to hire?”
→ Someone who can bid on work the unlicensed guy can't
Licence, general liability, workers' comp, and a surety bond. Slow, unglamorous, full of waiting — and the exact reason you can charge more than the cash-only competition.
Build Your Top Three Offers
“What should I sell, and what should I charge for it?”
→ Someone who sells three clear things at a price they can defend
Stop quoting every job from scratch. Find which work actually pays, turn the best three into named offers with real prices, and build the estimate template that sends them in four minutes.
Get Found & Get Leads
“How do I get customers who find me instead of the other way round?”
→ Someone with more than one way work arrives
The free listing that outperforms every ad, a website whose only job is to capture a phone number, proof you can point at, and a list you own. Built in the order that produces calls soonest.
Run the Job Right
“Why am I working this hard and still broke?”
→ Someone who gets paid on time, every time
The loop every service business lives inside: quote, schedule, do, invoice, get paid, get reviewed. Most trade businesses don't fail on the work — they fail on the four steps that come after it.
Grow Past Yourself
“How do I grow without working more hours than exist?”
→ Someone who owns a business instead of a job
Raise the price, write down how you do it, bring in help, and hand over one whole job. The point isn't a bigger company — it's a business that runs for a week without you in it.
Sell It or Step Back
“Is there anything here to sell, or do I just stop one day?”
→ Someone whose work became an asset, not just an income
Most trade businesses can't be sold because everything valuable lives in the owner's head and phone. This is how you turn a career into something transferable — whether you sell it, hand it to family, or just want it to survive you.
The Money Side
“How do I stop being ambushed by my own business?”
→ Someone who is never surprised by a bill again
Bookkeeping, quarterly estimated tax, mileage, 1099s, and knowing when to stop doing it yourself. The unglamorous half of a trade business — and the half that decides whether it survives.
Your First Employee
“How do I hire someone without getting it badly wrong?”
→ Someone who can employ another person properly
A wage is roughly two-thirds of what an employee costs. Payroll taxes, workers' comp, the paperwork that must exist before day one, and how to let someone go without wrecking either of you.
Sell It Face to Face
“How do I sell without becoming someone I don't like?”
→ Someone people say yes to
Selling in a kitchen, a driveway, a booth or across a counter. Asking questions instead of pitching, handling the four objections you will actually hear, and asking for the order out loud.
Sell It Online
“How does anyone actually sell a thing on the internet?”
→ Someone who can take money online
A product, a page, a payment link, and the first stranger who buys. Digital products, physical products and services — the plumbing is the same and it is simpler than it looks.
Get Found by Search & AI
“How do I get found now that people ask a machine?”
→ Someone both search engines and assistants can recommend
Local SEO still decides the map pack, and a second thing now decides the answer people are given instead of a list. Both are solved by publishing your facts in a form a machine can read without guessing.
Say Something Worth Hearing
“How do people build an audience without becoming insufferable?”
→ Someone with a voice people recognise and positions they can name
Interesting is a practice, not a personality. Take real positions, disagree in a way that earns respect, tell the stories only you have, and give people hope with receipts attached.
Start the Channel Backwards
“How do I start a YouTube channel that could actually become something?”
→ Someone with ten published videos and a channel built like the big ones started theirs
Work backwards from channels that made it: steal the map from their early days, pick one viewer and one repeatable format, set up small, and ship ten videos as reps — not launches.
Package Before You Produce
“Why do worse videos than mine get ten times the views?”
→ Someone who decides the title and thumbnail before touching a camera
Big channels approve the packaging before production starts, because the best video nobody clicks is a rock at the bottom of a lake. Build an idea bank written as packaging, test titles and thumbnails before you shoot, and kill weak ideas while they're still cheap.
Keep Them Watching
“How do I make videos people actually finish?”
→ Someone who reads retention graphs and engineers the watch, beat by beat
Retention is not charisma — it's structure. Find the cliff in your graphs, rebuild your first minute, script in open loops and payoffs, and turn what works into a format document so every future video starts at your best.
Turn Views Into a Living
“How do creators actually make real money?”
→ Someone with a rate card, a sponsor pipeline, and an income layer they own
At almost every channel that pays a real living, ads are the smallest line. Learn the real revenue map, price your sponsorship slots like inventory, pitch brands already buying, and build the email-and-product layer no algorithm can take away.
Build the Content Machine
“How do big creators publish so much without dying?”
→ Someone who runs a content pipeline and only touches the parts only they can do
Every multi-million channel is a production system wearing one person's face. Map your pipeline hour by hour, batch the stages, write the SOP, hire the editor with a paid test, and move yourself up to the seat nobody else can fill.
Be the Reference Point
“Why does everyone compare me to the cheapest option?”
→ Someone whose work gets compared to nothing, because there is nothing quite like it
Being slightly better than the competition still puts you in the competition. Pick a category narrow enough to own, name who you're not for, refuse something out loud, back it with proof, and become the thing other people get measured against.
Run a Production or Event
“How do I actually run the operational side of a live production without something on-site blowing up the schedule?”
→ Someone who can run load-in to strike on a date that can't move, and get paid for it
A wedding, a small concert, a pop-up catering gig, a build, a merch table at a festival — different jobs, same spine: a run-of-show that survives contact with reality, the specific insurance and permit paper a first-timer always forgets, a crew that knows its call times, vehicles loaded in the order they unload, food and cash handled safely, and a contingency for the thing that will go wrong on-site. This journey builds that spine once, in the order it actually has to happen, so the fixed date doesn't run you.
Build and Sell Something Online
“How do I turn what I make or do into something a real stranger can find, trust, and pay for online?”
→ Someone who runs a real online storefront, not just a social presence
Selling online is not 'having a website' or 'being active on social media' — it's a domain you own, a checkout that works, a channel you chose on purpose, and an actual ask made to actual people. This journey builds each piece in the order it has to happen: name the offer, build the storefront, wire the payment processor, install real tracking, pick one channel, build a cadence you can sustain, turn a social account into a place people can buy, and then make the direct ask that gets the first real sale.