EP4: The Focus Myth: Navigating Multiple Side Hustles, Experimentation and Exploring Interests

Episode 4: The Focus Myth

 [00:00:00] 

Zach Oshinbanjo: All right, everybody. I’m Zach Oshinbanjo, Army vet and pseudo neurotic. I’m a recovering social worker and government employee, and I’m on my journey across the galaxy for my infinity stones, building homes and workforce in Kansas City, managing construction projects, and I do a little bit of defense tech as well.

Lee Zuvanich: I’m Lee Zuvanich, an ADHD dad and funded tech founder. I left social work to pursue entrepreneurship at 19, and I’ve supported my family by founding successful nonprofit and for profit businesses for the last 20 years. 

Sarah Schumacher: I’m Sarah Schumacher, and I make entrepreneurs look good on the Internet. I’ve spent 15 years building a website design and development agency, and I have helped startups strategize the next step for their tech.

Zach Oshinbanjo: All right. We’re going to get in today’s episode. This is founder problems in this episode is going to look at the myth that you need to have a singular focus if you want to be successful in navigating business opportunities. [00:01:00] There’s a lot of different ways that you can approach this.

There’s a lot of different information out of there. Sometimes it’s not necessarily from the best place. And so the key word here is going to be myth. And so as that kind of sets up context, anything come to mind, Lee? 

Lee Zuvanich: Out for the social media gurus that are like, Oh, you can just. Just use AI, you’re going to streamline your system, you’re going to do it after work every night, and you’re going to be a millionaire.

Yeah. Sarah? 

Sarah Schumacher: If only it were that easy. I think some people don’t fit into that reality because certain types of people like myself cannot 100 percent focus on a single thing. We have to have variety. So I think for some people, you have to take your own personality into account and Understand that sometimes actually those separate it’s a concept of a generalist versus a specialist I guess which one are you and let that inform your decisions?

Zach Oshinbanjo: I myself [00:02:00] work what I would consider Three and a half four ish jobs. 

 There’s this logic. I think it’s starting to dispel a little bit, that multiple income streams can actually create problems in your everyday life.

So I’ve been on that path of trying to Stabilize the military transition process. So that’s this thing I’ve done since 2021. In addition to that, I’ve always had an interest in supporting local initiatives and efforts to revitalize the community.

So that’s led towards being the executive director of a non profit. And our mission there is to build homes and build workforce. So that’s two. different mindsets already. And then in addition to that , I do some construction project management where I might go from looking at grants for the nonprofit and trying to get funding and then in the next breath, I’m putting on boots and looking at a septic tank going into a construction project. So managing all of those things successfully definitely requires the implementation of [00:03:00] systems. I would liken it to code switching, If I’m in different environments, I’m different people.

I don’t mean that in this, you gotta be a phony or just have a different business card in your pocket. I’m Zach today. I’m Zach. Or, my name’s Zach. It’s there’s not a difference in it. It’s just, I have to remember the context and the environment that I’m in. I’d say that’s my initial, focus when I look at different opportunities things that I want to be invested in I have the capacity and luxury to have Time

 Sarah. Do you have any initial thoughts. 

Sarah Schumacher: I have so many thoughts. I’m trying to figure out which thought to start with The thing I always come back to is that creativity is linking different ideas from different spheres.

 I will probably say that annoyingly too much on this podcast because the wider the breadth of knowledge that you have, the more you’ll be able to just pull things together. And so to me you doing all these different things is gonna make you better at your job regardless of what your job is. You just [00:04:00] think about things differently, right?

There’s a lot of advice about specializing and niching down. I think that’s helpful and you need to do that. But I also think , it depends on where you’re at and it depends on what you’re doing. It’s the classic, consultant answer it depends. Yeah, it depends. So I think of this focus on specialization in a single area. I think of freelance designers. So if someone starts out, they’re freelancing, they’re new to running a business, they’re trying to find clients, they accept any client that calls on them, they start doing different kinds of projects, they need to do that.

 You have to have a wide range of people that you work with initially. And then you can figure out what you like best about each of them. Oh, I don’t like this type of client, or I don’t like this type of project, or I really am good at this. And that’s how you figure out what you’re good at.

Because everybody’s got these different spheres of things that they’re really good at so maybe you’re really good at breaking down tech concepts for layman And so you want to focus more on the tech side Maybe you’re not good at [00:05:00] that and you want to focus on in house stuff where you don’t have to deal with that. So that’s something you have to start with everything But all the advice people will say is well, you need to pick a niche. The problem is you can’t pick a niche until you’ve done all of those things for a while, right?

That’s why I say it depends on where you’re at. If you’re starting out, do lots of different things, figure out what you’re good at, and then slowly start to niche down when you find all your little Venn diagram overlapping things, because there will be one, there will be several that make sense for you, but you have to start somewhere to get to that point.

Lee Zuvanich: Isn’t there a Japanese word for that? 

Sarah Schumacher: Icky guy. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: I was thinking the word, but I wasn’t going to pronounce it like that. 

Sarah Schumacher: I could be totally wrong. Don’t ever rely on me for pronunciations. I made you say it. I’ve learned by reading, so I get some stuff really wrong sometimes. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think that’s definitely a prudent point is the ability to explore the options of what you want.

Because even if you don’t want to do, three jobs at a time , you still need to have the experiences to know what you don’t like.

Sarah Schumacher: Yes. Yeah.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think. It helps to hone you in this is my ideal path That’s what I want to get into.

Sarah Schumacher: But the problem is I [00:06:00] think people want to do that immediately And then they hesitate they wait too long to start anything because they think they need to perfect and pick it But you can’t you cannot you don’t have enough information. You have to start first and then you refine. 

 When I made the decision to focus specifically on branding, I had been doing lots of different projects. I worked with a lot of lawyers, I worked with a school, and I did a bunch of weddings.

When I was really intentional about my brand and my business, I was like, these don’t make any sense. None of these fit together. I don’t like doing weddings. I don’t know why I’m doing work at the school.

 I had to look at all this and go, okay, just because I am doing this work does not mean I should continue doing this work. Now that I know what I like and don’t like doing, I have to pick one. So that’s a really important decision that you’ll find yourself making after you’ve been in business for a certain amount of time. But you do have to start somewhere. 

Lee Zuvanich: Agreed. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Immediate thoughts. I know you’ve had you’ve had the luxury of time to compose your 

thoughts. 

Lee Zuvanich: Oh, that’s such a good segue because I actually made a note. I wanted to comment on your quote. You said you had the luxury [00:07:00] of time to invest into these, yeah, into these other ventures that you’re doing.

And someone listening to your story might be like, That’s crazy. I could never, or, I often imagine your boss is listening. Wait, what are you doing?

Sarah Schumacher: Zach is very efficient. Don’t worry.

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah, no, crazy efficient. Military level efficient. So that’s a skill that you have that maybe not everyone has.

I’m, ADHD, maybe I don’t have the same level of efficiency that you do. But I agree with that. I think that I’ve taken the luxury of time as well and invested it into ventures. That I thought were interesting. In the past, I started a yoga studio that, that sprung up out of a hobby.

I catered for a while. That’s because I love to bake. Whatever served my life at the time, I did. And if I could turn it into something that produced income for my family, reliably, without overtaxing me, then I would just do it. For fun, I would experiment with it and see where it went. And sometimes it didn’t go anywhere.

I learned that when you bake for money and [00:08:00] not for love, you have to reduce the quality of the ingredients to make a good margin, which was antithetical to what I wanted to do. So I just didn’t do that as a business anymore. I just experimented, hated it, stopped. Just like Sarah was saying. But the difference, I think, between entrepreneurs who start side hustles and figure out multiple income streams successfully and people who fail at it or who never figure out how to make it work for their schedule, I think that they’ve got too many other things that they might be investing their time in.

It’s a finite resource. None of us have passive income streams funding these interests. We are all hustling, trying to make it work. I’ll be with my daughter talking to her about this concept because she loves to game and she’ll be like, why don’t you want to play on Minecraft more? And it makes me physically tense to think about investing and no shade at people who like to game.

But I’ll tell my kids like you, you can do that if you want, but I think some of your time needs to be put towards something that’s an investment that will give you a return. She [00:09:00] also spends time in Unity engine building games. And just this week she started teaching for money other kids how to build games in Unity Engine.

And some days she wants to Be a game developer. Professionally, we were talking about how it feels the same to build in Minecraft or to build in Unity, but one as a career and the other one just something she did as a kid that she might not do forever. So I apply that mindset to my time and if I’ve got time in the evening, am I watching TV or am I like working on my coding chops and getting better at back end because that’s, I want to be able to build better apps for startup founders. For me personally, because it serves my long term goals, I’m doing the second one. So that’s how I find the time. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Yeah, you bring up an interesting point of being able to have something that you’re interested in a hobby or something like that And you’re able to lean forward enough into it that it becomes an income producing activity.

I think it was the last year of the year before last year is I started doing Capture for federal contracting because it’s such [00:10:00] a simple process. Anyone can go to USA spend and they can go to sam. gov and you can look up how’s the government spending money. What are they buying? Can I get a contract? What does procurement look like? They tell you the person Melissa Smith at , the Bureau of Indian Affairs is looking for X, you can call that person. They may not always respond, but you can contact the person who the contract lives with.

There’s contracts for everything, janitorial services, vending services. I started charging a fee for people to put together a report. Some guy was like, Hey, I want to do janitorial services on government properties. I’m like, okay, that’s a GSA thing. And then I would look up, okay, here’s 15 contracts.

Here’s the minimum bar. Here’s what you need to submit. And I gave it to him. He was like here’s some money for it. I didn’t even give you a price, but okay, he’s can you do that again for this and this? I want to mow cemetery grass. Yeah, a hundred bucks.

 You can find little things like that in it. It doesn’t need to be this grand vision where you go out and get an LLC, you go out and do a partner formation. [00:11:00] You literally can do little things like that and have an upspring of a business opportunity. 

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah, and I want to point out, too, you figured that out not because you were trying to find a side hustle and gouge this person.

Or, even be like, this guy better pay me. Sounds like you’re nerding out. 

 Is that accurate? 

Zach Oshinbanjo: I feel like a part of it is definitely nerding out. I don’t know if it’s the pragmatism. If I see that something’s easy to do, I look around the room like, 

Lee Zuvanich: Who else is doing this? 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Why?

Why? Is this hard? Is this a hard thing? This is how you do it. Yeah. Here’s how you do it, guy. If they want to take the advice, they can. I typed up a page PDF. Here’s all the contracts. And then he was like, Can you invoice me ? I’m like, how do we leap? You’re paying me? 

Lee Zuvanich: I’m so glad you’re telling the story because this is the main ethos I always try to convey to aspiring founders is find the flow and the ikigai concept. The thing that you just would have done anyway, that you’re just doing while you’re sitting around, hanging out after work [00:12:00] and then find that overlap of the people who will pay for that thing.

I think it’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer that says that we need to go where the world’s deep need and our deep gladness meet. I’ve always tried to live by that. So anyone listening to this thinking , Oh my God, I’m going to go do that weird nerdy thing and make a hundred dollars, but I’m stressed out about figuring it out.

No, go do the thing that you personally nerd out about anyway. Like for my daughter, that’s teaching herself how to Build games, and now she’s teaching other people to do it. Recently I’ve taught myself how to make artisan chocolate. And then learned that they sell for 15 bucks a piece on Etsy. So that’s a little side hustle where I ran the numbers on the margins.

I’d make more money doing that than software. So I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it right now. But I’ve got it in my back pocket and I actually have a family member that needs to make some money. So now I’m going to teach her how to do it and help her get it on the market. And I’ll probably make a margin on that.

I’m managing Airbnbs making a margin on that because it’s just something I like to do [00:13:00] that’s easy. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: A good business to get into like I Can’t count how many times I was looking for a chocolatier.

Where’d you get this at? Oh, I have a chocolatier.

Sarah Schumacher: I’ve got a guy. I’ve got a guy who’s for chocolate. 

Lee Zuvanich: I was empowered to do that because one day, ten years ago, someone said, Hey, do you want a little Christmas gig at this chocolate company? And I was like, why not? My business is running itself. I’ll go make chocolate for two weeks. Just being open to creative pursuits and then they turn into things later. 

Sarah Schumacher: That’s very important and very cool. I also want to harken back to our episode about when to quit. You being like this is a good opportunity to make chocolate but knowing not even when to quit I guess when not to start.

This might be a good opportunity, but it doesn’t make sense for me But I’m gonna teach someone else and it will be a good opportunity for them. I think that’s an important aside too. We can get really excited about ideas Because you have all these different experiences and things you can do and it doesn’t always mean it’s something you should just do Jump into. 

Lee Zuvanich: Right. I effortlessly can write marketing copy So I am helping [00:14:00] my family member set up the Etsy page, right? Yeah and making maybe a margin on that and I helped someone else tweak their Airbnb copy recently and then their bookings went up and I’m making a margin on so that’s something I nerd out on for fun. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yes you’re also developing deeper expertise because you’re consistently doing that thing that you really enjoy doing.

Lee Zuvanich: But you’re right. I had a little talk with myself. We’re not making chocolate right now. Yeah.

Zach Oshinbanjo: Self talk is the best talk. Yeah. We’re definitely not over glamorizing the idea of going towards multiple intention. But I think we should also describing the challenges that come along.

Systems

Zach Oshinbanjo: Even as an organized person, one of the biggest things for different opportunities and things that I’m invested in, it’s 15 different email accounts. And so it’s trying to keep, that context straight.

Cause I might get an email and somebody’s is that an 8×10 or 8×15 and they’re talking about an overhead storage door And then somebody’s talking about so what do you do in the inner city for underserved kids and then somebody’s like 

Lee Zuvanich: these all in the same inbox. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Yeah They’re all different emails and I try to color [00:15:00] code like ones fuschia ones green. Some of them are very consistent like the property construction part. I might get a call hey, go up there and watch them pull seven feet of dirt out of the ground, make sure it’s done right. Or come over here and do drone footage. There’s so many give and pull things, so managing that time becomes crazy.

 I would be curious, from your perspective, Sarah, how do you stay organized?

If you’re invested in a lot of different opportunities, a lot of directions, how do you keep, your head on straight? 

Sarah Schumacher: I have been thinking about writing about this for a while, actually, because it’s make tech work for you is my answer. Make tech work for you, because there’s so much you can do to make your life easier if you understand basic stuff, like how to set up different calendar accounts, how to add them all to the same calendar app, how to use reminders in a certain way, how to have your email account separate, but also in a shared inbox .

So those things are so important, and I think people that say that they’re not good at tech you’re doing yourself a [00:16:00] disservice because it is not hard to level up your skills enough to make your life so much easier.

Calendars in particular, I don’t understand how people function without those. 

Lee Zuvanich: I will say, you’re saying it’s not hard. It is hard. But it’s worth it. For some people it is really hard. I was helping someone this week. I think the setup, that is true, I think the setup can be. They were doing the setup for a system.

And they were just laboring over it for an hour and just feeling so stupid and disempowered and I was like, an hour is nothing. You’re doing great, actually. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah. 

Lee Zuvanich: It does take time to learn these systems. But to your point, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but it is worth the time. 

Sarah Schumacher: A hundred percent. No, it’s absolutely worth the time.

It depends on what systems you’re talking about too. Setting up a project management system or CRM, Yes, those are, that’s very labor intensive. When I’m talking about making tech work for you, I’m primarily talking about password management, calendars, email accounts, and then often file sharing. And to me, those are the four basic principles. Totally. If you get those right, those are not super hard on the front end to get set up. I think the bigger challenge for a lot of people [00:17:00] is consistency going forward. Because you have to actually use them.

So that’s the part where you have to develop new habits around it. Calendars in particular. I honestly do not know how people don’t function without shared calendars. I have my work calendar. We have a family calendar. My kid brought home something from school where he’s there’s certain days that he’s not gonna, you know Do his club or whatever and so I immediately put those on the family calendar.

You have to have those systems set up first then you have to develop a habit around using those things. Then you don’t have to wonder Did I do this thing? the Getting Things Done book, which was pretty famous. I want to say it was like early 2000s when that came out.

That was one of the first big productivity books . And a lot of The concept was you have to have a system to get things out of your head and into a system that you trust. Because if it’s floating in your head, it’s going to be stressing you out.

But if you have a system that you trust and you put it in the system your brain can let go of it. I don’t have to remember that I have this lunch meeting next week because it’s in the calendar and you should have reminders set up that will pop up and tell you in your [00:18:00] calendar.

Yes. Yes. So there’s just so much of that. It does take a little bit of work on the front end, but if you sit down and you set it up and then you start using it, you iterate on it and you go, Hey, I realized that reminder is not always great. Maybe I need an extra reminder the day before or something, then add it. You can automate a lot of this stuff. 

When you have consistent systems, then you can see where there’s breakdowns. So if you’re seeing breakdowns around certain jobs, context switching or whatever.

 I know my systems are working well. I know I have these separate email accounts. I have everything color coded, but I’m still having a struggle here. Maybe I need to specify blocks of time that I work on this business and this job and I split them, right?

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah, I love doing that.

Sarah Schumacher: When you have all this crap piled on top of you and everything’s a mess, you don’t have the clarity of thought to think about things in that way. Make your systems work for you. You don’t have to do any crazy AI it’s simple stuff.

Literally, the iCal that comes with your phone or the Google Calendar that comes with your Gmail. Start there. 

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah, just put everything in it. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah. 

Lee Zuvanich: If you think of it. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: I would liken it to a storm cloud. There’s energy that’s in a cloud. It needs to get into the ground. When [00:19:00] I need to write something down or if new information comes in almost obsessive nature where I’m like, okay, almost like you’re recanting the information over and over. Write it down. Yeah. I have to run and put it down somewhere. Otherwise I’m going to forget or I’m going to feel like it’s an incomplete thought. I don’t know if it’s like a gestalt principle or something.

I need complete imagery to have a complete thought, and it was one of the things that used to keep me up a lot. I didn’t think this all the way through. Another point I’ll make quickly is when you’re also trying to navigate the challenges and obstacles of managing all these different hats, you have to be able to listen to yourself because your body will give you cues and clues about what’s going on.

One of the main things I try to look at is people, Fatigue cause if you’re a more introverted person, you’re talking over here, you’re doing this over here and then you’re talking over here and then your brain’s you need to sit down somewhere or I’m not going to do anything else the rest of the day.

I have to be cognizant of that. If I’m tired of [00:20:00] having conversations, if I’m tired of that process and everything that comes with it. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah, no, I fully, that’s really important. I’m also an introvert, which usually surprises people.

An introvert is someone who is drained by being around people. An extrovert is someone who is energized by being around people. And that’s it. It does not have anything to do with how outgoing a person is. Which is what people think it means. So I can be very outgoing. I’ve been running a business for a long time.

You have to go sell. You have to build a network. You have to do all these things. It’s a skill I’ve cultivated, right? That doesn’t mean that working a room at a networking event is not incredibly draining for me. So when I used to do a lot of networking stuff on Wednesdays, I would deliberately not schedule anything on Thursdays because I knew I am just going to be shot and I do not want any in person people interaction the next day.

Zach Oshinbanjo: If we’re thinking about different challenges and things that we have going on What are some things that you’ve experienced Lee? I need your actual resume because I hear you had a different job, a new job every [00:21:00] day. I’m like, you did that? When? Yeah. When? When did you do that?

Lee Zuvanich: It’s been 20 years of hustling and oh God. Yeah, so challenges, I think it’s similar to just any ADHD person trying to figure out their professional life, probably. I grew up in an evangelical. blue collar Oklahoma family and we did not do medication for our rampant ADHD. My whole family’s bunch of artists and engineers some of my cousins did get the medication But it was the 80s and 90s.

So it was a rough time for everyone. So I just had to Learn how to manage my brain without those extra supports I did a lot of reading and I think that I developed some organic approaches to navigating my own mind, and I think I’ve already spoken about this on other episodes, but I follow the energy, and I’ve learned to ride these waves of energy, and that’s why I speak so emphatically about following what you’re passionate about, because if [00:22:00] you’re not passionate, and you don’t have a value system around what you are working on, Just forget about it.

The money’s not enough of a reason for you to lose sleep and even get sick and keep working and cancel plans with friends. You’re gonna end up burning out. So I start with values and I build a life around I’ve got this main source of income. I’ve got this other experiment. I’ve got this side hustle that gives me a little bit of money, but it’s not stable.

And there’s always all of those spinning plates. So for my main software business that pays all my bills, put my kids through private school, bought me a house and a car and everything else. I’ve had it going for eight years now. I never wanted to start that business and I did not know that it was going to be successful.

But I had it going on the back burner just because I was working at other agencies making good tech money, but people kept bringing me projects. And as a serial entrepreneur, I knew, let’s just go get an LLC, let’s do this on the side, I’ve got kids that need braces and stuff, I’ll just do that a little bit, but not too much.

I just let it continue to run organically, and a [00:23:00] really big belief that I have about business is if it is going to be successful, people will be coming to you and trying to give you money, just like what happened to you. Take my money, and I need more of this. So if you go to school for business, they’ll teach you look for things that are pain pills and not vitamins, as far as business ideas.

Zach Oshinbanjo: They call it PMF product market fit. 

Lee Zuvanich: Product market fit, yeah. Yeah, how big is your addressable market that you’re trying to sell to? And how badly do they feel the pain? And how badly are they going to feel that pain when the market shifts as well? Is this the kind of thing that people just close their wallets as soon as times get tight, or are they going to actually need it more than ever?

I don’t actually think about all those things. But they bear out in spending. They just people needed software in good times and bad, and they were bringing me their projects because they trusted me, and they were looking for someone in the ecosystem that they knew. So I was just naturally meeting a need.

I wasn’t saying let me buy an LLC and a, get my EIN and start my website and just hope I find clients. I was like, I guess I’ll [00:24:00] do this because it’s presenting itself to me. 

Sarah Schumacher: I think it’s intuitive when you’re doing it because you have expertise, you’re trying to help people.

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah. 

Sarah Schumacher: If you’re just trying to start a business, then you do have to look at all those things like product market fit and all the research. But if you’re just doing it intuitively, I think you know. 

Lee Zuvanich: But my, yeah, my point is don’t just start a business. Be intuitive about that concept.

Experiment and then if it doesn’t take off pretty easily and organically, then you’re probably doing something wrong. Continue to cheaply experiment, try to approach the market in different ways. The market approached me and that’s always what you really want ideally. And continued to approach me and we just had word of mouth work for the last eight years and then I built a really big team and then it was hard to keep that sales funnel going.

So we’ve gone up and down. It hasn’t always been easy. It’s been pretty rough the last two years especially, but that’s because I tried really hard to scale. If I had just kept it a side hustle to feed my family then it would have stayed really easy but I got really ambitious with it So following the market patterns and letting the market come to you is a really good way [00:25:00] like you’ve done Sarah.

Sarah Schumacher: I literally have done the same thing Yeah, cuz I originally started freelancing because I was working in design and printing and so people started asking me to do stuff So I was like, okay cool So I started just freelancing and doing it on the side and then when I ended up going full time when the next pivot I ended up adding websites for the exact same reason because I had print and design clients that were like Can you please do our website. This company we’re with this horrible just please do our website. I literally was doing what people asked me to do So I added the website piece and then over time realized that was what I enjoyed doing the most and was the best at. There was also a gap in the market for the specific vision I had of how to do it for small businesses. So it’s been a listening and following and listening and following. It was intuitive. It wasn’t like, I was out there I’m gonna do some research. I’ll talk to people. You should talk to your clients.

Lee Zuvanich: You wouldn’t have named your business Cyclone Press if you’d probably been thinking. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah, that was definitely more like printing press reference, but because we’re actually mostly a wordpress agency, it worked out. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Yeah, it still works. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah, it still works, which is great, and yeah, [00:26:00] it’s fine, it’s good enough.

People know me more than they know my business name anyway, so whatever. 

Lee Zuvanich: Which is another good point. We don’t sell, we rant. We just we’re passionate about what we’re doing. 

Sarah Schumacher: Or educate. 

Lee Zuvanich: That sells it, yes. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah, I think for me it’s educate. Oh, this is how you should do things.

Or I’ll just have a conversation with someone and be like, have you considered this? Or have you looked at this? Or do you know about this option? 

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah, and we always want to protect people from bad vendors, bad decisions, non technical founders encounter a lot. passion that brought me in.

I did not want to own an agency. It’s a nasty industry, but I now do because I can’t help myself from talking to friends and being like, Oh God, do not do that. Let me help you. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: You’re speaking to the natural piece of it. It needs to be natural. Cause even for the guy that I did the little contracting piece from.

He told somebody else, some random guy in New Jersey, and that guy told somebody in Texas, and that guy told somebody in Florida, and I was doing the same thing over and over. In contrast, I thought, hey, I’m a grant guy, I have a grant stewardship, [00:27:00] grant manager, and all that thing, so I immediately said, I could do that for other people.

Grants are hard! And I tried to make it a business, and then the second that I think I was doing an executive summary, and I got to marketing, , Go talk to a potential buyer. This is stupid and I just threw it away Cuz I’m not gonna go down this process because it wasn’t natural.

It wasn’t flowing Yeah, where people were just well come do this grant stuff 

Sarah Schumacher: and I want to add let’s add a note to that too So before we started recording Zach and I were talking about specializing and doing what you’re good at And so I think sometimes with that there’s an opportunity to partner with other people.

So if you’re really good at a piece of something and then you can find someone else that’s good at the next piece and you can hand them off and have some sort of a referral partnership or whatever, right? There’s ways to make that work too, if you’re really conscious about what do I enjoy doing and what am I good at?

 At this point, even though I’m involved in multiple projects, they’re all very similar they’re all tech or website or branding marketing related things. So they’re not wildly different They’re just in different spheres, which is very [00:28:00] different than doing stuff like Running an Airbnb vs. Running an agency right. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Think that speaks to controlling your time spend as well. I’ll put a disclaimer that none of the things that I’m invested or I do, I’m doing is some Jack of all trades, master of everything. 

 The building homes in Kansas City. I’m not a developer. I’m not hammering nailing it. I know what a nonprofit feel goody social benefit thing looks like. And I know developers, I know electricians and I find the piece that makes the most sense for me and I do that because that’s very important to manage your time, your energy, because. I have a very difficult time believing anyone that’s I have seven businesses and I do everything. Impossible. You probably have 17 virtual assistants that are doing all of your correspondence, all your LinkedIn posts, if you’re not using ChatGPT or something like that. for that. So I think it’s important to manage that too. 

So you have these opportunities, what are systems in place that help you best go through [00:29:00] that? You mentioned some different calendar systems, Sarah. You mentioned being able to follow the energy so you’re not going into a wall.

Lee Zuvanich: That’s not my system. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Yeah. I would say that’s the system. You’re not going into a wall. 

Lee Zuvanich: It was totally an intuitive process. But I was going to come back and say After that, there are technical systems. I’m a tech guy. It is really important to have a system, like you said, to put all of your thoughts into that place. And then organize them and keep everything flowing so that you know what’s urgent, what’s most important.

Zach Oshinbanjo: What’s the tech stack?

Lee Zuvanich: Sarah got me into Clickup and it’s kind of saving my life. Between that and my calendar I live by both of those. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah I’ve been using ClickUp for years, I’m a huge fan of it. You can sync with the calendar. I have another system that I use for proposal management, sales pipeline, invoicing, CRM stuff.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think for my system calendar is definitely something that we’re touching on a lot. We’re all Apple users. I don’t use their calendar. I use I don’t either. I hate it. it called, I think [00:30:00] it’s just called calendar by the company Readdle pro or something like that, but it adds very specific color and context cues that make it so easy.

That’s number one. I also do some habit writing every morning after my workout, I try to do the one thing, if I did nothing else today, what’s the one thing I need to accomplish today? So I write that in a little notebook and I write some other habit tracking things in there and then last thing It’s probably like my most extensive thing is I text myself All the time. If I looked at the size of memory devoted to texting myself versus texting my wife versus anyone, texting myself is the largest by like three times.

Lee Zuvanich: I’m curious, why do you do that instead of just using notes? 

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think the top of funnel, front of mind kind of concept, I drop it in the bottom. And I have myself pinned at the top of my text thread. So I’m always the top conversation with myself. I could say, [00:31:00] Zach, do XYZ today. So I could just flick it open, see that, and it’s so easy to get in and out.

Lee Zuvanich: But you’re super efficient, so must be working. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Pseudo neurotic behavior where I’m talking to myself that much is something that’s been very helpful in staying organized.

Lee Zuvanich: Verbalizing, documenting. Saving somewhere outside of our brain what it is we need to do, and then labeling it. 

Sarah Schumacher: That is the consistent thread here. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: That’s critical to being able to stay organized, at least if you’re going to be maneuvering in different spaces.

I guess as a sum up, if you had to talk to yourself 20 years ago, let’s say 32 years ago, if you had to talk to yourself 32 years ago, 

Lee Zuvanich: I was eight, 

Zach Oshinbanjo: what would you say? To help you open the horizon to being able to explore multiple career options, multiple business opportunities at the same time.

Lee Zuvanich: Oh, I was already built like this. I was going door to door selling candy, like I put a button down shirt on and I would go out by myself just for a mile or two. I love to [00:32:00] sell.

All my friends were going to college, and I’m from a blue collar town so everyone was taking out loans because their family couldn’t afford college.

And that’s just how it was for everyone. There weren’t a lot of scholarships, it was just like, that’s what you do, go sign a thing, 30, 000, hope you want to be a social worker, and hope you’re not wrong. So for me, I was just like, that doesn’t make any sense to me. I also dropped out and got my GED when I was 16 or 17, so I was just already going against the grain in every possible way.

Working full time since I was 14. Working in tech, building websites. Instead of going to college, I talked my way into multiple social work on internships. I got to work in Chicago and Texas helping open shelters for women homeless shelters, and do work with Vietnam veterans.

And so that is how I figured out, without debt, what I wanted to do. I think what I would say to myself at eight years old is you’re right, your feelings are right because a lot of people told me I was wrong for a very long time. Trying to kill my spirit and they were not successful.

But it was really stressful. [00:33:00] I didn’t have a lot of examples. I didn’t understand entrepreneurship. I didn’t have mentors or guides. I fell backwards into everything. So I would just talk to myself and say if you feel different from everyone else and a little crazy. And everyone else seems like they’ve just got this one path.

And you have a hundred paths you want to go down. That’s okay. That’s going to work out really well for you actually. Hahaha. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Sarah, same question. 

Sarah Schumacher: I think my answer has always been for this. Go take some classes on anything that interests you and see what happens. Because I started, similar in some ways, like I started working.

 The month I turned 15, I think it was as soon as I was legally old enough, I was working and then I had a scholarship. I didn’t see the purpose of college either. Okay, I don’t know what I want to do. Why would I go to college?

I wanted to keep working But I understood I had a scholarship use or lose it I guess I should go and it was through an art class there That was the epiphany oh I should be a designer which was just the first step of many.

That was the [00:34:00] spark. It wasn’t the required math or whatever, other classes.

It was taking something that was interesting in a realm I was interested in. So I would say go take Community college courses or something like don’t I was going to do all so I’m like don’t do that like Too expensive but yeah, just go take some classes. Oh, yeah. I’ve always been interested in this, right?

Yeah, honestly high school programs now have a lot of really great stuff where you have access to software or you have access to Extracurricular things you could do and if you’re interested just take them and see what happens And see if you can ask people that are in the industry too. My husband works in the medical field, and they shadow, he had to shadow somebody.

 You get to see the ins and outs of what their job looks like day to day. And is this something that you would enjoy or not? That should be a thing that everyone does. So if you’re interested in a thing, take a class on it. If you know someone or find someone in the industry, talk to them about it. So you can shadow people.

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah, Email a professor, ask if you can interview them. Let me be an intern for food and rent. They were like, we don’t have an internship, and I was like, you do now.

Sarah Schumacher: If you show initiative, and you follow through on that, [00:35:00] even if you’re young, kids in high school, kids in early college, whatever. People will take notice of that, and there’s usually people that will step up, Yeah, let me, I will help navigate this thing.

 I don’t see careers as being this linear path. you start somewhere, and then you see where it leads, and you can’t get too precious about, I have to make the right choice.

If you’re choosing a degree at a college, I get that’s different, and I guess that’s why I’m a fan of the gap year, or just skip college if you can, and find a way to work in the industry. When I figured out I wanted to be a designer I got a job in the industry full time. Make your own way, talk to people, find out, and don’t feel like you are trapped in this, first you do this, and then you do this, and then you do this. 

Because that all led to the freelance work, which led to legalizing the business, which led to pivoting into branding, which led to pivoting into websites, which led to running a website agency, almost twenty years later. Yeah, 19 years from beginning working in the print industry to where I am now.

The thing that I think about a lot is that as a multi potentialite, multi passionate person it’s gonna feel [00:36:00] very awkward and you’re gonna resist being nailed down into a single category.

And if you feel that, if you are that type of person, that’s totally okay. Some people are okay working at the same job for 20 years and retiring. That’s fine. If you are that person, if you’re not that person, then just understand that path is not for you. 

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah. We love those people. We hire those people.

Sarah Schumacher: We are founders like that. So many founders are wired that way. And there’s a reason for that because you don’t fit well in a job. It’s why I’m so passionate about entrepreneurship because you can create a job description around who you are as a person that fits your unique skillset, which is not going to be doctor or lawyer, right? It’s going to be like some weird fusion of all these things. There is no shame at all If you are a person that’s like I want to be a lawyer go to school be a lawyer. Yeah, like that’s great I’m just saying not everyone is wired that way so don’t feel any shame if you’re not wired that way. That needs to be told the more kids.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think that interestingly enough you said doctor and lawyer because I Think at that age eight nine ten ish around there. That [00:37:00] was what I Aspired to be. I think it started off with anesthesiology because I thought, oh, that’s such a cool field. You don’t have to cut anybody. You’re just putting people to sleep and then bringing ’em back get paid 

really well too , basically.

Yeah, you’re basically the Sandman. You just put people to sleep, bring them back.

Sarah Schumacher: That makes it sound so cool. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think the idea that I had was I wanted to do a job, and I don’t even know if I really liked the work I think it just looked and sounded cool so that the advice or whatever I would have to myself is leaning more into the things you want to do. By the time I was in high school getting ready to graduate or whatever. I think it transitioned into I wanted to be a patent lawyer.

And so a lot of my energy was just thrown towards that had no interest in practicing law. I just liked the idea of arguing with people about copyright trademarks and like infringement. That’s this person’s idea. You better pay up. I was like, that sounds cool. I leaned into that and then ultimately it led me to a path where I was in school trying to get a bachelor of science and something I didn’t [00:38:00] really care about. I left school, joined the military. So that changed the entire trajectory of my life. It’s because I was trying to become a lawyer based on someone else’s, I don’t know maybe I’d say someone else’s delusion, lawyers look cool, or whatever the media perception is of practicing law.

It’s flashy. It’s cool. Shows like suits that make it cool. 

Lee Zuvanich: Suits makes me want to be a lawyer. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: You pull up in a custom suit and then you slam some papers down and people are like, Oh no. 

Lee Zuvanich: The cool guys are here. I can’t tell you how many lawyers and doctors have asked me to help them become an entrepreneur and get into tech or build an app. They wanna get away from having to show up in person and they wanna be able to travel and be a nomadic digital worker. I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer ’cause I’m just ambitious.

I’m an ENTJ and I’m like, I want that thing. That looks cool. It looks cool. It, but it’s not me. Yeah. I could not get through it. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: It wouldn’t have worked out. I think now I’m looking at it like, nah, that wouldn’t have worked out. I have glimpses where I’m like, maybe [00:39:00] neurology. You just looking at some labs, some imaging and people come into your office. You tell them an answer and they leave. I could have worked out, but that would have been the biggest advice I had to myself is lean into the things that you actually want to do. And I think I would have probably ended up more technology immersed than I actually am if I followed that rather than, the images of being in law. So

Lee Zuvanich: cool. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Everyone’s path is different. We’re not necessarily advocating for everyone to just go and have 50 jobs. We’re merely suggesting that There’s an opportunity that people can have, depending on what your setup looks like, where you can explore some of your interests, you can make some money doing it, and then there are things that are going to come up.

It’s going to be challenging, it’s not super easy as many other folk who are in this space may want you to believe. 

If you’ve listened this far, I would employ you to subscribe and leave reviews for the Founder Problems podcast. 

Lee Zuvanich: And let [00:40:00] us know what you’re working on.