.jpg)
3 Cocktails In
Addicting conversations between friends who have been there, done that and still want more.
We are 3 friends who got this crazy idea to start a podcast based on our friendships, family lives, professional lives and experiences! This idea kept coming up in our conversations, especially after a cocktail or two or maybe three, and we finally decided to ACT on it!
We don't claim to be experts on too many things, but friendship? Well, we've got that down. We're making our way through major life changes, searching for work that excites us, busting myths associated with 'old' people, and keeping a sense of humor about it all.
Self employed, boss - CHECK
Mom, wife, single - CHECK
Rural, suburban, urban life - CHECK
Vodka, gin, wine - CHECK
Make sure to subscribe to our channel ~ FOMO is real and it sucks.
Amy, Kitty & Stacey
P.S. Isn't our intro music great?! Yah, we think so too. Thank you, Ivy States for "I Got That Wow".
3 Cocktails In
An Entrepreneurial Spirit in a Shifting World
Unlock the secrets to transforming your passions into thriving businesses as we explore the dynamic landscape of entrepreneurship. With Millennials and Gen Z leading the charge, discover how social media, specialized degrees, and the unforeseen impacts of the pandemic are reshaping career paths. We promise you’ll learn how to harness flexibility and self-determination as we share personal anecdotes and compelling statistics. This episode is designed to inspire, encouraging you to recognize your unique talents and identify market needs that could turn your dreams into reality.
Join us for a compelling discussion on daring to take risks and the power of personalized services that exceed corporate offerings. We’ll brainstorm innovative solutions to unmet needs, spotlighting areas where entrepreneurs can truly make a difference. Plus, delve into the fascinating case study of Martha Stewart, whose resilience and branding prowess offer invaluable lessons, despite the controversies. Her story challenges societal perceptions and underscores the potential to redefine traditional roles, proving that with grit and innovation, anyone can build an empire. Don’t miss out on this engaging conversation filled with insights and inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Make sure to subscribe to our channel, comment, like, and share!
Amy, Kitty & Stacey
P.S. Isn't our intro music great?! Yah, we think so too. Thank you, Ivy States for "I Got That Wow".
All right.
Speaker 2:Well, good evening, good afternoon, good morning, whatever time it is, if you are tuning in, this is three cocktails in Good day. Good day.
Speaker 3:Good day.
Speaker 2:And it feels like it's more nighttime than daytime in general right now. I mean it was dark at four 30 this afternoon.
Speaker 3:I feel like yeah, it's so weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. It's an adjustment. Um, we are newly into the daylight savings time and I feel like people are still adjusting.
Speaker 2:So but here we are three cocktails in. We are now comfortably into our second season and super excited about what we have queued up over the next few months and into the next year. So, Amy Stacey, hello to both of you. We've got a fun topic to discuss tonight. We do. We're going to talk a little bit about entrepreneurship this evening. It's a fun topic because we've seen this rise over the last decade. For sure, we ourselves have become entrepreneurs. It's just going to be kind of a fun, light conversation tonight on this topic and hopefully and again, that's one of the motivators behind this podcast?
Speaker 1:is that maybe?
Speaker 2:you'll hear something tonight that will motivate you to make some sort of dream that you have become a reality. Yes, yes, because everybody can do it. So here's just. I should have Googled this before we jumped on.
Speaker 3:But let's keep in tradition.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, which is basically throwing it out here to the group and then somebody saying why didn't we go research? Yeah, so you can now. When you go to college, you can now major in entrepreneurship. Didn't have that back in our day.
Speaker 3:I know you had to kind of cobble something together and, although I do think of it as a little bit as like a liberal arts education where you're learning about, I'm guessing I don't know for sure, but I would kind of assume you are learning about a variety of necessary skills topics that are needed, as opposed to just straight accounting or straight business management. You know there's more than just one avenue Right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I had a. I had a guy work for me for a short time. He did internship and he his minor was entrepreneurship and I it seemed like at the time it was a little bit about. It seemed like at the time it was a little bit about. You know business structure. Some to you know, like what an LLC is and why you would have these different types of businesses.
Speaker 2:You know what?
Speaker 4:I mean At the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a quick, quick Google search tells me that an entrepreneurship degree prepares students to start, launch and manage a business, Business planning, creativity and innovation, problem solving, teamwork, legal issues and market analysis.
Speaker 3:I think I would have loved that. I think you would have too. Spot on man?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, which. Actually, when you think about it, all of those things, why wouldn't that have been a traditional business major, right? I mean all of that right there, you need to run a successful business, whether you're starting it or you're coming into an established business. You need all of these things Planning, you need to be creative, you need to be innovative, you need to problem solve. You got to have teamwork, all of those things. Yeah, interesting, as this has become a very, very popular and, for you know, rightly so sought after degree, so I looked up the topic a little bit. The global rise of entrepreneurs worldwide rose over 600 million by 2024.
Speaker 3:So it rose over 600 million by 2024, making up more than 8% of the global population. I think that anybody who starts their own business can consider so you've got this vast array of truly me on my dining room table and you've got major, large corporations. So I think that, and and also on every single social media thing, you have to select what business you're in. Entrepreneur.
Speaker 4:Right. Any anyone on TikTok, you know, making money, no matter how they do, it is probably considered an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a couple of driving factors here. Millennials and Gen Z are especially active in starting businesses. This all makes sense, you know so, as young people are coming up and deciding that college might not be for me and they might start to. You know so. If they go to trade school or they something like that, they're more apt to start their own business rather than just going and working for someone else. Much more than our our generation, I mean, we had entrepreneurs as well, but fewer people who came out of school and said I don't want to work for anybody else, I'm going to start my own business.
Speaker 3:I think that that's a large driving force. I don't want to be in an office I. I want to be the boss of myself. Um, I don't want to dress a certain way, all those things that we have talked about in past episode as to what the some of the younger generations dislike so greatly about um office jobs. If you're an entrepreneur, you'd rather just do it yourself yeah, right, yep work from home, do online something, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's that happening, and then also COVID has been a factor in this as well, and I think that was maybe the biggest push for, you know, maybe our generation who came up in, you know, we went to college and then we got a job and we had those hard years where you're working long hours and you're you know, you're building your career path.
Speaker 2:And COVID hit and everybody was like, oh, I'm great, I get to work from home now and this is a benefit because it's giving me a little bit of extra time and things. Everything just kind of slowed down. Then, all of a sudden, we saw a lot of people move into I'm not going back, I have to do something, so I'm going to start my own, I'm going to start my own thing. Well, so for our listeners and viewers, this kind of came up in conversation one day as we were thinking about okay, so you've got all these people who are leaving their jobs and, you know, exploring their dream job. I mean, I just quit my job to do my passion, business and, um, but it begs the question are how are all of these people finding gain, finding creating businesses that are profitable for themselves?
Speaker 1:and they're actually able to make a living. Yes.
Speaker 2:So, got to be creative.
Speaker 3:For instance yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, so one of the nuggets that we occasionally share as we're trying to toss out ideas and, uh, you know what can this was? This was something I saw. Of course it's on, you know, instagram or a reel or something and a man 38, 35 year old man was going to Japan and he had to spend um a block of time there. He didn't really say why, but it was like his second trip, and the first time he was there he didn't really find his way around. He didn't. He wasn't able to enjoy the non-work portion of his trip as much as he'd like. So the second time around he found out that you can rent an old man. That's what this reel was about.
Speaker 3:How he went online and it turns out that there are um, and by old, the guy he, he, he ended up renting um for like a morning, a Saturday morning or whatever was probably 57, maybe 62, something like that a retired professional, um, and they had conversed back and forth that you know, on this website there's their picture. They talk about what their specialties are like food or art, or sporting events or whatever, and I, you know, if you just want to have somebody to talk to, I speak. You know, my English is great. If you're missing just having conversation, we can go out for coffee, and I thought that was one hell of a good idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that's what I'm going to do, but do.
Speaker 4:I have to call it rent an old lady? Do I have to call it rent an?
Speaker 2:old lady, please don't.
Speaker 3:Please don't. We can workshop that a little bit for you. I think we do, because I don't want to call it that. Yeah, oh Well, as we talked, it reminded us a little bit of some of the Airbnb experiences that Stacey and I took when we were in Paris. What a great aha moment for people that want a passion project. They love their neighborhood. They're so up on the grand canyon. They're not a hiking guide, but you know, whatever it is, or they, you know people come to minneapolis and they want to go see things.
Speaker 3:yeah, two of the best excursions we did were done as an airbnb we hooked up with I don't even remember what their names are now but, they were small grouped, they were, um, it went at our own pace, cause if somebody was really interested in something, we stopped and we talked about that. I mean, I think that's a brilliant idea, it's awesome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I didn't know there was such a thing on Airbnb, so like to describe it a little better, one was a very small local wine shop and we signed up to go for a. You know it was a wine and cheese tasting kind of thing, but very small. There was what? Amy, 10 people.
Speaker 3:Six couples I mean it?
Speaker 4:was all couples, but you know it's a bus and then the second one was a bicycle tour. You know around the city and and you know surrounding area and the Palace of Versailles, so it was a lot of and the Palace of Versailles, so it was a lot of. You know local things where you know, and I think that'd be a great thing. You know a great thing to do how you, you know you just set yourself up and you go take people on a tour or show them something you know. And we loved it because how would we have done all that? We wouldn't have been able to do all that on our own, right, right, especially the bike tour.
Speaker 3:We wouldn't have gotten to all those places no, you know, and they have them like a coffee tour stacy and I don't drink coffee, so we did not do the coffee tour, we didn't do that. Um, you know, they do them like you could hire somebody to walk you through a museum. Those are great jobs, businesses, ideas. That somebody's taken what they really love and are doing something with them, right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it when people so there's a Venn diagram, basically where, anytime you go through a brainstorming session to determine, okay, if I'm going to start a business, what is it going to be, and you're thinking about you know what are, what is, what is a certain population need? Um, what do I? What do I? Do Well, and then what's?
Speaker 3:and then what can I get paid for doing?
Speaker 2:I think about this also in terms of corporate populations, as you're building a team inside a company it doesn't matter what size, if it's a company of five people, if it's a company of 50,000 people look at people and find unique talents and abilities and then giving them that opportunity to unleash that inside the company, you are bound for success. So that's what this is as well. When you are finally able to recognize in yourself a special talent that you have and hopefully you know these are those moments where it's okay to say, damn, I'm good at that. There's nothing wrong with that. And hopefully in this world that we live in today, that we are doing that more often because we need to. Well, and hopefully we've got a group of people around us that are our cheerleaders and our champions, but recognize those things that we do really well and then say, okay, I think I can provide this service to other people. I think the world can be really beautiful when more and more people do that and share their unique talents and abilities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you've got to be a little bold. You've got to be able to say I can do this, you can't be afraid of risk. You've got to be okay with that. You know you've got to be okay with that. I do think it helps to have some money socked away or to be willing to eliminate all your expenses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep. So what are the? Because I know that we've all kind of sat and brainstormed this a little bit. We're always thinking about what are those? What are those things out there that are needed, or services that are needed that I don't? Maybe they exist, but I I feel like I don't see them very often. I'll I'll give one example, and I think we might've touched on this before, but so, just having gone through a death in the family, my mom had to navigate all of that, and you guys I think talked about this when I was on be so valuable to people whether it's someone who's passed away unexpectedly, or someone who they knew they were going to pass, and they had all sorts of things buttoned up.
Speaker 2:There's still a million things that you have to do afterward and you are in no position to do that. No position to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and, and of course you know, funeral homes help with part of it, hospice helps with part of it, um, but the hard part is after the death has happened and you go home and now you've got people calling you all the time and you've got people dropping things off all the time and people who want to talk to you but they want to share their own stories.
Speaker 3:So now you're a caregiver to their memories and I feel like you need a bouncer. You know a big, an older sibling, somebody who's there to say thank you so much for dropping this off, I'll go take care of it. Somebody who can come in and, just like you could get somebody when you're having a baby that would come in and maybe clean for you and do some laundry for you and do these other things. I think it would, and maybe there is a business, but I don't. I'm not talking about a big corporate. I'm talking about a person, a person that comes into your home and holds your hand, if that's what you want, or if you just want somebody to to take care of everything so you can just be in your room somebody to to take care of everything so you can just be in your room, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Or somebody to just say, okay, now we have to do these these five things. Yes, they already know, they know everything. These are all of the things that you have to do. So that person cause I just watched my mom go through it and just the the anxiety that it brought on and just the fatigue that it brought on, just like I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't know what do I do next, oh okay, we have to do this.
Speaker 2:Okay, now, what's next? And just having this feeling like I've never done this before, how do I know that I'm covering everything? Yeah there should be an expert to come in and walk you through all of that stuff.
Speaker 3:A compassionate person, not just a business suit, right yeah.
Speaker 2:All the boxes to check off.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You need to have some kind of bedside manner for sure there's an idea. Yeah, there's an idea. So, and like you said, amy, these might exist, but I don't feel like I wouldn't know where to find one and I don't if they do, there aren't very many. I think there's room for more.
Speaker 3:And their marketing isn't that great, apparently, because we've never heard of them. Yeah, yeah, what else? I've always thought it would be good and I know there are businesses out there, but I used to joke and call it a bitch for hire, where you'd where you'd. You know there are people that don't like to call and say I am not paying for this price any longer.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 3:To go in once a year or every two years, take all of your subscriptions, your phone, your garbage, your Netflix, your everything, and make all those phone calls for you that says no, no, no, this is not how we're going to do this. This is. I'm not willing to pay for this. I'm not. You know people don't like to do it, but you can save so much money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you really can. People don't want the uncomfortable. Yeah. Which so yeah, that'd be great. And then the services you get a little, you get some kind of cut of it yeah what you said.
Speaker 4:You know, yeah, flat fee I I don't know yeah, cut would be really good because the more you can save on online, how much can you really make by being a oh, now I lost it? You know, like a online, not shopper. That's not what I mean when you have affiliate links, affiliate marketing. I mean when you have affiliate links, affiliate marketing. Yes, is that really a thing? I mean, there's a million and five, you know, if you watch TikToks and reels and whatever people trying to sell you on how to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you can really make money at that. I think you can make money at that. I think you can. Yeah, I mean it just like being an influencer. It depends on your following audience. How many people will you be able to click, get to click on your link?
Speaker 3:and how yeah, and how many times are you? I mean it. I would think it's also very data-driven. You can't just decide I like this product and I'm going to do this. You've got to have a very good grasp on how much do I make per click, how many views do I have to get before somebody clicks. You've got to have a pretty good sense of math and you know analysis to be able to do that. So I think that not for me, not that I, you know I just I like being in front of people, yeah.
Speaker 4:They just make it seem so. Oh, it's so easy and you'll make you know thousands a day, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, um so, speaking of entrepreneurs and people who make it big, have either one of you watched the Martha Stewart documentary on Netflix?
Speaker 2:No, but I've seen a lot of people talking about it. Good, I watched it.
Speaker 3:I watched it two nights ago, I watched it last night. I watched it last night actually. So good, so good. Um, it really, yes, it talks about her personal life and how? Um it really? Yes, it talks about her personal life and how you know things unrolled, but it she's really honest about how she wanted to build this business. What was, what were her business ideas, how did she do it? Um, all the names. She was called for being a bitch and ruthless and rude to people and they show clips and she's not nice. Um, but it was so interesting and I really that was also going to be my shot for the day. My shot is that, even if you're not thinking of going into business, um, it's a wonderful, wonderful documentary and she's honest in it and they bring up stuff and she's like I don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I can't wait to watch it now. Good.
Speaker 3:And they put some dates on it, which was helpful because I remember staying at home. So I got the four-year degree worked, had a couple of babies decided to stay home. That caused a kerfuffle in my household that. I had done that.
Speaker 3:That I you know, wasted my education was actually the quote that was given to me, um, but I remember being just in awe and a huge Martha Stewart fan and people are like, how can you like her? How you know she's all, especially now with this big push about trad wives and everything Um, but she was really the first person that I remember as making the stuff that was important to me seem important. You know, gave the idea of having a nice home, making good meals, and her meals were never extravagant. I mean, she, you could do stuff, but it was just about good food presented well in a home that you enjoy, good food presented well in a home that you enjoy. Yeah, and um, listening to her talk about it is just so, it was so good, it was so good and, and I just like to say again, she royally got screwed on that whole insider trading thing. They talk about that and that's really, really interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, she came out just fine on that. She's an amazing brand case study.
Speaker 3:But she figures she lost a billion dollars because of the insider trading when her stock was where it took to. She had to give up her being CEO. She had to give up her being CEO. She had to give up all that she sold her company for for hardly anything and started over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, started over and 60, I think 50, 60. Yep, and it became even bigger. So many would say when, when you hear brand people talk about her, um, and pre prison and post prison, um, there aren't very many people who can come back from prison and be as successful as she has. So, um, and she's she's been known to say to too that she is the brand. Oh yeah, so Martha Stewart, the person, the company and the brand are all the same, and she knows that there's a liability in that big time, because when she dies, you know, what happens.
Speaker 2:She talks a lot about that, but I cannot wait to watch it. My memory of when I fell in love with her and so I I don't know what, what year it was that she had the TV show and the magazine, so it was Martha Stewart living and I would go and buy the magazine, and I remember I was at home, so I don. So I think it might have been pre-college even.
Speaker 3:Well, I think she started 1999. 99 is something happened in 99 and 2002. Those were two dates that stuck out to me, okay.
Speaker 2:So she built this brilliant concept in which she published the magazine and she published the TV show and they coordinated. So you'd get your issue and then it would show you the four weeks of programming. So you would sit down to watch the show and you'd have the magazine with the recipes and the patterns and the crafts and all of the things in the magazine and then you're watching the show. She was one of the first media people who actually brought together the printed publication and a television program.
Speaker 3:And that's that was the company Martha Stewart, omnimedia, yep. And they show the diagram of when she's putting it together and she's pitching it. She is the center of it and it's her face and it's all the cogs that come off it. I mean brilliant mind. Yeah, you know, talk about it is the wonderful entrepreneur's story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:She started catering. That's right.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean she was the stockbroker before that. I mean, she had a number of different iterations in her life, but she got her. She got her break because she was catering for her husband who was a publisher of, maybe, wine books, okay, and while she's at this, she, you know, catered this party for 250 and one of the publishers came up to her and said you should really do a book, you know, and thus started the conversation. And then that got really interesting, because he is interviewed and he said yeah, it didn't take too long to understand that this was not our book, that this was her book and this is how this was going to be done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so really really cool.
Speaker 3:Inspirational, I think, in so many ways.
Speaker 2:Also cautionary tale. As most large businesses, at some point you know you need to dial in. Well, so what was I just going to say? Interesting that when you would talk about really liking her early on that you had so many people say why do you like her? I have the same thing. I would find that any time I would talk about her, that would be the reaction that I would get. And I think that's really telling as well, because what were people reacting to? Were they reacting to the fact that this was a really headstrong woman who knew exactly what she wanted to do and she was going to make this successful? And you know why did people not like her?
Speaker 3:I think early on the comments I got were because I had gone to college to get this degree. And now here she is just talking about being at home, just being at home and being a little fancy.
Speaker 4:I mean, she was a little fancy. You have to admit that. You know the things she was, you know, showing on her TV show and in the magazines which, by the way, I think I subscribed to for 100 years kept them in my basement, I think, until recently, like I would go back and like I would ever go back and flip through it and do something. Right, yeah, but I think that's maybe it. It was a little fancy, I think, I don't know, for lack of a better word.
Speaker 3:I just remember having people think that it was stupid that I needed to watch somebody on TV to show me how to do things that, you know, like women's lib. We had just gotten free of being at home, you know, and now I was interested in all the stuff from being at home. Later on, I think people really disliked her because she was a woman. Oh, listen to that Boy, haven't we come a long way? She was a woman who made it big and dared buck the system. Made it big and dared buck the system and when you listen to, especially about the insider trading, you can hear who else was. She went to jail over 45 000. No, you know, nobody else, did not the people that, yeah, so really interesting, well, worth it, very, very entertaining and, uh, informational especially as we talk about entrepreneurs, right?
Speaker 4:okay, so my big question is always how do you decide? How do you decide, um, what to do you, how do you hone in your business idea? You know, because I think that's it for me it's like how am I ever going to decide what I think I could do that's actually going to make money, and I don't mean millions, I mean just you know. Just something you know, I think that's it for most people is that you know, even even I'm sure you have some people that want to start a business have some doubts Is this really going to work? Is this really going to take off and be a valid business? That's the hard thing.
Speaker 3:I think you need some good people by your side to sit with you and brainstorm with you, and I'd like to thank you, kitty, for not using the word ideate Can't stand that it's called brainstorming, to toss around ideas to help you weed through them.
Speaker 3:I think you do need to do good research. What's out there, what's close to it? Who's in my area? What are they charging? What can I do different than what they're doing? What's my value add and what would you like to spend your time doing? Yeah, yeah, because if you're going to go for it, you better like doing it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for sure, yep, yes, Good points.
Speaker 2:Well, it can be very, very exciting and for me, having left my corporate job and for the first time in my life, being my own boss, it's wonderful. It's freeing, I have goals for myself, I have a, I have a weekly meeting every Monday morning. Um with yourself, yes.
Speaker 2:And good for you, um, and it's great, but you know my situation is different. I'm 57. And you know I turned my side hustle into my full time. If you are in your 20s, if you are in your 30s and you're making a big, huge leap, there are tons of resources out that help entrepreneurs get going. There are, there are, um oh, accelerators that are out there that you can get involved in and, um, obviously we've got so much at our fingertips.
Speaker 2:So hooray for all of the entrepreneurs of the world who are making our world better because you know what a lot of times they are out there doing things that are bettering the world for everybody socially environmentally all of that, and so we cheer you on If anybody has an idea give us some ideas. What are the businesses that are out there that you think somebody needs to do this?
Speaker 3:Or what have you seen? What did you run across that you went? Yeah, I should have thought of that.
Speaker 4:Yep, yep, sure.
Speaker 2:We will keep the keep the topic alive, keep the brainstorming alive, and with that OK. So, amy, you gave us, you gave us your shot. Keep the topic alive, keep the brainstorming alive, and with that okay. So, amy, you gave us your shot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my shot. Watch Martha Stewart document Martha on Netflix.
Speaker 2:Martha on Netflix. Awesome, very good, all right, any others for tonight?
Speaker 4:I have nothing.
Speaker 2:Okay, I had one last week that I forgot to share, and now I can't remember it, so I'll remember it for next time okay alright. Well, everybody, have a really good week and we'll see you soon.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye bye, all right, can't ever stop. I'm a tour de force running. Get me to the top. I don't need an invitation. I'm about to start a celebration. Let me in Brought a good time for some friends. Turn it up loud past 10. Turning up the crowd when I hit them with the power.
