How to Build a Business That Runs Without You with Jeremy Shapiro

**Jeremy Shapiro** (0:00)
For many business owners, they end up thinking they are a true business owner when really they're just self-employed, and have the worst parts of employment and the worst parts and all the liabilities of a business. And if you can step out of that and break that, you can actually grow and be a true business owner.

**Brad Weimert** (0:11)
My guest today, Jeremy Shapiro, has built several successful businesses, and recently wrote a book called Your Business Growth Playbook. What do you think is something that's getting in their way that's keeping them stuck?

**Jeremy Shapiro** (0:20)
What I find is business owners have a channel that they're all in on, or a few channels that deliver for them, but as the business grows, the channels kind of tap out. Whatever got them to the stage they're at now isn't going to get them to the next stage they want to be at.
So much of business growth that we hear about in books, from speakers and courses and so forth comes down to, how do I get more customers? That is one lever you can pull. I argue there's two other levers we can pull. There's so much more we can do with an existing business model to grow revenue, and more importantly, to grow profit.

**Brad Weimert** (0:48)
Founder of Fusedesk as well as a myriad of other businesses, you've got the Bay Area Mastermind, and most recently, your business growth playbook, Jeremy Shapiro, welcome to Beyond A Million.

**Jeremy Shapiro** (0:59)
Thanks for having me.

**Brad Weimert** (1:00)
Yeah, man. So I have known you forever and ever and ever, which is so crazy, but haven't seen you in quite some time.
You're sort of the unemployable entrepreneur in my eyes. You've done a whole bunch of different stuff, and a theme for your book is around sort of getting out of the hustle or transitioning from hustle to actual structure and frameworks of business, which is a great thing to talk about. So I want to start there.
What do you think the first thing is that breaks when you actually do make the transition from hustle culture to having a structured business or trying to?

**Jeremy Shapiro** (1:33)
So oftentimes, like when you start a new business, there is some hustle. You're trying to validate your idea. You're trying to see if customers want to buy this thing, if you're selling something that they actually want, will pay for it, and so on. But at a certain point, like that just isn't scalable. You can't always be doing founder led sales. You can't be doing everything involved in the business if you want to keep on growing. And for many business owners, they end up thinking they're a true business owner when really they're just self-employed and have like the worst parts of employment and the worst parts and all the liabilities of a business.
And if you can step out of that and break that, you can actually grow and be a true business owner. But that requires people, that requires systems. Right, in this day and age, we're not talking about building out a huge staff, right? But you do need to have at least a standardized way of delivering and servicing and growing and doing all the things that your business needs without it being all you.

**Brad Weimert** (2:22)
What do you think is something that business owners are proud of that's actually something that's getting in their way that's keeping them stuck?

**Jeremy Shapiro** (2:29)
Well, I think the hustle piece is a big part. There is what I call this toxic hustle culture. You see this online, you hear this all the time about this bragging of how many hours someone's working and how they are on seven days a week. And if you're asleep, your competition is taking your customers. And that is such a toxic, dangerous headspace to be in.
And that quickly leads to burnout. So the whole hustle culture thing, like I'm on the other side of that, it is possible to build businesses that support you, your community, your life, provide jobs, service customers, and have that not be an all-consuming pursuit.

**Brad Weimert** (3:05)
Yeah, I know.
But it's also you can always do more. And I think that's where that mentality comes from is like, oh, if I had been doing this, I would be a little bit further ahead.

**Jeremy Shapiro** (3:16)
That's a dangerous place to be.

**Brad Weimert** (3:18)
I agree with you. I think specifically today in the advent of AI, there's this term or construct of AI zombies.
It's the idea that like, you just get roped into interacting with it. And because you're able to be more productive, if you're focused on the right things, it's easy to like not cut the clock off. Because the AI keeps prompting you with, then you can do this, and you can do this, and you can do this. And coding in particular, now there are people that are like vibe coding until three o'clock in the morning because they just are moving.