The #1 Mistake Early-Stage Entrepreneurs Make | Michael Burcham

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Michael Burcham** (0:24)
So if you still got your day job and you were walking around with a deck saying, when you fund me, I'll quit my job and do this, you need to just keep looking. I have zero interest in that.

**Justin Colby** (0:32)
People don't want to talk about it. It's the failures. People don't want to hear about the challenges of business. You're going to find hardship. You're going to be challenged. You're going to lose money.

**Michael Burcham** (0:40)
You're a project until you have a paying customer. And most investors do not invest in projects. Every chapter is a contrast between how the investor sees this versus how you see this. I find so many people as entrepreneurs and founders, they wrap their entire identity in the business. And then when it comes time to sell it, the separation anxiety is unbelievable and they don't know what to do next.

**Justin Colby** (1:03)
Dr. Michael Burcham, who not only has been named by President Obama the champion of change, but he has also, like we said, bootstrapped his beginnings as an entrepreneur and now sits into the private equity world, the venture capital world, and helped a lot of us business owners and entrepreneurs scale the couple hundred thousand dollars a year into the multi-million a year.

**Michael Burcham** (1:24)
I've had to accept that my life is a little different all along the way. And what I've learned was apply it a little differently. And I'm not trying to just do the next thing.

**Justin Colby** (1:33)
Have you ever lost money on a venture?
What is up, The Entrepreneur DNA family? Welcome back to another incredible episode with another incredible guest. If you are someone who is a startup or is about to launch their company and is trying to grow in scale, you are going to want to listen to this because this channel and my guest not only bootstrapped his world of entrepreneurship, but now is on the PE side, private equity side, venture capital side, so he knows exactly what it takes to grow in scale for business. And as always, these episodes are brought to you by The Entrepreneur DNA community. If you just go to The Entrepreneur dna.com, you will see there is a community built for you that my guest, such as the one we are about to listen to right now, will come in and help advise us on how we can start, grow and scale businesses the entrepreneur way. So with all that said, I want to bring in my next guest. Michael, how are you?

**Michael Burcham** (2:31)
I'm great, Justin. Thanks for the opportunity to spend some time with you.

**Justin Colby** (2:35)
Yes, thank you so much. And I'm going to call myself out to my audience.
I bumbled the calendar a little bit. This should be in person. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll see we're virtual, but he's in my studio. He sacrificed to be here with you guys, and my calendar got messed up. And so I'm excited and happy that you're still here with us. Let's talk a little bit about your journey a little here. I think it's important for the early stage entrepreneur to know what it really takes to get to where Dr. Michael Burcham is today.
Already have written three books, has a fourth on his way, sits in the private equity VC area, talk a little bit of that journey that you took.

**Michael Burcham** (3:20)
Well, I think I spent several years working in the healthcare industry as a physical therapist. I always was working for someone else and had this incredible itch to have my own thing.
So I decided I would break out and do something as a physical therapist, as an entrepreneur, and that is to start buying and growing a physical therapy business. So the first company, Theraphysics, was one where I bought locations across three key markets, Denver, Dallas, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh, because they represented three very interesting types of markets that I believed a future buyer, which would largely be a large strategic would want. And that first experience got me really hooked, and so it led to two more companies, and along the way, building an entrepreneurial community in my own town, Nashville, Tennessee, for the entrepreneurs there.

**Justin Colby** (4:16)
Yeah, if we looked over your resume, you were very green in the community yourself. Does that play into some level of success? The network, people knowing who you are, does it help to really be localized, or do you think that doesn't play into much of the success?