Good morning John.
So I've been told three times in the last week by creative people running cool businesses that they "really respect my business skills"-and to that I just would like to say (laughs). The list of my screw-ups is a mile long and full of cringe. Now I'm not saying that I'm not interested in it, haven't worked hard-there are reasons why I'm fairly good at this.
A big one is that I do like solving problems. I like getting a good feel for them and finding different ways to attack them and worrying about them. I find this to be fun creative work that's actually kind of similar to plotting a novel.
Two, I see it as good. Employing people, treating them fairly, creating value for the world, finding ways for that value to sustain itself.
Three, my dad has run businesses and whenever I have a problem I can call him and he helps me and that's extremely valuable.
I could go on! Four, I've gotten very lucky with hiring.
And all those things have helped and I'm happy to take some credit where it's due but ultimately I have a secret. And it will be absolutely no help when I tell you about it. Every business I have launched that has succeeded, has been launched with the support of a really wonderful online community. Honestly, this is part of why DFTBA now gives all of John and mine profit to the maternal center of excellence in Sierra Leone. It's why the vlogbrothers channel revenue has always been split between charity and supporting smaller educational video channels. When I look at this honestly and objectively and think about where the value came from it always feels to me like a lot of the value came from the employees and this community and less for me cuz I'm just one person right? There are times when I've pounded myself into the ground to get things done. I've had a lot of bad weeks in my life. But when running a business It's important to understand where your value comes from. It's important to understand your strengths and this community has always been at the top of the list of our strengths. And that's not just like marketing to you. It's finding people who can tell us how to do things, finding people to hire, getting immediate product feedback. Like there's a reason I keep talking about soda syrups. I'm trying to get you to tell me how you feel about soda syrups. And basically no one has this asset. Now other people have similar assets but not like nerdfighteria right, not this good. So i've been hesitant to give advice when my biggest asset is something that I don't tend to share.

But I would like for us to build a business.
If you are a business person and you think you could help this idea by providing mentorship or helping us pick business ideas that are submitted to us i've created a form and its in the description and it's next to the words "I can help". If you think you have expertise that would be valuable on a small board of people making decisions and providing mentorship-fill that out.
Second, If you are an entrepreneur-if you have a product or a service that you are excited about that you started to grow, but you need a push? I got a form for you as well. It's called "I need help". Now in general we're looking for stuff that's beyond the idea stage and it actually has a product or service or business developed a little bit. You can fill this out with just an idea but it better be a banger, basically. And here's the sticky bit-I'm going to give this business $50,000. But If the business is able to become successful over the next three years we wanna get that $50,000 back to promote maternal health in Sierra Leone. And every year when you do your profit distributions, 10% of your after-tax income should also go to support that.
If that sounds good to you and you got an idea that can grow but need some mentorship and some support from an amazing audience of cool people who want to support good things-the form is down in the description. John, I think everybody has the ability to be a business owner, now not everybody has the inclination. But even if you don't I think everyone should watch the crash course business entrepreneurship learning playlist. Its a 17 episode series hosted by Anna Akana that goes over the basics of starting your own business and also of business in general. Link to that playlist is here and in the description and those forms that I was telling you about our down there as well.
John, I'll see you on Tuesday.