SPEAKERS
Hillary, Valery, Joshua, Zach Swee
Joshua Aguirre 00:04
Everybody like Jasper, tap TBT these AI programs are gonna reshape how we do business.
Valery Aguirre 00:15
And the way I look at this was like, Oh my God,
Hillary Merwin 00:17
He knows me so well. Hey guys, welcome back to scaling side hustles. I’m Hill and I bow are here with Joshua. Yeah. And if this is your first time tuning in, we are a podcast trying to help you with the tools, confidence and ambition to scale your own side hustle.
Valery Aguirre 00:38
That’s great. And we hope you liked the last Episode, Episode Three. That was with the George Tayabas. Yeah, if you
Hillary Merwin 00:44
haven’t heard it, definitely go back and listen, but he is an incredible branding, creative strategist. And he shared some of his story got really personal and some of the traumas that he’s been through, and I think it can be a huge inspiration. Definitely, to me and hopefully, to you. So yeah, Josh, I know that he we ended with him asking you a question about things that you’ve lived through that have helped you unlock your ambition. And so I’d love to hear from you about what some of those experiences where
Joshua Aguirre 01:18
I got a call from my ex girlfriend, and, and she let me know that our mutual friend had passed away. It was unexpected. It was a it was a drowning accident. And we were all really shocked. And when when I was at the funeral, I just remember this overwhelming sense of emotion of we are so young, and he didn’t even get to reach 21 years old, and what am I doing with my life? And am I am I chasing the right things. And then we just saw this flood of emotions to seeing somebody pass away so young that I had bonded with for four years through high school. And I just really felt like this desire to chase what what I was meant to do. And it gave me not only the ambition to take my life into my own hands and create my own future, but the motivation to do that as well.
Valery Aguirre 02:17
was like a reality check.
Hillary Merwin 02:25
On last week’s episode, we finished up our discussion on the lam analysis, a really amazing free tool for discovering how to turn that idea you’ve always wanted to pursue into a profitable company. So now that you know you have something a bit more tangible, maybe even some interested friends who want to partner with you, or just a depleted savings account. It’s time to start building your dream business. Basically, you figured out your destination. Now it’s time to plot the course.
Valery Aguirre 02:56
Joshua, so let’s dive back into the tools. We know you have a tool for creating a successful business. What does that model look like?
Joshua Aguirre 03:04
So it’s called the a m roadmap. And the visual representation of that can be like a Parthenon, which has pillars. It’s kind of like that old Colosseum style building. Oh, that Greek Parthenon? Yeah, type of style. Okay, yeah. So imagine like this Parthenon that has four pillars. The first pillar is culture. The second pillar is value. The third pillar is innovation. And the fourth pillar is operations. The idea is that these four pillars are made up of bricks, and each brick represents a portion of each pillar. And the fact that you’re building your Parthenon your business is really about laying the bricks in a specific order, which creates positive changes in your business.
Hillary Merwin 03:57
Way boy, okay, bricks, columns. Let’s disregard that the Greeks did not use brick. Romans, right? That’s fine. For the purpose of this metaphor. We’re going to use it. So So you’re saying like for the culture pillar, for example, looking at that pillar, it has different levels starting around, okay.
Joshua Aguirre 04:20
I mean, if you look at, I mean, going back to how they actually built these Roman pillars, or this Greek pillars, they were built in sections, okay, so there’s like this circular section, which I’m calling a brick, but what would it be a slab later, so a little brick, so you have like, you know,
Hillary Merwin 04:47
slabs of business?
Joshua Aguirre 04:52
Just what’s the next slab? on the docket?
Hillary Merwin 04:56
Okay, we’ll go with bricks all
Joshua Aguirre 04:59
so If you lay these bricks in a specific order, you’ll create positive change in your business. So some of those positive changes will include, like in the culture pillar, specifically, improvements to your team and the way that they work together and the that they all have a vision that they’re corralled around. And so it’s important that they feel incentivized.
Valery Aguirre 05:23
That makes sense. You need like that motivation, that internal motivation. Yeah, kept them going not just for the paycheck. Okay, cool.
Joshua Aguirre 05:31
And the next positive change and see is related to your customers and the satisfaction that they get, or the increase of profit that you experience because you’re working on your sales process.
Valery Aguirre 05:46
Does that value is that what you’re describing?
Joshua Aguirre 05:48
Yeah, that would be the value pillar. So the whole idea, these
Hillary Merwin 05:52
culture slab,
Valery Aguirre 05:54
we were at the next pillar.
Joshua Aguirre 05:58
The third pillar is innovation. And really, this is just about recognizing the importance of balancing between your team, your customers, and innovation, innovative methodologies. So whether that’s like giving your team permission to innovate, or actively looking for ways to innovate your customers process
Hillary Merwin 06:23
like that, you should always be thinking of the future. It doesn’t have to do with like, not being complacent with just how your processes are, you should always be seeking to like better them or by innovation.
Joshua Aguirre 06:34
Yeah, so like, you hit the nail on the head there, like you don’t want to be complacent or stagnant with your processes, because you might survive that decade. But in the next decade, you know, cryptocurrency or NF T’s are gonna come out, and they’re gonna totally overwhelm your business model. So kind
Hillary Merwin 06:53
of like, oh, sorry, the people who are already innovating with digital things are pre pandemic, once the pandemic hit, they were already like ahead.
Valery Aguirre 07:05
So here’s the question, what are some of the threats companies face if they aren’t adaptive to change?
Joshua Aguirre 07:10
Well, there’s a lot of talk nowadays about artificial intelligence AI, you might have heard of that new app lens that everybody on Facebook is like posting their photos. Yeah. And it’s like, you know,
Valery Aguirre 07:25
you’re they look like superheroes or something. Oh, kind of animated.
Joshua Aguirre 07:30
Yeah. So like, there’s, there’s an AI program that’s specifically designed to take your photos, put, put it in its machine, and then take artwork from hundreds of 1000s of real artists from all over the world, and combine that into a superhero pic, or some sort of collage for you. But what that AI is doing is actually stealing some of the artwork from real artists, and not giving them credit and not paying them. But it’s charging the end user for that new piece of artwork. So you have like, these programs, I’m going to name just a couple like Jasper chap, GPT, and Dolly. And these AI programs are going to reshape how we do business, how we handle processes in different companies. And so, you know, this one, macro economic chain change alone will affect the entire world. But it’s kind of like we’re on the edge of a cliff. And we don’t know, if we’re going to be like, how far down it goes. Or if it is even a cliff at all. Like it could be a wall like it’s hard to see what’s on the other side of
Hillary Merwin 08:47
that, what are some effects that companies are already seeing?
Joshua Aguirre 08:49
Let’s talk about positive effects. You know, I met with a client to seize the opportunity to use this new tool, chat GPT to create copy for their website. So if you had somebody on your team that was like struggling to create good copy, which is this case, she can now ask the machine to do that for her and then copy edit some of it. Oh, gosh, I
Valery Aguirre 09:14
don’t know how I feel about that.
Hillary Merwin 09:16
My job is to catch up to just like you put in, I want a paragraph or the page. Say about XYZ popcorn. Yeah, burnt popcorn. And then they’ll like write the whole as a term. I want to read about it. Oh, right. Like a whole story.
Joshua Aguirre 09:32
Yes, exactly. So now you have like, you know, we talked about that being an advantage for company but for companies, but now you see it as like a threat. And that’s your original question. Like there’s kids that has Yeah, I mean, we’re all threatened. There’s kids that are cheating on their school exams by using these programs. You know, there’s there’s people that are messaging compatible partners on Tinder using chat GPT to come you indicate
Hillary Merwin 10:00
wait. So like a guy, sorry, if I’m calling out the guy is here like some guy who doesn’t know how to spell. Hey, girl Stop. And it’ll be like, hello, fine lady.
Valery Aguirre 10:13
Are you saying like, he could input? Like the words or the messaging style that the partner likes or speaks like,
Hillary Merwin 10:23
they’ll be, I want to ask this girl out in a witty tone, oh, that’s what a an eighth grade level or is like nine
Joshua Aguirre 10:31
exactly like you can program it to basically do the work for you. And so that that can be a great benefit to a lot of companies. But it can also be a very big threat to jobs and all of these things. So if companies aren’t adapting, if they’re not agile, then they’re not looking forward enough to say we need to make this a part of our company. And those companies that are resistant to change are replaceable.
Valery Aguirre 10:58
And what futuristic movies are coming to mind. I feel like I think we’re the future guys. What movies I’m picking the one like Robin Williams, I’m trying to remember those flowers. No, not quite. Oh, robots.
Joshua Aguirre 11:16
ai ai. Yeah. So actually, I was talking about AI with a with a coworker the other day because AI is kind of where we’re heading in the in the short term, because you can see these different apps popping up that have specific parameters. And those parameters I believe, are going to turn into like personalities. So you’ll have like different AI bots with different personalities. Some of them will want to be friend us other ones will want to take over the world.
Hillary Merwin 11:44
Some of the AI personalities will be trying to match with me on hinge. Let’s terrify terrifying,
Valery Aguirre 11:50
I hope they love long walks on the beach. He’s like, I love endless walks. Like, oh my God, He knows me so well. But he’s a robot, he’d be sounding like a human probably sounding
Hillary Merwin 11:59
any.
Valery Aguirre 12:00
I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.
Joshua Aguirre 12:02
But what do you want me to sound like that’s he’s gonna sound like
Hillary Merwin 12:05
Chris Hemsworth. Hugh Jackman, yes, just Australia has become a strange shout out to all our Australian listener. The point of the matter is that we can build this whole, you know, roadmap, but but as you’d like to say, Josh baked in, baked into that roadmap is this trade like that they must have being adaptive. It’s like, right, this is subject to change. Basically, like a disclaimer, this whole thing is subject to change. And you need to be okay with that. Because the world is changing quickly. And you need to be agile and not stuck in your ways.
Joshua Aguirre 12:47
That’s right. And it’s internal or external. You have to adapt to customers, technology, team members, stakeholders, like adapt everywhere, you know, obviously, you have different aspects of your business that need to be geared towards the vision of the company, but you want to be receptive to change.
Hillary Merwin 13:10
So I know we’re gonna go deeper into these pillars in future episodes. But for now, can you just give us like a high level overview why business needs to keep these in mind? And is it just for big organizations?
Joshua Aguirre 13:23
Sure. Yeah. So like, I think that it’s important to mention that there’s a chronological order of how you build a business. And most people have this false belief that successful businesses are run differently or unique, or they get lucky and they stumble into success. The fact is, they have gotten lucky nailing a certain part of the order correctly. But what what they realize as they get bigger, why they approach consultants or engineers like us, is because they’re they’re failing to attack, a step that they’ve skipped over. And they don’t realize they’ve skipped over that, because they’re not following a proprietary recipe like ours, our work that we’ve put into this, and like the research that we put into this shows us that if you build a company in this specific order, you have a guaranteed level of success in those different areas, like your team and your customers and your ability to scale through different decades of change. And it’s not just for big organizations, like in order to get to the accom a big organization, if that’s your desire, like you still need to follow the same process. So startups, entrepreneurs, like any buddy with a business or an idea can use this model.
Hillary Merwin 14:53
So if you’re just starting a business, and it’s just you, how would you attack culture first, because culture is the first pillar, right?
Joshua Aguirre 15:00
Yeah. So I mean, you’re, you’re setting a vision for where you want to take the company. You know, I always often give this analogy, like when you get in the car to go somewhere, you always have that end in mind, you know, you’re not just getting in the car and saying, Okay, I’m gonna drive left and then right and then end up where I end up. Like, you’re gonna put something into the GPS arrived
Valery Aguirre 15:20
at your destination. Oh, great. We’re here.
Hillary Merwin 15:25
To pick this up in a little bit. Hold that thought.
Valery Aguirre 15:32
So like, how can we get more people to fill out the form for the business idea, guys? It’s really simple. But yeah,
Hillary Merwin 15:39
I don’t I hope people aren’t like, intimidated. It’s not this like long questionnaire.
Valery Aguirre 15:43
I mean, it’s free. Is that a deterrent? When it’s like, what’s free,
Hillary Merwin 15:45
and I feel like people get suspicious with things for free. I
Joshua Aguirre 15:48
mean, maybe I think it’s just a very valuable, like, way to scale up, you know, like, you have this resource at your fingertips, which is our team. And, you know, it’s tried and tested process of, you know, trying to figure out how to scale up or start a business.
Hillary Merwin 16:07
Yeah. But I think even like, saying, submit, your business model can feel intimidating, like, oh, I need to have like all of this already figured out. And so you don’t know, we just want you to come on the podcast and like, have a conversation with us.
Joshua Aguirre 16:21
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s for me, like, trying to identify those people that are like, passionate about changing the world. And like, this is an avenue for us to like, help them do that. And, you know, I think Additionally, they can find ways to advertise their business through our podcast, and, you know, maybe even find some potential partners like
Valery Aguirre 16:43
that. Yeah. You never know what to come out of it. It’s one of those things where if you don’t take a risk that the answer is always no.
Hillary Merwin 16:50
But it could be a way like if you’re feeling stuck, or like you wanted to start something, but you don’t know what the first step is like this. This could be like a simple first step, like just having a conversation. And then you know, it serves us too, because we want to be able to have people on our podcast and hear a diverse array of like ideas, so
Valery Aguirre 17:08
don’t miss any opportunity, because you never know what you can get out of things. And you’ll just hear from professionals to validate your idea.
17:16
Yeah, that’s right. Antonio. How’s it gone? Don’t get How are y’all? Good?
Joshua Aguirre 17:22
Are you all set up and ready to go?
Hillary Merwin 17:24
Everything’s set up. Ready to go. Cool. Cool. All right. Situated also. Okay, are you ready? Yeah, let’s go in 321. Joshua was escaping into parties and distractions. Putting his new company advanced on the backburner. Events was all about helping people with ideas start businesses. But at that moment, Joshua was having trouble starting his own. Yet experiencing the sudden death of a friend who didn’t even reach his 21st birthday. brought things into perspective. It unlocked something in Joshua, a drive to focus on what he really wanted for the long term, stop waiting around for all the pieces to fall into place, pursue his dream job. It’s worth mentioning that Joshua didn’t have a formal degree at this point. In fact, he needed to make a decision about college. For many of us, this is a no brainer. It’s the trajectory our parents decide for us or the one society lays out for us. It’s the line on our resume we think we need in order to get a job. Well, that wasn’t Joshua’s case.
Valery Aguirre 18:36
So you’re at RadioShack. Where are you in your education? educational path?
Joshua Aguirre 18:43
Yeah, I remember, family life was a little bit difficult toward the end of high school. So, you know, I really wasn’t encouraged to chase a degree. And in the same way that you know, my other friends were at this vocational Institute. While
Hillary Merwin 19:01
many spend their senior year filling out applications and writing essays to get into their dream colleges. Joshua’s last year of high school was clouded by growing tensions at home,
Joshua Aguirre 19:10
mom and dad, they decided that they were going to get divorced. And it was pretty hard time in my life, I found out that my father was moving to Orlando and he invited me to go with him. In fact, he said that the only way you would go and take this, this job promotion would be if I were to get a job along alongside him.
Hillary Merwin 19:33
Though a painful situation, the idea of moving to Orlando was an opportunity for Joshua to get closer with his dad. It also opened the door for Joshua to pursue his dream job at a media company, though it will take a while for him to get there.
Joshua Aguirre 19:46
I’ve been reinventing myself like now I’m able to reinvent myself a little bit more. And so I just wanted to explore a new city.
Hillary Merwin 19:56
Having left his community college in South Florida and transferring to another Orlando, Joshua majored in web design in later video production.
Joshua Aguirre 20:04
And so, you know, when I’m chasing this, this new position in Orlando, you know, I have to take these, these jobs at the same company that aren’t the job that I want. But I’m just kind of biding my time waiting for that opportunity to open up. And it’s not without, like, persistence, like, you know, for nine months, I’m begging every single owner, every single manager at the company for a spot or a position to open up in this media group department. And it was, it was very draining honestly, because the jobs, the other jobs that I was doing at this company, were incredibly stressful. And I while I felt I was doing really good at them, you know, and learning a lot of versatile skills. It wasn’t the job that I wanted.
20:56
And, you know, Josh, he’s such an ambitious guy. He, he could kind of set its sights on something and have a goal and work towards it.
Hillary Merwin 21:07
That Zach, one of the managers at the Media Group, who would go on to become one of Joshua’s closest mentors.
21:13
So I met Josh, in probably 2011, I was working for a media company. And so I know he had wanted to work for the media group for a while. And then when he had a shot, he took it,
Joshua Aguirre 21:27
the owner walks me around the building, and he says, Well, I don’t need a web designer, but I need an assistant producer. And I was like, wow, this is, like, pretty crazy. Because I don’t want to say no, but I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to filming, you know, I don’t have any professional work experience. But I told him, like, I just told him that straight up like I, you know, I don’t know how, but I’ll learn.
21:55
Now you have a lot to learn, he was kind of untrained, and a lot of the skills that you need to do some of that marketing and video that we did for the company, but he was so eager to learn. He’s so teachable, that pretty soon I taught him everything I, I could, and he just ran with it, I got to the point where I could trust them to do anything.
Joshua Aguirre 22:19
You know, what I ended up doing for this media group was everything guided everything from setting on client meetings with large business owners to helping design billboards, and, you know, motion graphics, or, you know, filming different, you know, commercials or TV shows, different, you know, short videos, and then switching gears and helping build a website or modifying a website. And so I had a wide range of, of skill sets that I garnered from this job, and the short time that I was there.
Valery Aguirre 22:57
Okay, so you’re doing all these cool new tasks, these skills that you’re learning? I’m sure you’re getting mentored by these, you know, thicker professionals in the Media Group. You’re meeting big clients getting all these opportunities? Was there a need or desire for a college degree at this point?
Joshua Aguirre 23:18
Well, it’s interesting that you said that because I was, I was actually in this in this community college for web design. Because my job changed to video production, I switched my degree to video production to kind of complement my career. And as I was in these video, editing and video production classes, I realized that my level of knowledge from the workplace far exceeded what my classmates were learning. And so the the, the quality of my content that I was delivering to every project was much higher level. I mean, granted, I had like access to a green screen and professional lighting and all this stuff that the other kids had to rent, I felt not challenged. And so I talked to my mentor Zach at work about it. And he was like, you know, honestly, with the the two years of work that you’ve done here, a couple of great letters of recommendation, you know, you are really kind of not needing a degree. And I really respected that he said that because you know, who talks a young kid out of a degree?
Valery Aguirre 24:28
So I’m sure he didn’t like talk you out of it was more like letting you know, there are other options. You could choose your own path, but not one way is that you have to do it way.
Joshua Aguirre 24:38
Yeah, like he taught me about thinking outside the box in that area. And I, you know, obviously if I have gone down the surgeon route and spent 10 years in school, like it’s definitely necessary for you to become a surgeon to have a degree. But for me to be a video producer already, I knew that the degree wasn’t required. And then there are positions like that where, you know, I can go out and get a photography gig and, you know, find a way to make income for myself without a degree. So it just opened up a world of opportunity for me as a young 20 something year old to figure out that there are talents that I have that are equivalent to somebody, you know, just graduated.
Valery Aguirre 25:24
So with all this being said, Where is your first creation at Where’s invest at in all of this?
Joshua Aguirre 25:33
Yeah, so in 2020 12, I decided to incorporate I got so busy with my nine to five that I would just be burnt out at the end of the day, and I would just want to party with friends. And, you know, I didn’t put a lot of effort outside of the nine to five into the company, like I wasn’t, I wasn’t motivated to do that. And I just wanted to kind of enjoy life, you know, at the same time, I’m dealing with, you know, bigger issues. So I’m like not wanting to expend any extra energy on that.
Hillary Merwin 26:12
This struggle is not uncommon for freelancer. In fact, it’s pretty much expected. Often when we dream starting something new, we don’t have the luxury of leaving behind our nine to five, and throwing all of our time and efforts into getting our idea off the ground. Our minds, our lives are divided. There’s a tension between making money, finishing a degree, weighing the risks, taking one step forward, two steps back, until one day, maybe the weight doesn’t feel so heavy. Sound familiar? So as Josh was figuring out his career path, juggling a nine to five and the beginnings of his own business, things were falling apart back in South Florida.
Joshua Aguirre 26:49
And then, you know, after the divorce, and my father and I moved away, she couldn’t sustain the house by herself. So she ended up moving with moving in with my grandmother in North Florida, and spending some time to like, take care of my grandma. But after a few years living with my grandmother, things kind of took a turn for the worse.
Hillary Merwin 27:15
So even though things were going well, professionally speaking, something wasn’t right. It would all soon come to a head, a turning point, one of those moments that divides life into a before and an after.
Joshua Aguirre 27:30
The reason we’ve been trying to tell the story the entire time, like how do we connect the life lessons to the business lessons like it takes time to develop that. And as the story gets more, like deep and personal, we want to be telling that the right way.
Hillary Merwin 27:47
We just want to thank everyone who’s tuned in so far in the first couple episodes of the podcast, it means so much and this is truly a passion project of ours and we’re so excited to put out there the world.
Valery Aguirre 27:58
We’ve had a lot of fun on the process. And we’re gonna continue to tell the story.
Hillary Merwin 28:04
Just to preview a little bit what’s coming up in season one, we’re going to continue telling Joshua’s story and how it shaped him into the business plan he is today but
Valery Aguirre 28:14
also changed up a bit and bring in some alternative episodes in between the story here and there and some q&a Isn’t there some fun tidbits about us and the other hustlers
Hillary Merwin 28:27
so we want to bring on other hustlers like you we want to hear your questions and answer them and more of a short form tutorials
Valery Aguirre 28:35
and along the way you’re going to be getting some free promo. I mean, we’ll be shouting you out. So take advantage of that.
Hillary Merwin 28:40
So definitely stay tuned for Episode Five. See you soon.