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On today’s episode, Zach, founder of Live A Great Story, talks about how he got started with Live a Great Story and what’s next for the brand. Learn how Zach found the motivation to keep going through obstacles, what he’s doing to connect to his customers, and how to navigate the unknown.
Actions:
- Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
- Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to SJ and Sachit or find Zach on Instagram.
- Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.
Episode Highlights:
- Zach shares the story of the moment Reese Witherspoon reposted Live A Great Story while he was at his grandfather’s funeral, inspiring him to keep going.
- Zach’s guiding principles are to think about whether his relatives who have passed away would be proud of what he’s doing and whether his future children and grandchildren would be proud of him.
- For Zach, the pursuit of being an entrepreneur is about the continuing journey of overcoming adversity.
- Sachit asks Zach when he wanted to quit the most, but Zach doesn’t remember a specific moment anymore. He just remembers the overall challenges.
- Right now, Zach is facing serious struggles with cash flow for the company but he knows he’s going to overcome the challenge and not quit.
- Zach believes in finding what fuels you to keep going. For him, it’s sweating a little bit each day from running or other exercise.
- Even Elon Musk’s company came close to running out of money.
- Sachit asks Zach about his evolution as a founder, and Zach says he sees himself partly as a creative and partly as an entrepreneur.
- Zach found the inspiration for his brand after backpacking through Europe for 7 months, and put up some spray painted messages around Austin without knowing what it would become.
- Zach describes how he balances envisioning what his company could be with allowing it to evolve organically, and says as you and your business change, it’s important to regularly check in with yourself about your values and impact.
- Recently, Zach realized that the values of Live a Great Story and their messaging have been disconnected for a while, so he’s reconnecting with his core audience and top customers to realign.
- Doing a deep dive into his customers allowed Zach to see that there are common feelings and experiences throughout his broad customer base, who at first glance seem entirely different from one another.
- Zach shares a story about learning to ask for help.
- He suggests that you come up with the ten people you would reach out to for help and advice.
- Zach talks about how and why he started the Live a Great Story conference. It was designed to encourage genuine connection with other people.
- His advice for conferences is to keep it simple, because it always requires far more planning than you expect.
- Seeing people with Live a Great Story tattoos is surreal to Zach. He feels like he’s just a small part of a wave.
- Zach has seen people post stickers or the brand in some crazy and impressive places, including a coffee shop in a small town in Nicaragua.
- To see people adapt his idea and make it their own is one of the most thrilling parts of this for Zach.
- The next challenge for Live a Great Story is to find ways to go deeper with the community and bring these people together to make an even bigger impact.
- To get in touch with Zach, send him a video DM on Instagram. Anyone who does this and says they heard it on this podcast with Sachit will get a free sticker!
3 Key Takeaways:
- Entrepreneurship is more about the ongoing journey than reaching an endpoint.
- Check in with yourself and your business to make sure your values align with your practices.
- Building a community requires a lot of deep listening.
Tweetable Quotes:
“I think it’s about figuring out what you need to stay the course. What are those elements that fuel you?” – Zach
“Once you leave Austin, Texas you realize there are a bunch of people that don’t talk like you, don’t look like you, don’t believe what you believe, and having really cool conversations like that really inspired me.” – Zach
“We’re not aiming for a star when we’re launching. It’s more like a constellation or a cluster of stars. It’s pretty far away, so we don’t know what it’ll look like until we get there, but heading in that direction is taking us the right way.” – Zach
“In the deepest moments of I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know why I’m doing this, I’d hop on Instagram & there would be someone’s photo with this insane emotional response caption about how it had such an impact on them & that would boost me back up & keep me going.” – Zach
Resources Mentioned:
Actions:
- Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
- Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to SJ and Sachit or find Zach on Instagram.
- Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.
