Sol Orwell On Building & Stepping Away From 7 Figure Businesses And Failing Nonchalantly

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Sol Orwell is an entrepreneur and business developer most known for his work as the cofounder of Examine.com. He was recognized as a 2014 Game Changer by men’s fitness and profile by Forbes as a seven figure entrepreneur. He’s also on the fitness advisory board for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I’ll first be talking to Sol about how a speaker at high school taught him to look at business and failure in a very nonchalant way. He’ll touch on how every single business that he has started has originated from him solving a problem that he had for himself. And we discuss his belief that almost anyone can downgrade their current lifestyle to get started and survive in business if they really want it bad enough. And much more.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Learn more about Sol’s story of how he lived in so many places all over the world.
• Sol shares about how he came to understand that it’s okay to fail and how easy it is to start a business.
• Hear the advice Sol has for new entrepreneurs who are scared of losing before winning.
• Find out how Sol would start a business from scratch today, if he had no experience at all.
• Sol shares how he got started on a free site, selling targeted advertising from his gaming site.
• Hear the story of how Sol took a loan shark loan of $100,000, which cost him $180,000.
• Find out why entrepreneurship might not be for everyone, and why someone would quit it.
• Learn how freeing up your time as the boss can lead to bigger growth for your business.
• Understand the importance of being yourself online and offline; consistency is key.
• Discover why paying attention to the details when reaching out to other is key.
• Find out how Sol grows by putting himself outside of his comfort zone on a personal side.
• Hear Sol’s perspective of what he defines as a failure, and why he believes it’s irresponsible not to take opportunities.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“The idea of anyone else telling me what to do is completely unacceptable to me.” — @sol_orwell

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[0:19:57].1]

“I’m never too exerted, never too stressed out, never as rich as I could be, but that’s okay.” — @sol_orwell

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[0:30:52].1]

“The reality is, entrepreneurship is full of failure. In general, you are more likely to fail than you won’t.” — @sol_orwell

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[0:32:47].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Sol Orwell — https://www.solorwell.com/

Sol on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sol_orwell

Examine — https://examine.com/

SJO — http://www.sjo.com/

The Great Canadian Bagel — http://greatcanadianbagel.com/

BELAY Solutions — https://belaysolutions.com/

World of Warcraft — https://worldofwarcraft.com

EverQuest — https://www.everquest.com

Baldur’s Gate — https://www.baldursgate.com/

Side Hustle Podcast — http://www.sidehustlenation.com/side-hustle-show/

Derek Sivers — https://sivers.org/

John Romaniello — http://romanfitnesssystems.com/

BetaKit — http://betakit.com/

MastermindTalks with Jayson Gaignard — http://www.mmtpodcast.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 005

“SO: Honestly, to me business is basically in the most simplistic manner, it’s someone’s got a problem, you're going to solve that problem for them and you’re going to charge to solve that damn problem. That’s it.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:13.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:40.1] RN: Today, you and I get to learn from none other than Sol Orwell, an entrepreneur and business developer most known for his work as the cofounder of Examine.com. He was recognized as a 2014 Game Changer by men’s fitness and profile by Forbes as a seven figure entrepreneur.

I’ll be talking to Sol about how a speaker at high school taught him to look at business and failure in a very nonchalant way, how every single business that he has ever started has originated from him solving a problem that he had for himself, and how almost anyone can downgrade their current lifestyle to get started and survive in business if they really want it bad enough. Finally, what Sol would do to start a business without any money and without a business idea, and much more.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

Now, without further ado, Mr. Sol Orwell.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:57.4] RN: Sol, really excited to have you here today man. Welcome to the Fail on Podcast.

[0:02:00.5] SO: Man, I’m excited to be on, thanks for having me.

[0:02:02.4] RN: You got it. So just for a little context, we are in Toronto Canada right now. Your home? Not your hometown, but your current city.

[0:02:09.9] SO: I consider it my hometown. I’m an immigrant, I’ve lived in I think now like 11 different cities, I have lived in seven different countries, so Toronto is my home. You know I’m from Toronto because I dropped the second T, that’s how you know I live here.

[0:02:25.5] RN: Just out of curiosity, because I think we both have traveling in common as a huge passion, what other countries have you lived?

[0:02:32.1] SO: So I’m actually Kashmiri, what Pakistan and India keep fighting over. I was born Pakistan, lived in Saudi Arabia, also lived in Japan, back to Saudi Arabia and then I’ve been all over the states, I’ve been in Houston, LA, Phoenix, El Paso, and Manhattan and then there was obviously Toronto and I’ve lived in Argentina.

[0:02:47.7] RN: That’s a crazy mish-mash in the states. What took you to those random cities?

[0:02:52.1] SO: Originally Houston and LA were with my dad or with my family. My dad worked for Saudi petro chemical company and every time they did a new plant, they had to outsource so Houston was Halliburton, LA was Kellogg, which is actually not just a cereal company. There’s separate one that’s in oil and what not.

Afterwards man, skip a lot of time, I essentially retired when I was in Toronto. To me, money was just a means to an independence and so I was like, “Yeah, we’ll wonder around, we’ll gallivant around,” and that’s when like Phoenix happened. I was married at this time, my ex-wife, she was from El Paso, she was like red and I somehow ended up in El Paso. Then eventually I did Manhattan, which I think everyone should try if they can. New York’s an amazing place to live. I lived in Greenwich, so it’s just literally ground zero of everything that was going on there.

[0:03:36.3] RN: How long were you there?

[0:03:37.5] SO: I was there for two years, but eventually New York wore me out.

[0:03:41.1] RN: Wore me out in six months, I was in the East Village.

[0:03:43.3] SO: There we go. It’s fun, but it’s too intense. I think there’s a reason why so many people in New York are on cocaine because that’s the only way you can have enough energy to keep going in that crazy place.

[0:03:52.5] RN: 100%

[0:03:53.3] SO: Then eventually Toronto called me back and I was going to move to Panama City in Panama, not Florida. But the recession hit. I had some friends there, they got crushed by it and so I just ended up being in Toronto, but I’m glad. It’s nice to have roots, it’s nice to be able to go to the community store guy and be like, “Yo, I forgot my wallet, can I have a coke?” Or go to my favorite cookie place, and it happens all the time, where I’m like, “Yo, I forgot my wallet,” they’re like, “Of course you did, but here’s a cookie anyway.” I’m like, “Yes!”

[0:04:15.4] RN: That’s awesome.

[0:04:16.9] SO: So yeah, I’m glad to be in one place.

[0:04:17.5] RN: I think one thing that most people probably don’t realize is that Toronto has got an amazing community of entrepreneurs.

[0:04:23.3] SO: Oh for sure man. I think what really happens is part of it is like the Canadian style. We’re a little bit less of self-promotional, we’re a little bit self-indulgent, if I even may. The other thing is like, when you think of the value, when you think of New York or even areas of Boston and Austin and even Seattle, you think, “Oh, you know, cooperation, we’re going to help each other.”

But in Toronto it’s almost like little schisms between these different areas where you’re just like, “I’m going to keep my head down, I’m going to kick ass, I’m going to work hard.” I was in SEO from early 2000’s and I had no idea our friend Dev was here in Toronto and he’s got 30 employees and he’s kicking ass and taking names, right? So I think it’s just part of our persona and that we just are more busy spending our head down just trying to acquire clients and being like, “Hey man…”

[0:05:06.9] RN: I’m crushing it.

[0:05:08.0] SO: Yeah, “I got to get in TechCrunch and New York Times or Business Inside or whatever.” So I think that kind of leads to that.

[0:05:12.5] RN: Got it. Just to get things started and to get a little context about you and your background, there’s actually one quote that I have from you, you probably don’t even know it or know where it is or where it came from or what, but you actually said that it was one of the defining moments of you in your business life. It was, “The combination of it’s okay to fail, plus how easy it is to get started, made a switch go off in my brain, made me understand how a business can be operated.” Do you remember this at all?

[0:05:40.0] SO: It sounds vaguely familiar, it sounds like something I would say.

[0:05:42.1] RN: Yeah, so it was actually around two points that you made. One was that you had heard a speaker give a speech about failing three times before he hit it big and this guy is worth, what? Like $50 million dollars I think you said.

[0:05:53.4] SO: He’s worth quite a bit.

[0:05:54.5] RN: Yeah. And then, the second point, do you remember the second point?

[0:05:57.6] SO: That it’s easy to startup a business, yup. Absolutely.

[0:05:59.5] RN: Yeah, exactly. That you saw a guy that incorporated a bunch of different businesses and you’re like, “Oh man, that’s all you got to do?”

[0:06:04.9] SO: Yup.

[0:06:05.3] RN: “It’s simple.” Based on that, can you give a bit more context around the statement and how you came to understand that it’s okay to fail?

[0:06:13.2] SO: For sure. Of those two points, the first one was basically, a dude came to our high school and he basically owned the second largest bagel company in Canada, The Great Canadian Bagel, or whatever the hell it’s called and he was like, “I did this and I failed and I did this and I failed,” and more than anything else, it was his nonchalance to it.

[0:06:32.6] RN: Yeah.

[0:06:32.6] SO: Where he was like, “Meh, shrug.” I was like, “Holy shit, this guy totally bounced it off.” and he didn’t seem like one of those supremely confident kind of guy, you know, who looks a little bit slick, “Oh, he’s always been a business man.” He was just, and I say this with love because that’s what he called himself, he was just this random Jewish dude who tried this thing, failed, tried another thing, failed in the bagels worked for him.

A lot of times people think entrepreneurship is some kind of like, “Oh, you’re born to be a leader or you’re some kind of an amazing person.” Not really, maybe a little bit organized, maybe a little bit more mean streak or independence streak, but I don’t think there’s anything specially unique about it.

That’s kind of where that mindset hit me, we’re like yeah, and it even makes sense, right? In real life, and I always try to put myself in someone else’s shoes. If someone comes up to me and like, “Man, I tried this business and it failed.” I’m not going to think, “Ha, ha you idiot.”

[0:07:21.7] RN: Yeah, of course man.

[0:07:22.3] SO: “Loser, get away man, cooties.” No, right? You’re like, “All right, this guy at least had the cojones to try it.”

[0:07:27.5] RN: But most people that did fail would think that you’re going to say that, right?

[0:07:31.6] SO: Exactly, right? It’s so true for everything though, it’s not just about business, right? You could be dancing in a club, no one’s watching. You could be at a concert and dancing around awkwardly, no one’s watching you. Unless you’re like Elaine Benes in Seinfeld where you’re just throwing shoulders and thumbs around, right, and you’re just making a scene, sure. Otherwise, the reality is, if you think about it, you’re self-obsessed, I’m self-obsessed. You don’t care what someone else is doing. So if they’re failing, you don’t care, you’re like, “Fuck this guy, I’m busy worrying about myself, I’m busy being selfish about me,” which is fine.

I think that realization finally kind of like set me free where I’m like, “All right, no one cares.” So that was the first point. The second one, this is kind of hilarious, I used to be in the domain name industry and there’s this one guy who owns all the best .ca domains. So he owns like travel.ca, sex.ca, home.ca, whatever. I was asking him how he got it, and so back in the day, and I think this is like ’94, ’95, the University of British Columbia, UBC, they controlled the entire .ca domain and if you wanted a .ca domain you had to write a letter.

So he wrote them a letter saying, “Hey, I want to buy travel.ca,” and they’re like, “No, you need to be incorporated as a business first.” He’s like, “Sure, okay.” So he incorporates the business, he writes them a letter,” they’re like, “No, you need to be travel.ca to get travel.ca.” So he’s like, “All right.” So he registered travel.ca, he sent it and he got it. They registered I think like 56 different other businesses to do it. Again…

[0:08:53.0] RN: Charging him or? Selling it to him, or what was it?

[0:08:56.0] SO: Well back in the day, domains were free, right. Back in the day, .coms were free, back in the day, .ca…

[0:09:01.0] RN: They just owned it basically.

[0:09:03.0] SO: The university basically administered it. So you had to, I guess, apply to say, “Hey, I’ve got a business called travel.ca, this is why I need travel.ca.” He just created all this businesses and again, it’s the nonchalance to it and I’m like, “Wasn’t it a headache?” He’s like, “Why would it be a headache?” I’m like, “I have literally no answer for you.” Because in Canada, we don’t have LLC’s, we have two levels of corporations and he’s like, “Yeah, I just incorporated it and that’s it and once a