Don't Make The Same Mistakes I Did — What I Wish I Knew About Content Creation and Personal Branding

Yong-Soo Chung [00:00:00]

Let me set the stage for you.

Around this time last year, I had 3 e-commerce businesses that made me $20 million over the last eight years. The instagram account my wife and I were running for our French bulldog Humphrey had nearly a hundred and twenty-three thousand followers. For my 3PL venture GrowthJet, we had just moved into a 39,000 square foot warehouse.

I was living the American Dream. I had, quote-unquote, 'made it' in every sense of the word.

And yet, I barely had any followers on Twitter. I mean, it WAS called Twitter back then. Because, I wanted to be WEALTHY but ANONYMOUS… for various reasons I’ll dive into… in a bit.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:00:36]

Less than a year since that day, I have 20,000 followers on X. I've made some great friends on the platform. I've met some great mentors. I found some absolutely brilliant guests on this podcast. I'm no longer anonymous but, heck, I'm absolutely loving it.

What changed?

Yup, First Class Founders. That's what changed. I started the First Class Founders podcast and newsletter in early November of 2022. I became, what people commonly refer to as, a content creator in the entrepreneurship and business category.

And, since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some truly great people, grow my own audience, and develop a few proprietary concepts of my own such as the MAPS framework, for example.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:01:15]

But, guess what, now that I look back at it, I realize that it could have been SO much more. With the power of hindsight, I can now identify moments where I could have - and definitely should have - done better with a few tweaks to my approach.

So, today, that's what I plan to do. I plan to tell you about six mistakes I made in my year-long journey as a creator, in the hopes that, if you are on the same path as I am, you can probably stop, re-evaluate, and execute a course-correction that will help you avoid the pitfalls that slowed me down early in my creator journey.

So, let’s do this.

Jet-setters, get ready for take-off!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:01:58]

The next generation of successful founders in this digital age of entrepreneurship will leverage their audience to launch, build, and scale their brands. First Class Founders explores this golden intersection of audience-building & company-building with proven strategies to grow both your audience, which is your distribution, and your brand, which is your product.

Because those who can master both will create a category of one.

Hi, my name is Yong-Soo Chung and I'm a serial entrepreneur who bootstrapped 3 successful businesses from $0 to $20 million over 8 years.

On this podcast, you'll learn timeless lessons from world-class content creators, startup founders, and CEOs. You'll also hear tactical tips & strategies from ME, Yong-Soo Chung!

Are you ready? Then, let’s begin!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:02:51]

On today's episode of First Class Founders, I am sharing my learnings from my journey so far as a content creator - not just with this podcast, but also with the companion newsletter, and my 20,000 Twitter/X account.

Specifically, I will share with you ALL MY MISTAKES.

Yes, you heard me right. My mistakes.

Because, there is a good chance that YOU are probably making the same mistakes right now. And, I hope that by listening to this episode, you can learn from my mistakes instead of going through the tedious process of making them yourself.

So, over the course of this episode, I will be sharing with you the biggest misconception I had before I started my journey as a creator, why you might be posting into the void while other creators are thriving, and most importantly a big realization I had literally yesterday while talking to my producer about this episode.

All right, ready to go?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:03:49]

About a year ago, I launched the first four episodes of this podcast, First Class Founders, to... crickets.

Like, literal crickets.

The first few days of the podcast, I had a handful of downloads mostly from my friends and family who, honestly, could care less about business.

I'll be honest, it baffled me.

I had built a nearly 8-figure business in 7 years. I had built a solid reputation in the everyday carry community with my store UrbanEDC.com. I had an Instagram account with a hundred-and-twenty-three thousand followers. Okay, technically they were all following my French bulldog, Humphrey.

But, still... I thought I had a decent-sized audience to launch the podcast with. I thought my EDC customers and Instagram followers would eagerly download and listen to these episodes that I had so painstakingly crafted for them.

I thought I would get at least a few hundred subscribers for my podcast, from day one!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:04:42]

And that was my first mistake:

MISTAKE NUMBER 1: I thought the audiences from my previous businesses would care and listen to my podcast.

As you can see, I was dead wrong.

All launches begin from zero. No matter how big you are or how popular you are, when you launch something new, you always start from scratch. I assumed that my followers from my EDC store and the instagram account my wife and I ran for my French bulldog, would automatically become my audience for a podcast. But I was completely wrong.

The reason for this is simple. Your audience follows you for a specific reason. My customers from UrbanEDC were interested in hearing about only ONE thing from me - information about new everyday carry items that the store carried. My followers of instagram only wanted to hear about Humphrey and what I could offer other French bulldog parents.

They didn't care about me and my entrepreneurial journey! They didn't care that I made 20 million dollars in eight years!

They weren't the right audience for this podcast.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:05:39]:

So, even though I had a HUGE set of people I could reach out to thanks to my businesses, the actual AUDIENCE I could reach was practically, for all intents and purposes, a big fat zero.

LESSON NUMBER 1: No matter how large your following, you should assume that all new ventures start from ZERO.

I had completely forgotten that I had to woo the EDC enthusiasts to my store. I had completely forgotten that I had had to woo other French bulldog parents to Humphrey's Instagram account.

I had forgotten that I would have to build a following for my podcast from scratch, too. I would have to woo listeners to the First Class Founders podcast..

Yes, I was pretty much devastated that I had to start all over from nothing. BUT, I was also... weirdly… excited.

Because, I had forgotten what it’s like building from nothing again. I felt like an underdog again. A nobody. I hadn't felt this way since I started my first business - UrbanEDC - back in 2015...

Yong-Soo Chung [00:06:34]

The jolt of energy I would get every time someone dismissed my ideas. The surge of determination that accompanied every rejected request. The desire to double down everytime my work was ignored...

I had forgotten most of that.

Now, I know, everyone reacts very differently to setbacks. And that not everyone can stomach continuous rejection. Especially, if your work gets rejected after you have put crazy hours into it. Man, that sh*t cuts deep.

You start feeling like you completely wasted all your efforts. You start feeling like nothing you do matters. You start feeling helpless, and hopeless, and desperate...

Yong-Soo Chung [00:07:10]

And most people, when they are faced with this situation, will probably choose to give up and avoid further embarrassment or failure.

MISTAKE NUMBER 2: Giving up too early, at the first hint of failure.

I wish I could say I NEVER even thought of giving up. But, I'm not gonna lie. The thought did cross my mind. But I chose to embrace it because I knew WHERE the thought originated from.

Do you know where it originated from?

It's a psychological phenomenon called the Dip - that's D-I-P, with a capital D.

In his book - also named "The Dip" - Seth Godin talks about a stage of despair that applies to almost everything in life, which he calls the Dip. He describes it like this:

"At the beginning, when you first start something, it's fun. Over the next few days and weeks, the rapid learning you experience keeps you going. Whatever your new thing is, it's easy to stay engaged in it. And then the Dip happens. The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery. A long slog that's actually a shortcut, because it gets you where you want to go faster than any other path."

Yong-Soo Chung [00:08:14]

The Dip is basically the plateau you hit when you realize that all the novelty has worn off. What once seemed interesting has quickly become a matter of routine. And, like all routines, it is now a slog.

You, yourself, have faced the dip. If you haven't faced the Dip yet, trust me, you will soon.

So, how do you get yourself out of this rut?

There are actually two ways - both polar opposites.

The first is a winning mentality called... quitting.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:08:46]

Yeah, I know, winners never quit and all that but 'quitting' at the right time is actually a proven winning strategy. Or, to put it in Seth's words, "Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time."

If you know that quitting is not the path you want to take then you choose the OTHER path - the path of persistence. Again, I will refer to Seth's words here: "Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most."

LESSON NUMBER 2: There are only two ways to overcome the Dip: either quit it or survive it.

Me, I decided to survive it. I kept faith in myself and reminded myself to... Just. Keep. Going.

I started to treat the "process" more as a personal journey rather than focusing on what others thought of me. I filtered the process into the lens of a twenty-mile march - the philosophy first made popular by Jim Collins - and decided that making a weekly podcast episode was MY twenty-mile march.

And once I adopted this perspective, I gotta tell you, things got a lot easier. Also, ironically, my personal brand started growing with it.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:09:53]

Because, once I hit the Dip, I shifted focus from the excitement of doing things to figuring out a routine for 'getting things done'. I started doing all the things that were necessary to complete my daily twenty-mile march. I replied to tweets, I connected with people, I reached out to them via DMs, I got to know them better, I built a community of partners.

At the start, you need to do the unscalable things - talk to anyone that reaches out to you via DMs, and get to know them better.

Had I not made these two mistakes so early in my podcasting career, I probably would have started off a lot better and grown a lot bigger a lot quicker. But you live and learn, right? And now, I am here. I survived the Dip...

...only to make my NEXT big mistake, which quite frankly angered me

Yong-Soo Chung [00:10:39]

I'll tell you all about THAT and about the biggest gotcha in the creator business. And, later in the episode, I'll also explain how the content game has gotten a LOT more commoditized over the past several years AND what I did to stay ahead of the curve.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:12:00]

Before the break, I mentioned that I would share my next big mistake I made in my creator journey.

Well, here it is.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:12:07]

MISTAKE NUMBER 3: Having many years of business experiences, I assumed that my content would spread quicker, by default.

When I started crafting episodes for this podcast, I had a LOT to say. I wrote my scripts carefully. I trimmed the fluff. I edited it for inconsistencies and repetition. I made sure that the ideas were fresh and catchy.

I made sure that the package was clean and tight.

In fact, I was so confident that I was on the right path with my content that it came as an absolute shock to me when my content... fell flat.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:12:38]

The final straw for me was when I saw a random post get a lot more viral traction than something similar that I had posted! This is despite the fact that I clearly had WAY more experience and skin in the business!

I just couldn't understand how that could happen. How could someone just getting started in business post the same thing as me… and while my post falls flat, their post goes viral?

It was so frustrating!

You would think that my audience could spot the difference between real, lived experience compared to borrowed experience. You would think that my audience would boost content based on real experience rather than borrowed experience!

The secret, as I learned over several weeks and months, was that it had nothing to do with experience - real or borrowed.

The secret was simply, networking and distribution.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:13:23]

I'm gonna digress a little bit here to tell you something about my other business - UrbanEDC.com. I know this might sound like a plug for my site but, believe me, there is an important lesson I want to point out here. When I first launched Urban EDC, I had no reputation in the industry. Nobody took me seriously. I would get rejection after rejection.. Until one day, I started working with reputable players in the industry. Then, ever so slowly, doors started unlocking for me.

This exact same thing was happening here.

That creator, with the borrowed experience, whose post performed a lot better than mine, simply leveraged the power of his network to distribute his product, which in this case, was his content. He built up enough trust and credibility among his followers that they chose to see HIM as an equivalent authority on the subject despite him only having - what I thought of as - "borrowed experience".

Yong-Soo Chung [00:14:14]

In reality, the type of experience was nearly pointless. What mattered was the connection both of us had with our respective followers and the network effect of other larger creators who were boosting the content for this creator.

Since I was still in the infancy stage of my creative journey, I hadn't built the same level of audience trust and strong network of other creators that he had with his. And that gave him the upper hand.

And that's the next lesson for you to take home:

LESSON NUMBER 3: Every creator must build a strong connection with both their followers and their network of like-minded creators to boost their content.

90% of your creator success is based on your relationships with other creators who will boost your content. For content creators, distribution is simply the name of the game.

And, once I realized this, I decided to double my efforts into building connections with my audience and other creators in my niche. And over the last eleven months I've made myself some really amazing friends- and, guys, I'm truly, TRULY grateful for all your love and support!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:15:15]

Alright, before the ninjas around me cut any more onions, let me quickly highlight my next big mistake...

MISTAKE NUMBER 4: I did not fully understand what kind of audience growth I wanted.

By now, it is common knowledge that there are two kinds of audiences - broad and narrow. Broad audiences are essentially audiences you grow without thinking about whether or not they are aligned with your interests. Narrow or targeted audiences are the ones you collect based on whether they are tailored towards your own business initiatives.

The process by which I arrived at this bit of knowledge itself was fascinating, too! Allow me a bit of digression here...

Before I started, I wanted to be completely anonymous. Because I thought flaunting my wealth and leveraging my network was an impolite thing to do. It took me a while but I realized that I was supposed to look at it, NOT as flaunting BUT as attracting others like me.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:16:07]

So, when I started, my only focus was to grow an audience. I figured that if I could cast a wide enough net, my content itself would act as the filter, and the ones that would remain behind were quote-unquote "my kind of people".

Except, I hadn't accounted for the fact that this process is EXHAUSTING. Not to mention, incredibly counter-intuitive to basic brand-design principles! I mean, think about it, does Nike go around designing their ads to accommodate every single customer? No, they aim it towards people specifically interested in athletics. McDonald's targets hungry people. Coke and Pepsi target thirsty people.

Every single product in the world has a pre-filtered audience. And I did NOT need to be different.

That's the lesson I want you to learn from my mistake...

Yong-Soo Chung [00:16:52]

LESSON NUMBER 4: Narrow down your target audience early and cater exclusively to them and them only.

And, armed with the power of hindsight, I now know that NARROW audiences are what I should have focused on.

This isn't new information, by the way. Almost every guest we have had on the podcast has alluded to this in some way or the other. In episode 34, David Hooper called it niching down. In episode 44, Matt McGarry explained the tactical importance of choosing specific audiences while growing your newsletter.

I have myself, in several episodes, stressed the importance of finding your tribe, that is, a community of people who are interested in the same things as you are.

But, as I explained earlier, I was only able to acquire this knowledge over weeks and months of building First Class Founders. And I hope you don't make the same mistake I did!

Oh, by the way, in this entire process of learning about audiences and how to target them, I also stumbled upon another insight that blew my mind - I did NOT have a brand of my own, which as we will see right now, turned out to be a BIG mistake.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:17:52]

MISTAKE NUMBER 5: I did not have a brand of my own, despite having an eight-figure business!

Yeah, I had UrbandEDC, and SpottedByHumphrey, and they had their own audiences. But I, Yong-Soo, personally did not have a brand.

And this is something I have come to realize with greater and greater urgency in the last few days, weeks, and months. If you plan to become an entrepreneur in any sense, you absolutely NEED to have your own brand in today’s digital age.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:18:19]

Let me explain.

Back in the day, before the internet was a thing, brands had an aura of their own. This aura manifested among consumers as top-of-mind recall. And this aura was what all brands relied on to sell their products. Consumers, for the most part, trusted brands they regularly interacted with. And the companies in charge of these brands also understood this trust and acted accordingly.

So, if you wanted to sell your goods, you would float a company, build its brand, and hope that consumers resonated with it.

Then, the internet happened. Then, innovative social platforms emerged.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:18:54]

Now, all of a sudden, INDIVIDUALS could have the same REACH as large brands. And this, basically, allowed people to BECOME their own brands!

What that simply means is that the principles of brand-building and brand-design can also be applied to INDIVIDUALS! If you think about it, that is exactly what all the influencers on YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn are doing - they are building and promoting their own brands!

The power that was once only held by company brands is now being wielded by individuals such as Marques Brownlee, Seth Godin, James Clear, Simon Sinek - you name it. You may think of them as 'influencers' but what they really are, are a brand unto themselves!

And they could BECOME a brand because they invested in themselves right from the very beginning!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:19:37]

Back when I started UrbanEDC I wanted to stay anonymous and build wealth. Because I thought that was the right thing to do. Because I thought talking about my wealth, my ambitions, my aspirations would paint a big target on my back...

But, now that I think about it, 'exposing' myself would have helped me build my audience much quicker. And not just any audience - a specific, targeted audience. Then, I could have built a bigger and better reputation, which would have certainly accelerated my growth.

LESSON NUMBER 5: Focus on building your personal brand early in your entrepreneurial career.

The fundamental truth of brand-building still remains the same: If you are willing to start a unique personal brand with good values, people are willing to resonate with you.

And, in this day and age, where the internet is a key part of our lives, having a personal brand is important for any and all entrepreneurs. Because it helps you stand out, amidst a sea of commoditized content.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:20:30]

The internet has made it easy to create and distribute all types of content. Which means, there are many others out there just like me. And they too have a product - that is, their content - that they want to offer my audience. And if I want my audience to focus on my content rather than their content, then I need to ensure that I differentiate myself properly, right?

This concept of differentiation is also not new, it has always been around in different forms. You may have heard of it as a USP - Unique Selling Proposition. But, with individuals-as-brands, I like to use a different phrase - a SPIKY POINT OF VIEW, which by the way, was first coined by Wes Kao.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:21:04]

I briefly touched upon the concept of a spiky point of view back in Episode 45.

"Put simply, a spiky point of view is an ice-breaker, a conversation-starter. It represents a slice of your belief system. Sometimes, it is a framework, sometimes it is a mental model. It can be a bit counter-intuitive or even highly controversial."

I'll probably do a separate episode on it one of these days. For now, the thing you need to understand and remember about a spiky point of view is this: "A spiky point of view is intended for one purpose and one purpose only - to help you be recognized in a sea of other content creators’ ideas floating around on the internet."

Yong-Soo Chung [00:21:39]

Do I have a spiky point of view? Yes, I do! And it is this:

"Currently, creators don't think of themselves as founders. They don't know how to build companies. And founders don't think of themselves as creators. They don't know how to build audiences. The future belongs to founders who can also be creators because they will be the ones who can build products AND distribution, BOTH!"

I'd love to know what you think of this spiky point of view! Let me know your thoughts over on Twitter-slash-X @YongSooChung, or whatever social platform you prefer. You can find links to all my social media handles in the show notes of this episode.

Coming up in a bit, I will share with you the BIGGEST mistake I could have made in my creator journey - one that might have potentially lost me a HUGE earning opportunity!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:23:39]

Alright, let's now get back to the episode.

Before the break, I was telling you how me not focusing on building my own brand early in my entrepreneurial journey was a mistake. But that wasn't my biggest mistake.

My biggest mistake was THIS.

MISTAKE NUMBER 6: I did not have enough credibility of my own when I started.

Okay, so this is a bit tricky because this isn't a mistake I could have avoided or rectified in the beginning.

Let me elaborate a little bit.

Over the course of my creator journey, I connected with several creators, many of whom became my mentors. I learned a lot from them and absorbed a lot of their knowledge and teachings. Even today, I constantly refer back to them and their words in my episodes and newsletters.

Their words formed the foundation of a lot of my ideas and beliefs.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:24:16]

But that's the thing, they were supposed to provide me with just the foundation. It was - and still is - MY job to build something more, something useful, something robust on top of that. Because, otherwise, I was simply regurgitating and rehashing stuff they had already said! What's the point of that? Isn't that what ChatGPT and Bard are used for?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:24:37]

Clint Murphy alluded to something similar in episode 36, when he spoke about borrowing credibility from Jeff Bezos to write one of his famously successful Twitter threads.

EPISODE 36 - CLINT MURPHY
"...because when you first start your account, you don't have much credibility. So what we're doing right there is we're borrowing Jeff Bezos credibility. Jeff Bezos is a billionaire. So these lessons are from him. So you should read them."

"Now, when I get to a certain level at 400, at, uh, 500,000 followers, people will say, well, you are the credibility. So when you write about finance or you write about this, you're credible, I should listen to you."

That, by the way, was a short snippet from a special segment in the ad-free version of Clint's episode, available exclusively to premium members of First Class Founders. I highly recommend you sign up to the membership and check out the full episode - it is filled to the brim with tactical advice from Clint!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:25:35]

Anyway, coming back, Clint's example is a perfect encapsulation of what I meant. Borrowed credibility can only get you so far. Beyond a certain point, you need to establish your own credibility, your own identity with your own spiky point of view.

As a creator who was just starting out, there was no way I could have had credibility right off the bat. I would have to build my credibility over time, with regular interactions and engagement with my peers and my audience.

But, here's the real mistake I made.

I tried to hurry it.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:26:05]

And it took me a LONG time to understand it. And I mean a really long time. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I literally realized this LAST NIGHT while talking to my producer, just before writing this script.

Yeah. LAST. NIGHT. What can I say? I make mistakes every single day, and I learn from them every single day!

Anyways, what do you think would have happened if I still had tried to insist that I had enough credibility of my own and tried to power through?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:26:30]

I'll tell you what would have happened. The same thing that happened with the tweet that I spoke about earlier in the episode - because it is the exact same situation, except for the medium involved, which in this case, is podcasting!

The way I see it, I have proven my chops as a founder. BUT I am still building my credibility as a creator. And, as we saw earlier in the episode with the example of my  tweet-which-didn't-go-viral, I first need to build a solid distribution network, then leverage it to reach wider audiences.

Now, how will I know when I have gone beyond borrowed credibility? Well, I don't think there isn't a specific milestone that marks the transition. But I DO think it requires my thoughts to resonate with people beyond my typical audience before I can mark it as done.

So, there you have it. That's the final lesson for you.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:27:17]

LESSON NUMBER 6: Learn from other creators and mentors, then develop your own voice. But, don't rush it. Let it happen naturally.

Oh, and having your own voice is also a MAJOR differentiator for your personal brand - just so you know. So, keep that in mind as you develop your own voice. Make sure that the voice you develop is consistent with the brand personality that you are adopting or creating.

Okay, I know I spent a lot of time discussing my mistakes and sharing the lessons you should learn but I don't want this episode to be purely about mistakes, so here's some good news for all you creators out there.

The creator business is probably the safest business in the world. The risk-to-reward ratio is insane.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:27:58]

Think about it. Your overhead cost is incredibly low. All you need is just a little bit of time and tools of creation. A notepad and an email service provider if you want to start a newsletter. A simple mic and a podcast host, if you want to be a podcaster. Or a camera and a YouTube account if you want to be a YouTuber.

You can work on your own terms, and be your own boss.

And, once you manage to build yourself an engaged audience, you'll have opportunities knocking on your door!

But, Yong-Soo, surely it can't be THIS easy! There HAS to be a catch!

Okay, yes, there is a catch.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:28:29]

And the catch is the "just a little bit of time" part. Because it takes a LOT more than "just a little bit of time". In fact, it takes a LOT of time.

Also, for a large amount of time in the beginning you will SUCK. Like, really REALLY suck. And you will have to be really, truly patient and - as Clint Murphy puts it - embrace the suck. It will especially be hard because NO one - and I mean NO ONE - will care about what you do. You will be disheartened more often than not. You will find yourself questioning the process frequently. You will doubt yourself and want to quit. Most new creators will give up simply because they don't see any results within the first few months.

All you have to remember in these dark moments is that, that's the Dip. With a capital D.

And, once you overcome the Dip, you will find that success awaits you on the other side. Because the creator game is about longevity, not "overnight success."

Here's what will surprise you the most: Your breakthroughs will sprout randomly from unexpected places BUT ONLY IF you keep planting your seeds consistently.

And even though no one can say when or how opportunities will find you, I will tell you this: Believe me, they will come. You WILL create your own luck. You too will be able to create a successful personal brand for yourself.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:29:42]

Before we wrap up this episode, let's quickly recap the mistakes I made throughout my creator journey and the lessons learned from them.

MISTAKE NUMBER 1: I thought the audiences from my previous businesses would care and listen to my podcast.

...and the lesson learned: No matter how large your following, all new ventures start from ZERO.

MISTAKE NUMBER 2: Giving up too early, at the first hint of failure.

...and the lesson learned: There are only two ways to overcome the Dip: either quit it or survive it.

MISTAKE NUMBER 3: Having many years of business experiences, I assumed that my content would spread quicker, by default.

...and the lesson learned: Every creator must build a relationship of trust and respect with their audience and network of other creators.

MISTAKE NUMBER 4: I did not fully understand what kind of audience growth I wanted.

...and the lesson learned: Narrow down your target audience early and cater exclusively to them and them only.

MISTAKE NUMBER 5: I did not have a brand of my own, despite having an eight-figure business!

...and the lesson learned: Focus on building your brand early in your entrepreneurial journey.

And lastly,

MISTAKE NUMBER 6: I did not have enough credibility of my own when I started.

...and the lesson learned: Learn from other creators and mentors, then develop your own voice. Don't hurry, though.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:31:04]

Alright, that wraps up today's show!

In the next episode of First Class Founders, we are talking to author and change management expert, Brad Stulberg! Brad is one of the smartest thinkers I’ve ever spoken to and I felt so fortunate to have him on this show to talk about his latest new book, Master of Change. We talked about how you can navigate change effectively and why you need to have more than just one identity bucket. Stay tuned for next week’s episode!

If you're a new listener and you enjoyed this episode, you can add YOUR voice to the show by leaving me a message on firstclassfounders.com. You can also follow the show by going to FirstClassFounders.com and clicking on the link that matches your preferred podcast player - like Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And, if you wanna connect with me specifically, hit me up on Twitter-slash-X @YongSooChung. I’m still pretty active there! Or, connect with me on one of my other social accounts, listed in the show notes.

One last thing before I go, could you head over to FirstClassFounders.com/review and leave the podcast a five-star review please? A five-star review helps bump the show up in podcast rankings, which helps me get bigger and better guests! I’ll leave a link in the show notes to leave us a 5-star review. Thanks a lot, in advance!

I'll see you on the next episode of First Class Founders.