Beyond The Views - Sam Ryan - Leadership in Action- Episode #54

It’s no secret that there are many influencers who promote entrepreneurship on social media, but are they promoting an accurate picture? Today’s guest would disagree. He’s an entrepreneur with a strong technical background in web development who founded a brand to help make building a creative team easier. Welcome to the show CEO of Flocksy, Sam Ryan. In this episode, Sam clears up misconceptions about entrepreneurship, shares his background, and tells us where he likes to travel when he isn’t busy running a business. Takeaways: Many people have the misconception that being an entrepreneur is inherently fun and glorious work that will have you driving ferraris and sitting on the beach. In reality, it takes time and effort, and is often slower paced than most expect. Influencers on TikTok or Instagram tend to advertise strategies that are about making money quickly, rather than ones that establish strong business foundations.  Flocksy was created to consolidate outsourced creative work. Instead of needing to utilize different sourcing sites and having difficulty finding creatives, Flocksy provides a one stop shop for finding vetted quality creatives. When you’re an entrepreneur, outsiders won’t fully understand the nuances of running your own business. Having a network of entrepreneurs to rely on for guidance and feedback is a valuable tool for those who are new to the space. When you first start being an entrepreneur, growth is much slower than expected. You may be balancing a day job, which would require you to work on your business in your free time.  While getting a business from 0 to a million is difficult, scaling it presents an even larger challenge. Figuring out how to be a leader, hiring team members, and establishing the necessary functions of a company all present unique challenges.     Links:  Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/actuallysamryan  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samrjyan/  Website: https://flocksy.com/  Quote of the Show “I want to create things that help other people.” - Sam Ryan Ways to Tune In: Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leadership-in-action/id1585042233 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2t4Ksk4TwmZ6MSfAHXGkJI Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/leadership-in-action Google Play - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGVhZGVyc2hpcGluYWN0aW9uLmxpdmUvZmVlZC54bWw Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/4263fd02-8c9b-495e-bd31-2e5aef21ff6b/leadership-in-action YouTube - https://youtu.be/9BHV0PN0hro      Transcript: Mark Stiles: Hey folks. Today's guest is a traveler. He's an investor, a developer, and a blockchain enthusiast. He's an entrepreneur with a strong technical background in web.   He founded a brand to help make building a creative team easier, He's the c e O at Foxy. Please welcome Sam Ryan. Sam, welcome to the show,    Sam Ryan: man. Thank you, mark for having me. I am excited.    Mark Stiles: Cool. Well, let's get right into it. What is a common misconception about leadership running a business and or being an entrepreneur?   That was a    Sam Ryan: great question. So I would have to say, um, I think that a lot of people think that it's a really fun and glorious job. Something that you get a lot of attention. Um, they know it's hard work, but you see people driving around in Lamborghini, so Porsche and they have big houses. And especially with like the whole crypto, uh, faith that happened.   A lot of those people fell into the entrepreneur area. Um, you can think FTX stuff like that, just money going all over the place and people are like, oh, these people are sitting in The Bahamas making a lot of, uh, money doing nothing. Um, that does happen for a few people and I think they're the lucky people, especially when crypto is involved.   But for the majority of entre entrepreneurs and leaders, uh, leaders, , when you talk to them, they're probably not gonna explain exactly what's going on, but you are working on a lot. Um, so when I first started, uh, flui, um, yeah, I had a bunch of friends and they were all in the, they were professionals work nine to five.   Um, and I was the working my full-time job. And then I was also working at nights coding marketing, doing a whole bunch of different jobs and. , you have to learn stuff constantly and a lot of times if you're working a regular job, um, it's you. , do that again and again. And you slowly advance your career. You are changing every 20 minutes.   What? Like something you're learning something new. Um, so I think that's step one. And then step two is scaling up a company. It's way more difficult than most people, uh, can imagine. Like getting the company from zero to a million. It's really difficult. But actually scaling it up, getting a team in place, making it so you get to the next.   That is incredibly hard. Um, so that is where you learn a whole bunch of new things, especially leadership, I would think. I think the, uh, entrepreneur is the first step, um, where you are working by yourself with a small group of people. Then that switches over to where you are leading a whole company and people are looking up to you to make those decisions.   Um, you have to pick the right people to work directly with you. You have to make sure they're picking the right people. So again, you're learning everything over. So, uh, yeah, to sum it up, I think it's a lot more work and a lot more difficult than most people think. And you do have those pluses. You do sometimes make a lot of money.   You have your own schedule. But yeah, it's different than most people would think.    Mark Stiles: So Instagram influencer, taking a picture with a Ferrari, you know, no one is, is in that uh, room with the paper stacked up coding, taking pictures. Look at me, I'm an    Sam Ryan: entrepreneur. Yes, ex. Exactly. And especially when you're trying to grow a company that is scalable, it's really easy to start, I wouldn't say easy,...