Venture Step

Dalton Anderson (00:00.814)
Welcome to VentureStep podcast where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasional book review. Like many podcasts that you listen to this time of year, they have typically a episode on lessons learned, reflections, and important things to bring into the next year and their goals. And we're no different here. We are going to discuss the same exact thing. We'll be talking about potential move to New York City, the evolution of VentureStep and

The previous episode touched more on analytics and what has happened. This episode was going to touch on the future and what we want to do. And then we are going to discuss Vibition, which is an e-commerce company that I used to run, partner Lisa, and some lessons learned over the past year and what we should take into the next year and make sure that we remember what we discussed in this year before we move to the next.

Before we dive in, I'm your host Dalton Anderson. I'm going to shorten this intro by the way, it's too long. You can find the podcasts in video and audio format on YouTube. And if audio is more your thing, you can find the podcasts on Apple podcasts, Spotify and YouTube or wherever else you get your podcasts.

New York City. So New York City was a decision potentially that I'll be making after I do an Airbnb or stay with a friend in New York for a couple of weeks.

because New York City is a potential place for me to interact consistently with exceptional individuals.

Dalton Anderson (01:47.414)
a good way to what it is a running coach saying, if you want to run fast, you got to run with fast people. If you want to get better, you've got to interact with better people. But you get to a certain point where for you to consistently interact with people that are multitudes above you and capabilities, you have to go where people are concentrated. And that would be a place like

San Francisco or New York City in America. And these places are known to dream big, have exceptional talent and even the best feel that they are imposters in themselves. And that's what I want. I want to...

learn and see the positive and negative attributes of these people. And I want to take what I want and discard what I don't want in myself that I can see externally. And there's some things that you just can't take out. It just comes with the ride. So if you want to be exceptional and you want to have these things, you're going to have certain personality traits or things that you pick up from just living the life that you're living, which is fine, but recognizing

that those things come for a ride and monitoring how they affect your personal life. Like a good example is when I was playing video games with my friends and I occasionally do that, I would just take it too seriously. Like I, I would want to do an analysis of like what happened there. What was the breakdown and communication or what could we have done better to prevent that scenario?

So next time we win and we slaughter the enemy and we win every game. And that's fine if people want those kind of situations or feedback or analysis or retrospective decision-making and looking at the root cause of the issue. But sometimes we're just trying to play Xbox and my friends are like, Hey, I know.

Dalton Anderson (04:02.104)
Cause there's, there's times where they turn it on. They want to be competitive and, those kind of conversations are accepted and welcomed. But then there's other times where we're just trying to relax, decompress and socialize. And it doesn't need to be life and death situation of this constant battle and commotion of like what happened and what we need to do better on. It's just, we're just playing X-Box man and having someone that will recognize

those things and point them out to you, but you also need to internally recognize it and point it out to yourself. Like not every game is gotta be this tooth and nail competitive.

just crazed winning mentality, just relax and it's okay just to relax. But that being said, I want to go to New York City. I got a little distracted there, but the reason why New York City or San Francisco was on my mind is there was a quote that I read from a video of,

see this.

Nav, Navil. my gosh. Navil Roganak. And he is a angel founder, a legendary person in just technology owns of a fund and he funds companies, early investor and Uber, Airbnb, all sorts of places. And he was an early employee at Twitter and at Google and very insightful and someone that I look up to because

Dalton Anderson (05:50.336)
Not only is he someone that was successful and got to build a lot of cool stuff and had influence on society, but he also is balanced and believes in stoicism and philosophy and overall is maxed out, I would say, in a sense that he's just maxed out. Like he's maxed out financials. He's maxed out in social credibility.

And if you had any doubt that he was an amazing person, then you could just look at his videos and the information he shares with the internet. Yeah, just he's got everything in, in bounce. And that is not something that you typically see and especially not something that is publicly share of someone of that caliber, which I think is really cool.

There's a quote that he says is he's talking and giving advice to people in their twenties. And he points out that where you live in your twenties is one of your most important decisions in your life. And he breaks down all the reasoning behind why he's saying what he says. And if you want to accomplish X, Y, Z, like what I'm trying to do, and I talked about in the last episode, then you need to

find a place where the dreamers are and interact with those people and see what they're seeing and believe in your own dreams. And I believe that potentially is New York City, but I will do an Airbnb and see how I like it and potentially I'll move there. And if I do move, I'll move to Manhattan. But that's New York City and that's kind of the why and the wonder of what that is. And another point of

of importance is New York City would give me a better social life where I could play pickup volleyball anywhere in the city or I could go play futsal on top of a building overlooking the city and seeing the skyline and just all sorts of beautiful interactions with individuals. Where I live now, I love it. It's not...

Dalton Anderson (08:17.262)
Like I don't like where I live. Like Florida is a beautiful place, but Florida doesn't have any massive cities. Don't count Miami. I would really only count cities that you don't necessarily need to have a car. That's very few. That may not be true on how you view a city. Like you think, Oh, Dallas is a city. But if you need a car to drive everywhere, is it really walkable and interactive? Like if you went to Tokyo or Seoul, or if you went to Mexico city,

Those kinds of places, you don't need a car to get around. You can just do what you want to do and use the bus or the train. I have nothing against cars, but if you're to live in a city and pay for the expenses of living in a city, then you should be able to operate independently without the use of private motor. And you should be able to leach off of the public transportation that you're paying for.

But that being said, I'll be able to play pickup sports wherever I'll be able to do these networking events. And it's not to say that I can't do that now. I'll just have to drive 40 minutes or so to the city because I live in the suburbs and the people that I interact with will most likely not be in the caliber of New York city. And maybe my analysis and my hypothesis is

completely false and incorrect. And I'm willing to admit that after I go trial New York city and I'll let you know if I feel differently. So keep that in mind. If I never bring it up again, call me out on it and I will give you my opinion. It's okay to be wrong. Being wrong is one step closer to being right. So the next

Item on the list is VentureStep. So in the previous episode, I talked about what has happened to VentureStep, the difference between YouTube and hosting your podcast on the different networks. So Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever else. I mean, that's pretty much the big two. There was Google Podcast, but that's becoming YouTube Podcast. So Google Podcast is gone.

Dalton Anderson (10:45.56)
So out of those main systems,

Dalton Anderson (10:51.54)
what happened. I talked about that in the last episode. This is where we're going. So one thing that I think is important to acknowledge is my lack of guests on the show. People have requested to become on the show. They've requested to come on the show. I have responded. They followed up. I have just not scheduled things and it hasn't been a priority.

And I keep pushing it off.

and it's unacceptable. So I'm making a commitment to have a guest on the network. I say in the network, like I'm like HBO max or something, but a guest on the podcast once a month. So once a month is a decent commitment. So I'm committing to 12 guests and it might be 12 guests a year and might have two episodes of guests one month and then the next month.

No guests. And I know I'm contradicting what I'm saying, but I am committing to 12 guests. So at least one guest per month. That being said, these people are normally very busy. I myself am busy and to get these two schedules put together and have an episode of one figuring out if this person is qualified to be on the show to what do they want to talk about? Three, putting together an outline.

having them look at it and then scheduling a time. There's quite a few steps to get one guest on the show. So ideally I would have had this commitment already done in maybe November and already had a couple of episodes recorded, but we're doing this now. Another thing that I would like to do is when I figure out where I will be going, either San Francisco or New York city, once I figure out, okay, I'm living in,

Dalton Anderson (12:52.418)
this place and I think that this is my apartment that I'll be staying in.

I'll know my space and I'll know if I need to rent a space or if I have enough space to work with and maybe I get a really small desk and one monitor and amount to the wall and make do with what I've got. But I want to upgrade my setup. I've got this atrocious camera angle where it's coming down, looking down on me from the ceiling and it.

It's just not a good look. I'd rather it be eye level. One, the lighting is harsh because there's a skylight right above me. Two, the camera is HD, but maybe not the best quality with light balance and the camera sensor. It's a...

Dalton Anderson (13:48.206)
Sorry, I had a burp. It is a webcam camera, not a legitimate camera. So upgrading the setup is something I would like to do. Upgrading the lighting in the camera and not only the camera, but the camera angle. The first thing that I want to do is upgrade the lighting, but the lighting one is expensive. Two is space dependent. And depending on your space, you should do different lighting. There is

the honeycomb lights, is the, and maybe that's the cover that goes in the light, but there's lights that have tripods and then there's, or like light stands. And then there's lights that are LED lights that are smaller, not as good, but good enough. And then they have diffusers built in, but they're not as flexible as the lights with the light stand on them because you can't put different diffusers on

the stand, you may be able to put a diffuser on top of the led light, but a lot of times those led lights come with diffusers in them. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's fine. It just changes how the light interacts with the camera and it, and it's shown to your environment. And that affects how your camera picks up the light. And depending on that changes how I would appear. That's all you got to know. So I want to upgrade my

podcasting system. And then another thing I would like to learn and do is scale venture step and scale on two platforms. have identified YouTube and X as places where would be good to scale. That's not to say that the podcast isn't good to scale like the actual distribution of the podcast would like to scale as well.

But as far as social media platforms, excluding scaling the actual podcast distribution, those are the two places that I've identified where the users that would be interested in the content that I'm providing would live. And I'm not necessarily having to search them out. They could easily find me. So those are my thoughts on VentureStep.

Dalton Anderson (16:13.186)
The next thing that I want to talk about is Vibition. Vibition is an e-commerce company that I used to run with my partner, Lisa, before I got my masters and before I was working on that. And I was supposed to start last year, maybe late last year working on it. And things just got away from me. Ideally I was going to find my stride with VentureStep and where episodes weren't taking so long.

And I was able to just rip out an episode, no preparation, no redo's, no edits, just me talking into the mic, looking at the camera and providing content for the viewers and for me to get internal improvement and learning and satisfaction that

I am being disciplined in what I want and I'm steadily working towards my goals. And I feel finally that I've got a handle on Vibition, not Vibition, sorry, VentureStep. And I feel that it's easier for me to create an episode. It's not taken so long. Originally when you have to edit and produce all the audio, it takes a long time, maybe 15 hours.

And then you've got to put together the outline. You've got to research the content. But as time went on, I improved the process. I've automated quite a few things and what used to take 10 plus hours now takes maybe 30 minutes excluding, I would say excluding all the research that needs to be done to do the actual episode. But as far as putting all the things together, like I'll put together my notes and then my notes are

compiled to make a podcast outline.

Dalton Anderson (18:16.062)
using a Google gym, a custom Google gym that I built that makes the podcast outline for me. I put all my notes and schedule my podcasts and notion, and I've got a whole workflow that allows me to keep track of the things I need to do and allows me to do them efficiently. So now that I've got a handle on VentureStep, I want to start adding more to my system and

that would include Vibition and I will be launching a product 2025, 100%. And that may not seem like a crazy goal, but you have to design the product, figure it out, market it, get it into warehouses or build a website, get it stood up. And this isn't some kind of drop shipping. Oh, I'm just taking some link off of Alibaba and I'm putting this together.

I am legitimately going to be designing a product with my partner and we are going to figure out what would be the best marketplace to offer this product, either it on Amazon or Shopify and our own private brand and or Walmart, finding the place, executing the plan and putting something together that is profitable. That's the goal. To do that, that takes months of planning and

Execution and collaboration, all sorts of things that come with launching a product. And when available, I will be sharing some of the progress. I won't be sharing the product, but I will be sharing what I'm doing and the things that I'm working on just to add a little flavor to the podcast. And that's one of the main purposes of the podcast. If you listen to the first episode on YouTube podcast,

It discussed the purpose of venture step. The purpose of venture step is to show you what it takes. lot of times history records the winners, but also the losers, but not the people in between to become a doctor. It isn't an overnight process. It takes 10 plus years to become a doctor. You to go to school. You got to do your residency. Then you've got to find a place that would allow you to work and then

Dalton Anderson (20:43.054)
After that, then you could finally become a doctor. There's all these steps. And a lot of times people just see, she's a doctor, makes all this money, he's got a nice house, husband, partner, and they've got it made. And their life is amazing. But no one really discusses all of the work that was put in to become a doctor.

How was that experience and how was it to build yourself up to become X? Well, that's what VentureStep is supposed to be. VentureStep is supposed to show you, the viewer, that you can accomplish your goals and your dreams if you steadily work towards them and what it takes, what you have to sacrifice, and what works and what doesn't work.

making mistakes and talking about them on the show to provide value to others pursuing things that they want to do.

That is the essence of FincherStep. It's about steadily increasing my capabilities and hopefully yours as well. Or maybe not your capabilities, but your perspective on what can be done. And if you want to take that extra step, then you can. Because you've seen someone repeatedly do that, week in, week out.

But that's the idea with Vibition. I to launch a product and I want to share it on the show. Moving to reflections. Reflections and lessons learned. And I brought it up a couple of times when I'm talking about Vibition and VentureStep is the power of a system. Putting together a system where there isn't highs and lows. There's no peaks, there's no troughs. There's just a subtle hum. And that hum is a subtle output.

Dalton Anderson (22:45.386)
Steadle a steady was saying stettle for some reason a steady output of work. There is no.

Dalton Anderson (22:59.362)
burnout, there is no peak of inspiration, no trough of depression or burnout. There's just a steady home and you just hum along. And that means putting together a system to where you execute day in, day out on what you want to do. What I do and what I learned from my dad when he was doing his own thing and I could observe him.

when I was younger was he would identify the previous day, what he needed to do for the following day. And he would identify maybe three things, four things. And he says, okay, I work out in the morning. I do my stuff that I need to do at work and I run this errand. Then I'm done for the day.

And as long as he would execute on the things that he needed to, then he was good. And that was his day. And the rest of the day, you could just relax, not do anything. And that's the same thing that I do. So I will identify points of which I need to execute on the previous day for the following day. And once I accomplish those things, my day is pretty much over. So that could be...

me painting the walls, sanding the walls, prepping them to paint, painting, and then putting on some electrical outlets. That's what I did a couple weeks ago. And then after that, then I'm free. That also includes cleaning as well, because all the dust. After that, I'm free. And those four items might take me five hours. And then after that, I'm free for the rest of the day and I could play video games. can go on a date or...

Whatever I'm doing.

Dalton Anderson (24:52.396)
just to state for the public, I wouldn't be going on dates. Just FYI for my private life, but.

Yes, just do what you want to do, whatever you want in your free time, because it's your free time now. So you execute what you need to do. And then after that, you're free. So two weeks ago, I sanded the walls, I cleaned up the walls, I cleaned up the work areas, I patched the holes and then I painted. Right. After I painted, then I had to clean up the paint.

and all that other mess that was created from the project. And then after that, then I was free and I wanted to play this game called City Skylines 2. And City Skylines 2 is a advanced city builder.

simulation and you create a whole city, you start out with no one, then you build an industry, you've got commercial, you've got high density residential and commercial, which comes as you go to new milestones of your population, you've got to manage your utilities, including water, sewage, electricity, and garbage.

And then you've got to manage your trade, your imports, exports, your production of, of grain, food, non material imports and exports like coding or professional services. And so you've got to manage all of these things and it's a lot. It's fun and complex and complicated. And you've got to also manage the traffic.

Dalton Anderson (26:51.682)
and the happiness of your citizens. And so you're doing all these things and then you've got to also maintain the profitability of your city because if it's not profitable then you don't stay around.

So that's the game that I wanted to play. And after I finished all the things I needed to do for that day, then for my free time, I played that game and that's what I did. And I built up the city and I added another $10,000, not $10,000, $10,000 in population and I built a university or something like that. And I saved money cause it was super expensive. It like two mil. So it took me forever, but I'm operating a profitable city and I will not go into debt.

for the future of our children. I am very stern on being a profitable city and building these universities from just the tax dollars. But joking aside, creating a system to where you are working towards your goals, and that was just something that had to work on. So I have Vibition, VentureStep, finishing my Nana's Home. Once I finish my Nana's Home, that will free up

stuff for venture step and vibration, but finishing my Nana's home has always been a priority to me. And it's very important to me that I finished Nana's home and I leave it in a good shape. That being said, that was an example, but you could also transfer that example to things that you need to do in your personal life or your relationship or errands or professional activities. Just having three main points that need to get done and then some optional things.

will greatly reduce the amount of perceived stress that you have because not everything is important. And there's a whole matrix like urgent but not important, important but not urgent, and important and urgent, and then not important and then not urgent, and classifying these tasks or objectives that you need. You don't have to make it that complicated. Just figure out what needs to get done for the next day.

Dalton Anderson (29:05.516)
and what you would be happy with and don't overload yourself. Sometimes these tasks might take four hours. Sometimes it might take three. Sometimes it might take 12. Doing those things will greatly reduce your likelihood of burning out and will allow you to have a steady hum to your output towards your goals, which is important. A good example would be if you wanted to lose weight,

You shouldn't go on an extreme diet. You should slightly change your lifestyle and slowly.

hum your way to where you want to go. And if you do rash changes to your lifestyle, most likely there is a rubber band effect and it might whiplash back to the way it was. So if you slowly correct your actions and you find a system that works for you and you live the lifestyle that you want, then you will achieve your

goal of losing weight or same thing if you wanted to work out. If you haven't been working out that much before, don't focus on a three hour workout. One, those probably aren't efficient. And then two, your body's not ready for that. So don't try to do that. If you want to get into the gym five days a week, one, I don't think that you need to do that. But if you wanted to do 15 minutes or 20 minutes, just get started. Getting started is

getting 85 % there. The other, the other leftover is easy. Once you just get there and you say, I'll just do one exercise. And then before you know it, you don't want to leave. You're like, I'm having a great time. Let's just keep going. So just do 15 minutes, commit to 15 minutes. When I made the commitment to venture step podcast, I committed to 10 minutes a week. If you look at all of the episodes that I've been outputting, those episodes are more than 10 minutes.

Dalton Anderson (31:13.282)
The average episode time is probably around 38 minutes. Last time I checked, it was a little over, but I've been shortening my podcast episodes due to some feedback.

So just put that in mind. Have a system execute consistently. The next thing, once you have a system, avoid catastrophic events. If you avoid catastrophic events and don't do stupid things and don't put yourself at...

elevated risk of bankruptcy, getting fired, or whatever the scenario is, or getting physically harmed.

that would be a recipe for success. If you have a system or you have a steady.

output of effort over these sporadic bursts, if you avoid catastrophic events, I assure that you will be successful.

Dalton Anderson (32:14.154)
identify and create truth-seeking groups and

Dalton Anderson (32:22.69)
The Trueseegan Group's piece is from Annie Duke.

thinking in bets and her philosophy with truth-seeking groups, which I think was important to emphasize and maybe something that I learned over time from experience, but not something that I explicitly explained to myself or to others was truth-seeking groups are important to hold yourself and others accountable.

And I think you would understand what True Seeking Group is, a group with individuals who maybe have similar goals and tastes and will hold you accountable for what you're trying to do and you will hold them accountable for what they want.

But the confusion is when you try to blur the lines between truth seeking groups and friends. Truth seeking groups can also be your friend and they should be your friend, but your friends are not all part of the truth seeking group that you're within. And confusing that will cause issues with your relationships with your friends that aren't part of the truth seeking groups. So recognizing is this friend also part of the truth seeking group?

that I want to establish or did I have this conversation on is this person seeking this kind of input and criticism and harsh criticism?

Dalton Anderson (33:48.942)
Or is this person my friend and they're my Xbox friend or they're my golf friend or they're my work friend. And identifying the differences is important if you want to have these consistent relationships and not everyone is going to want to be an interesting group. Not everyone wants to have that extra responsibility or criticism or expectation of who they should be and who they want to become. And that's okay.

because not everyone needs to do those things. But if you are interested in having a trucian group, make sure that you identify what group they are also not within or within and vice versa.

Dalton Anderson (34:35.586)
The next thing is from the daily stoic, Ryan holiday and meditations by Marcus Aurelius and kind of an overlap because there is quite a few snippets and quotes from the meditations in the daily stoic, but I figured I would roll them all into one personal space. Your only personal space that you truly have is your mind. That's it.

Everything else is just...

There you can't control what happens to you. You can't control what people do. You can't control people physically harm you. The only truly

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space, the only space that's truly yours is the one in your head. And that controls how you reflect on your actions. That also is how you might take situations and how you might feel about them.

Your personal space is limited to your mind and your mind is how you interact with the world and the only place that you have true ownership of. Everywhere else is a shared space and you can't control those interactions or what others will do to you or to others.

And it is important to control your thoughts and your reactions, but still be expressive. It's not about hiding your emotions. It's about regulating them. And once again, it's related to this whole system thing. You don't want to have drastic highs and lows. You want to be consistent. And consistency in the subtle hum

will level your reactions and make you more clear-minded and easily diffuse hostile situations or conflicts and not being emotionally tangled.

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things that don't matter. And doing so, you will find peace because you accepted what you cannot control.

The next thing that's related to this and also something that was talked about in the daily Stoic and meditations was not everyone is out for you. The world is a positive place and just the way that society is, most of the negativity is elevated towards you and the positivity goes unseen. So that being said,

People typically think about things happening to them in a negative light.

And it's easy to become defensive on situations that may paint you in a bad light or might take away some of your resources. And when I say resources, it's broad, like your girlfriend, your job, your partner, your friends time, but many people just don't know the bigger picture. They don't have ill intentions to not being malicious.

they just didn't realize that what they're doing affects you. And understanding that not everyone is out for you and taking that, well, maybe they didn't know, or maybe they were busy and didn't realize that when they said this, this affects me. Taking that approach and dealing with it in that manner instead of,

Dalton Anderson (38:34.21)
Why is everyone out for me? Why would they ever do that? that's horrible that these people are trying to attack me and attack my reputation.

You're not the center of the universe.

No one is trying to be nefarious towards you. dealing with that and taking that approach of not everyone is out for me will greatly improve your life and your personal and your professional life. being able to communicate this to someone that you think potentially

is doing things that are hurting you and avoiding defensiveness and seeking understanding. And when you do that, you're assuming good intentions and you're trying to understand their perspective and you're trying to give them the perspective that they may be missing. And that's important. You level set with them. You understand where they're coming from. And then you illustrate how those actions affect you.

And doing so, you can correct the behavior and you're not clouding your workspace or your personal life with this world of uncertainty and looking over your shoulder and you're dealing with things in a manner that people will respect and remember.

Dalton Anderson (40:15.724)
and they will appreciate the feedback and the understanding. If they aren't receptive to what you're saying, that's a different story. But I've never encountered a situation where these things are happening and they just won't listen. And maybe I have.

But at the moment, I can't recall an exact example. But for the most part.

they will be receptive. And since I have difficulty recalling the situation of which people weren't receptive, one, it's probably not important to remember. Remember on the positive things and that's an easier way to change your behavior or others' And two, it probably doesn't happen often enough for me even to remember. So those are probably the two reasons why that is happening. But we are live and once again, I don't.

do any edits. So, and I hope in this episode, you felt that it was concise, valuable, and insightful. And I hope that we keep growing together in the new year. And I'd love to hear what you have planned for 2025 and share your thoughts on some of your goals and ambitions. And of course, next week I'll see you then. And once again, I really appreciate your support.

your viewership, your interaction, and I can't wait for you to listen in next week. Goodbye, good night, good afternoon, wherever you are in this world. Have a great day.