Midway through the episode, the host turned the question on himself. He runs an agency in Latvia and a separate international business, and both make money. The international one makes more and paid for an apartment in Cyprus when he was 17. The Latvian one is the one he enjoys. When he pulls back from the agency, quality slips. He sleeps three or four hours a night working across two time zones. Markuss Hussle, a guest from an earlier episode, had told him to pick one.
Elvis didn't dismiss that advice. He added a second route, and then answered a related question for listeners who haven't started yet: how do you choose between two ideas? Here is what he said, in order.
Option one: make one of them run without you
Elvis called it one of the hardest decisions a founder can face, because both options are tempting and both pay, and you can't be in two places at once. He agreed with the choose-one advice, with a specific goal attached. Build one business so well that you only need to put a small amount of time into it each week. Then go into the new market and build the other thing.
So focus has an end point. You concentrate until the first business can survive a few hours a week from you, then you move.
Option two: find someone and let them decide
The faster route, as Elvis put it, is to find someone, trust them, and give them the access to make decisions. He had the same problem a few years ago. Every time he stepped out, the business stopped growing. So he asked a former client who is also his mentor how to keep good people around for years.
The mentor's answer was that you need a person you give a piece of the pie to. The key word is decisions. A team that executes while every call still waits on you hasn't taken anything off your plate. The person has to be able to decide without you.
Hand out equity against a goal, not up front
The mentor's advice came with a condition: not right away. Set a goal instead. If after one year the business reaches a certain revenue and that person helped get it there, they get, for example, an extra 5 percent of the company.
Elvis explained why. Equity given up front can go both ways. Some people feel ownership and work as hard as an owner. Others get comfortable, take it for granted, and ease off. Starting with a smaller piece and tying the next piece to next year's target keeps the incentive pointed forward.
The mentor also gave him the line that sits under all of this: if you're in the business all the time, it's not really a business. You need to work on it, not only in it.
Some jobs you keep on purpose
Stepping back doesn't mean disappearing. Both men said they still go to the first shoot with a big new client themselves. Elvis brings a videographer so he doesn't have to set anything up, and uses the day to be fully present and build the relationship, especially with a major entrepreneur.
The host framed it as communication rather than trust. A filmer's job, in his view, is to film and also to talk with the client, and a lot of filmers don't get that. Until you've hired people who do, the first impression stays with you. Elvis's shortcut for spotting those people: a videographer who laughs, jokes and acts like a partner on set is a good sign.
Choosing between two ideas before you start
For listeners stuck between, say, dropshipping and content creation, Elvis gave a filter. First, do your homework on both: the market, the opportunity, the demand. If both still look equally good, take money out of the equation. Which one would you do if you didn't have to think about money?
His reasoning is about competition. Your real competitor, he said, is you in the mirror. If he picked trading, he'd be up against people who love sitting in front of charts all day, while he'd be looking for excuses to escape. Pick the one you'd keep doing anyway. For Elvis, that's content: he loves being on camera and loves it when a client goes viral and gets sales or messages of thanks.
He was clear this isn't permission to take a smaller opportunity. A pizza shop you love is not equal to a business with far more upside. The passion test only applies when the two options have the same potential. And if you're young with no money, start with what needs only your time, effort and energy. Online, he said, you can start without capital, as long as you accept it's going to be work.
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