000: Why listen to Unsexy Entrepreneurship?

Charles (: 00:22

Welcome to the Unsexy Entrepreneurship podcast. If you are a millennial who is done with corporate America and obsessed with starting, acquiring, and growing your own business so you can be financially free and independent, you are in the right place. We’re not gonna hype you up or give you unrealistic expectations. This is not crazy BS—we’re just real inside advice. We’re gonna talk through our struggles and just really help you get started on your business.

My name is Charles Harris. I’m a CPA, and I run a small accounting firm. And with me is my co-host…

Seth Jenson (: 00:51

I’m Seth Jenson. I have a PhD in business strategy, and I build entrepreneurs. I run an entrepreneurship center and have helped hundreds—probably thousands at this point—of young people start businesses.

Charles (: 01:04

So Seth, why are we even doing this?

Seth Jenson (: 01:06

Yeah, so it’s funny—we listen to a lot of business podcasts. It’s our profession. I’m familiar with major thinkers in the field and have listened to what they’ve done, but we haven’t found a place where people can go to get the nitty gritty.

The real principles that are determinative in those early stages—the things that actually make or break businesses, right? So if you’re someone deciding to take the plunge, it’s hard to find that place that’s going to give you a framework that’s going to help you get started and act today—and know the things that go beyond the hype, like you say, and situate yourself in things that are actionable.

So that can be everything from:

“Hey, I’m looking to buy this business, and they’re giving me all this information about revenue figures and customer bases—how do I sort through this noise to know whether this is actually, fundamentally, a good business to buy?”

Or it could be:

“Hey, I want to do entrepreneurship, but I actually don’t know what it’s going to be like when I’m in the driver’s seat—when I’ve cut the cord from my corporate job. How should I weigh the pros and cons? What’s this actually going to do in my life?”

So we want to focus on those things—the things that actually matter in the early stage. And again, it could be acquiring a business, it could be starting a business—but what’s actually going to matter for you?

Charles (: 02:18

Yeah.

From my perspective, I started my own business and I realized how easy it is in some ways—and how hard it is in others. And the opportunities it’s given me have just blossomed, and they keep growing and getting bigger.

I just want other people to be able to have that, which is why I reached out to Seth and we started talking about this—because I just think it’s so much fun and so good for people.

And I really think that’s the way the world is going—to micro-entrepreneurship all across the board. And so I just want to help others get there. I started looking online for exactly what I would want if I was starting, and I just couldn’t find it.

And so hopefully we can answer those questions.

Seth Jenson (: 02:56

Yeah.

Well—and I love that. The dirty little secret of entrepreneurship is that anybody can do it. Right? The thing I tell my students all the time is: all the incredible businesses you see in the world were built by somebody just like you. Flesh and blood. Didn’t know what they were doing. Only knew a fraction of what it was going to take.

But if you keep problem-solving and moving, you’re gonna get there. You can get there every single time.

That being said, it’s hard to take that first step if you don’t have some foundation to begin with and some guidance along the way, because there are some key things that will totally change your path. And there are some big mistakes that we can help you avoid.

I love the difference that it’s already made in your life. It’s definitely transformed my career and my income in ways that are incredibly meaningful for me.

So I’m excited about the opportunity to give people the tools, the frameworks, the ideas, the insights that are actually going to make a difference for them in this transition—because it is scary, right? It wasn’t easy for you to take the plunge.

Charles (: 03:53

Terrifying. It’s terrifying.

But boy, it’s been so worth it. And I’m sure we’ll go through my story quite a bit throughout this podcast—and then a lot of other entrepreneurs as well. We both have a lot of friends in this space and we work—I work with a lot of companies, both that are entrepreneurs and starting their own business or acquiring.

And so we’re excited to cover that with everyone.

Seth Jenson (: 04:15

So let’s go a little deeper then into our background and kind of what brought us here. Do you want to give us the two-minute version of your story, Charlie, and why you’re passionate about this?

Charles (: 04:24

Yeah. So I am an accountant. I’m a CPA. I worked at a big CPA firm—worked on hundred-million-dollar clients. Then I went to work for a pretty big startup and was there for a while. Then I went to one other company, just trying to get a feel.

The last company I was at—great people, loved the company—but I was going stir-crazy within the first six weeks. I thought about either going back to a startup, where it was more fast-paced and energizing and interesting, or I just tossed around the idea of maybe I should start my own firm.

The first two people I talked to gave me two referrals—and the rest is history. Because at that point I was like, “Well, maybe this can work.” And then I started iterating and experimenting, and suddenly, here I am, running my own accounting firm. And it’s just been fun.

Seth Jenson (: 05:04

Yeah.

Well, it was so cool to watch you on that journey, right? We had some early conversations when you were deciding, and then to see it kind of month by month build so quickly was really exciting for me—as a passenger on your journey, as an observer.

Charles (: 05:19

Well, you’ve got a PhD in entrepreneurship. So tell us a little bit about how that happened and what you do.

Seth Jenson (: 05:23

Yeah. So I guess I was your classic “good-at-school” student in some sense. I did finance for my undergrad, and then I wanted to do academics because I looked around me and my professors seemed to really be enjoying their life. And that’s all I knew.

You know—especially young people—one of the main struggles is you just don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know what opportunities are available to you, right? You don’t understand enough about the economy to know what entrepreneurship would look like—or even just the realm of different career paths.

So I just did what was in front of me. I pursued academics. I did a master’s in sociology at the University of Oxford. I fell in love with the university—it’s just a magical place. So I stayed and did a PhD in strategy, as the official kind of area that I focused on—academic firm-focused strategy.

But my research all looked at early entrepreneurship—applying those strategic lenses to the early zero-to-one stages.

At the end of my PhD, the University of Oxford hired me to consult them on how to build out their entrepreneurial ecosystem. They were basically looking at their peers like Harvard or MIT or Berkeley and saying, “Hey, we’re best in the world in terms of academics, but we want some of this entrepreneurial action that those other universities enjoy.”

So I got to go spend six months working with all the best—[Tech]stars, MassChallenge, talking to YC founders, spending time in the Harvard Innovation Lab and the Stanford D-School—basically vacuuming up all their best practices to bring back to Oxford and help them build up their programs.

Life-changing opportunity. I just fell in love with the work of building entrepreneurs—helping young people start businesses.

My current role is: I run an entrepreneurship center at Utah Valley University. We’ve kind of been able to build it from the ground up, which has been really fun.

Then on the side, I consult for major firms. Recently, it’s been a lot of AI, but also things like homebuilding. And again, it’s a lot of universities that I consult for—helping them maintain strategic advantage in the marketplace.

So those are kind of the two hats I wear: the corporate strategy hat, and the help-people-build-a-great-business hat.

Charles (: 07:24

Well, we’re really excited for y’all to join us on our journey. If you find the Unsexy Entrepreneurship podcast helpful, please like and subscribe wherever you’re getting your podcasts—and leave us a review as well.

It really helps us, and we read each and every review. Your feedback really helps guide us in how we can help you as a small business owner.

Seth Jenson (: 07:41

See you next time.