How to Make Money Fixing iPhones | Chris Koerner

0:00 I was a student at the University of Alabama and I had

0:03 learned about another business that was fixing iPhones from a retail location

0:08 and they were they were like bragging to the local news that they

0:10 were making 20,000 a month and I had been reading these business books.

0:14 I'd been like looking for my thing to start

0:16 and for whatever reason I said I can do that.

0:19 I can fix phones.

0:20 And so right around the same time one of my classmates um gave me a broken

0:24 iPhone and I saw like a flyer

0:25 on the bulletin board for a guy that fixed iPhones.

0:28 And so I went to his dorm room and um I

0:32 had him fix my iPhone in front of me and I

0:33 asked him all kinds of questions and then I went

0:35 and signed a 5-year lease on on a store a storefront.

0:39 How did you sign a 5-year lease on a storefront with no income?

0:41 So I went to all my previous bosses.

0:44 Um cuz I didn't grow up around wealthy people.

0:46 My parents had no money.

0:47 Um and I basically said, "Hey Danny,

0:49 like I want to start this business fixing iPhones." This was 2010,

0:52 so iPhones were still very new.

0:54 No one thought it was viable, right?

0:56 And the only data point I had was

0:57 one news article I read about some guys, right?

1:00 Um but he's like no.

1:01 I went to my boss at the Thai restaurant where I was waiting tables.

1:04 He said no.

1:06 Everyone I knew said no.

1:07 Um until I went to a guy that I met on my mission in Hungar in Hungary.

1:12 He was Austrian, but he was living in Hungary.

1:14 And I knew he owned a few businesses and I told him and he's like no question.

1:17 How much do you need?

1:19 Um and I had some Pell grants.

1:20 I had some credit card advances.

1:22 Um but I needed 20,000.

1:24 and he gave me the 20,000 and um and I put

1:27 my Pell Grants in, my credit card advance and started the business.

1:30 Why could you not just do that from your dorm?

1:32 That's what everyone told me to do, right?

1:34 Um and that would have been wise,

1:36 but I looked at it as um every day that I don't open, I'm losing money.

1:42 Like I'm effectively losing money.

1:43 And so if I start small and scale this um I'm losing money.

1:48 I want to be at scale now.

1:50 And I did do some research.

1:52 So, I I scraped every single um iPhone repair shop

1:57 in the country with some random piece of software I found online,

2:00 and I learned that a city of 100,000

2:02 could support about two iPhone repair stores.

2:05 And the city I lived in, coincidentally,

2:06 had 100,000 people, and there were no stores.

2:08 And it was it was a similar demographic city as Baton Rouge,

2:12 where Louisiana State was.

2:14 So, I thought, okay, 30,000 students,

2:16 they're all going to get iPhones or smartphones.

2:18 Uh there's no one here fulfilling this need.

2:20 I just knew like this will work.

2:22 This works in all these other cities.

2:24 It will work here.

2:25 And how much did you make from that?

2:27 Um I sold it a few years later for a million bucks.

2:30 Right at a million bucks.

2:31 Who bought it?

2:32 Um a private just a guy that wanted to quit his W2.

2:36 He had a six figure job and he wanted to own his own business.

2:38 And you just had one storefront?

2:40 We had four by the way.

2:41 Okay.

2:41 So you had expanded.

2:42 And how many in that city?

2:44 Um one.

2:44 And it's still there 15 years later.

2:46 That store is still there.

2:47 So, how much did you make

2:48 in your first year running this iPhone screen business?

2:52 Not much at all.

2:54 No.

2:53 No.

2:53 The second year maybe 60 70,000 and then I

2:57 partnered with another business and they took over it.

2:59 I owned a third at that point and then they

3:02 added at one or two more stores and sold it.

3:04 So, why do you think most people never even start?

3:07 They're just afraid of what people will think or say and people don't care.

3:11 That's the whole secret is people don't care about you.

3:13 Do you think it is that or do you think people just overthink what they want?

3:17 Absolutely.

3:18 Yeah.

3:19 Um they get their dopamine from research

3:22 because it feels good to like crunch numbers,

3:24 make spreadsheets, copy the sheet, make this scenario, this scenario.

3:28 It feels really good and we're getting dopamine from that.

3:30 But we need to get our dopamine from action, right?

3:33 From calling and trying to get a customer,

3:36 trying to get a sale, like trying to call and negotiate a lease.

3:39 Um, we get dopamine from both things,

3:41 but the the former is easier, the research side of things.

3:45 So, they get stuck in that loop forever until they get bored

3:47 with it and then they move on and then they tell people,

3:49 "Ah, it just didn't work out." So, how do you encourage somebody

3:52 to start if they're either overthinking the idea or afraid of approval?

3:58 I was afraid of what people thought as well.

4:00 And so, I did something kind of dumb.

4:02 I I put like a false constraint on myself and I was like

4:06 I'm not ever going to post about this to Facebook cuz if I

4:09 have to what I told myself was if I have to start

4:11 a business that relies on my friends and family then they might not scale.

4:15 You don't have a business.

4:17 But what the real reason was was I don't want

4:19 people to see what I'm doing because I might fail.

4:21 I might not do it.

4:21 I don't want to be publicly accountable.

4:23 Right?

4:23 So everything I did I did without the help

4:25 of my friends and family who were willing to help.

4:27 They were willing to be my first customer.

4:29 Right?

4:29 But I I didn't use that.

4:31 So people need to like just let go of that and be willing

4:35 to ask for help from their friends and family to be their first

4:38 customers and they need to do something every single day to keep the ball

4:42 moving because we we focus a lot on focus right that's the question

4:47 everyone asked me like what if you just done one business what if

4:49 you focus what would happen if you focus but we don't focus on momentum

4:54 we don't talk enough about momentum I think momentum is everything and if

4:57 we keep momentum going then it doesn't matter if we focus or not,

5:01 we're going to win if we just keep going.

5:03 Right?

5:03 In my opinion, compounding does not care if we're doing one thing

5:07 or multiple things because if we're getting positive signals from an idea,

5:11 we're not going to be distracted by other ideas.

5:13 The distraction is a signal that something isn't right with this idea.

5:18 But that would require a good idea in the first place.

5:21 What would you say is more important for someone looking

5:23 to become an entrepreneur or make a lot of money in business?

5:25 Should they try to come up with the idea first or hone their skills first?

5:29 I think they should try to find a customer first, a paying customer on any idea.

5:34 It just steal an idea.

5:36 Honestly, like a burger restaurant.

5:39 It people try to think of a new idea.

5:42 New ideas are more likely to fail than anything cuz it's new.

5:45 I want an idea with precedent, right?

5:48 I want a road map of someone that's gone before me

5:50 and done that and then I just want to copy that.

5:53 Um, so I think that's what people should focus

5:56 on is taking another idea that that meshes with their background,

6:01 maybe like their college major had something to do

6:03 with it or their previous job or their passion or something,

6:06 some idea that they've seen out there in the market that looks

6:09 interesting to them and they should try to find a customer there.

6:12 And they'll learn so much more in the effort of finding a customer

6:14 than they would in the effort of trying to research that idea forever.

6:17 And at what point do you decide to cut the idea that maybe this is not working?

6:22 than I do.

6:23 That's an excellent question.

6:24 Um, so that answer for me is different than for others.

6:27 For me, if two weeks have elapsed and I'm still thinking about it,

6:31 like I'm going to bed, I'm on a walk,

6:32 and I'm just like, there's something there's really something to that cuz

6:36 I come across a ton of ideas on a daily basis.

6:38 And so that idea has to compete with all

6:41 kinds of others coming into my brain, right?

6:43 So for me, two to three weeks is about the test that I give it.

6:46 But for the average person, um they have this thing called product market fit,

6:51 which I'm sure you guys are familiar with.

6:53 Um and a normal business, let's call it a business or a business idea,

6:58 feels like pushing a boulder up a hill, right?

7:01 It's exhausting.

7:01 It's hard.

7:02 We acquire two customers, we lose one.

7:04 We acquire three, we lose two.

7:06 That's normal.

7:07 That's okay, right?

7:09 But 5% of the time, you've got product market

7:11 fit where instead of pushing that boulder up a hill,

7:14 you're sprinting down a hill.

7:16 And the boulder represents demand, customers, right?

7:19 Money, and they're chasing you.

7:20 You can't even sleep because you're fulfilling orders, right?

7:23 You just you just find the sweet spot in the market, the pricing, the offer.

7:28 It just all aligns and you have product market fit, right?

7:31 That is a beautiful thing.

7:32 Like that is when you should not have shiny object syndrome.

7:36 And you won't like just by default of the idea being so successful,

7:40 you won't be looking around.

7:41 You'll be figuring out how to fulfill these orders, right?

7:43 It's then when you should not look around.

7:46 But if it's the normal thing and you're pushing a boulder

7:48 up a hill and you still have shiny object syndrome,

7:51 it doesn't mean you should just chase the first idea cuz that boulder

7:54 like you could get over the hill and you could find product market fit.

7:57 Keep pushing it.

7:59 But also listen to those signals because if something sounds

8:02 like a good idea to us, it's for a reason.

8:04 And so it it might sound woowoo on the surface,

8:07 but like we need to get to the bottom

8:10 of like why that idea sounds interesting to us.

8:13 Um, and then maybe spend a little bit

8:15 of time just kind of exploring it a little bit.

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