Do you consider yourself resilient and what does that mean to you? In this podcast, Resilient Entrepreneurs with Two Four One, we chat with business owners about what resilience means to them as they share their inspiring stories and life lessons.
What we've learned running our own business, is you're never alone even when it feels like it. So tune in anytime to this podcast. We're always here for you celebrating resilient entrepreneurs just like you. We're Laura and Vicki from Two Four One - a marketing company for early stage business owners who want to launch, grow and be resilient.
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Today we welcome Donte Hunt to Resilient Entrepreneur and we can't wait to see where this conversation goes. Donte is an example of following your passion, of doing what you love, loving what you do, and it's going to be a great conversation. He is also the CEO and founder of MediWaste, which is Bermuda’s sole provider of Medical Waste Management Services - they collect and dispose of all medical waste generated on the island. He's passionate about three things he tells us - his family, spiritual growth and entrepreneurship. And we're going to dig into probably all of those three things. He spent over 20 years operating businesses that span across virtually every industry sector, retail, finance, ecommerce, hospitality, cleaning services, and tech. So let's go! Hi, Donte, welcome.
Hello, Vicki and Laura. How is it going?
Fantastic.
You just heard an audience member.
Okay, the dogs are happy too. We might hear Sky, Laura's cat and my birds. So Donte, tell us what you love most about being an entrepreneur?
What do I love most? Great question! You know what, I truly believe that entrepreneurs are in the artists’ space, we like to create, at least that's what I like to do, I like to create. And it's something special about creating, you have the latitude to do almost whatever you want. You're in the pilot seat, if you will. The ultimate satisfaction is something, sometimes, and I say sometimes, sitting back and looking at what you've created and it just feels absolutely awesome. The reason why I say sometimes is because we get so stuck in as entrepreneurs, right? And so we've never, we've never arrived, right? And so, sometimes we cannot just see all of what we've accomplished, because we're always looking for more and more and more. Have I done enough X, Y and Z? So I guess first and foremost it's about being a creator, naturally. We talked about this earlier, you get the sense of freedom, right? It's give and take but you control the direction of the business and it's up to you. That can be scary but sometimes it can be, many times it can be awesome. It all depends on how you prepare yourself when you get into a role of an entrepreneur and leaving a company,
Yeah, how do you prepare? That's what I want to know, immediately, how do you prepare to become an entrepreneur? So some of our listeners are just at that early stage, maybe they've got a side hustle and they're ready to go full time into it, or they're just ready to make a big change. How do you prepare to get into entrepreneurship?
Great question. You don't know what you don't know. So you're saying, well, Donte, what does that mean and how can I solve that? Well, nowadays, any jurisdiction you're in, there are entrepreneurial .. there's an entrepreneurial ecosystem, where you have companies, businesses, government quangos or government entities that assist entrepreneurs in figuring out the stuff they need to know before they start. And the awesome part about that is that you're dealing with entrepreneurs already who have been through it, and you might be able to sit down and get a chance to get some business advice. They're not going to tell you how to make your particular business blow up, but they're gonna give you the basics. For instance as a CEO/entrepreneur they have to, or you have to, I have to know financials like the back of my hand. I do. Some persons will say, Well I have an accountant for that. But yes you can have an accountant for that, your business might need and have so many transactions that you need somebody there day-to-day, running those numbers and ensuring that everything's reconciled but you need to know how to read a cash flow statement, a profit loss, a balance sheet, and understand what that means and how you can utilise that data to guide your business going forward. So that's one thing, maybe the audience, some are thinking, oh my gosh, financials, I don't like to do it. I just like to do what I love, my passion whatever that might be, fixing something, building something, selling something, but at the end of the day, you are a CEO, you are CFO, you are COO, you need to know everything. And so that is the stuff that some persons don't realise they have to get stuck into. And whether it be self-teaching if they want to do the self-teaching thing, I've done it. I love YouTube.
YouTube University. Absolutely.
I mean, QuickBooks. YouTube. It’s phenomenal.
So accountants out there who will .. not all accountants are just there to take your money and do the work - some accountants for early stage business owners will actually train you on how to use QuickBooks, or how to understand the balance sheet and what your monthly routine could look like. So I think that's another insight for people
I actually did that initially, when I had a restaurant for four years. And yeah, I didn't know - this was getting into paying employees, dealing with payroll tax, all these different moving parts, and I wanted to be able to do it myself and that's what it did. I paid an accountant for two or three hours, I called him up every now and again, yes, it's a cost but it's minimal, because it's temporary.
It's teaching you how to fish instead of feeding you fish, right? I think it's a great way to go when you're starting your own business. And I think you touched on a couple of really important points there that I'd love to go back to. And one is, maybe we could talk a bit about what the difference is between a passion project and a business. Because a passion project, maybe you're not the CEO, CFO, you're really just doing what you love, but is it really a business? You're making money out of it? I feel like it's a mindset thing. But what's your view on it?
Look if you're doing a passion project.. what is a passion project? To be honest, if it's something that, if you break even you don't care and even if you take a little loss, the benefit is maybe giving back to humanity, something like that, well that's fine. If you are looking to be in the green, and grow and upscale and be what I believe entrepreneurs are, then yes you're gonna have to get out of your comfort zone and learn some stuff that maybe you don't want to.
That is the nature of the beast or the beauty.
The beauty of the beast!
And you can't have one without the other. I think I would rather say either you're being philanthropic or you're running a business. But, am I passionate about medical waste? Until I started this project, or at least started pitching to get the contract and do all the stuff in 2018, late ‘18, and I just got the contract in early 2022, and so it was a long road, I had no idea of anything about medical waste but what I am passionate about is creating. And I knew that I had all the elements to put it together as long as I had the proper team that could do all the all technical stuff. I knew I would learn a lot but do I need to know specifically everything about the medical waste business? Well, in time I will but initially I didn't have to because I surrounded myself with the professionals that could fill in the gaps. That's why networking is so important, being purposeful about your interactions, always being mindful about who you're around. Maybe that sounds, laborsome, but I think it comes naturally over time. Look, I want to grow, I want to make this happen.
Yeah, you put more of you in, more of your effort in to that. So take me back to when you were young Donte. When did entrepreneurship first enter your life? Like at what stage? Were you a young entrepreneur? Did you have a lemonade stand? Where did entrepreneurship first start for you?
I credit my mom. I credit my mom for the beginning buds of entrepreneurship. She would have me, when I wanted something she would often tell me to literally write a proposal of 1) why it was important, 2) what I could do to get the remuneration, to get the funds from her, and I would do that. It made sense to me and I was thinking well, I think that's the beginning. I still am an artist, I do graphic design, I used to draw a lot before, so I am in the artist space. For me it just felt ‘You know what, I can control this’. There was some control and some creativity there and I can chart my future through my needs. Did I know how to write a proposal? Not really. Did we have Google back then? No, but I just slapped something together and tried to be as good as I can with that proposal because I knew if it was good .. she’d say yes!
What did you get Donte? What did you manage to earn for yourself with good business cases as a kid?
You know what it was simple stuff. Back then I wanted a Nintendo. One of the beginning games, the Nintendo and various things and then it branched off from there. So I started cutting my relatives' grass.
Oh Laura might have fixed your lawn mower!
We have some things in common, it's kind of freaky because my first job, I've said this in my podcast way back, that my first job was fixing lawn mowers, I'd literally learned how to and I used to make $20 a lawnmower. Yeah, I could fix the pull handle, all kinds of stuff. I can’t do any of it now but yeah, my grandmother's friend, he just did that for a living and he taught me how to do it. Yeah, it was cool. And graphic design, I too am a graphic designer so that is pretty awesome and I love what you said about all entrepreneurs are creatives. And I do believe that too, I think it's the creation of something and not necessarily an artist like a fine artist, but we're all artists and how we create so love that, love that. What would you say is your greatest achievement so far? What are you most proud of?
My greatest achievement has nothing to do with business or entrepreneurship. I don't know if I can say it’s an achievement, but it's my family, the love of my daughters; that has very clear and direct lines to the impetus of why I do what I do and I push where I have to and where I want to in entrepreneurship. One could say freedom but also one could say… the remuneration, the funds that I make from many ways really, for me, I'm a very simple person. I don't need much to survive but it supports the happiness and joy of my family and so that is valuable to me, very valuable to me. So achievement? I've been blessed with a beautiful family, two great daughters. And yeah, it just equals my impetus to do what I'm passionate about which is entrepreneurship.
Yeah, that’s your ‘why’ to be successful. And Donte, you mentioned spirituality is important to you and how does that play into the person who you are at home and in business.
As entrepreneurs, you have to.. anywhere in life, whether you run track, I ran track back in the day, performance is based on how well you take care of yourself, how well you treat yourself. So for me, spirituality is taking care of myself, it's taking care of my mind. Challenges will happen and when everything's great, it's great, right? But when challenges hit, when things hit you sideways, for me, it's my spirituality that helps me perform the best during those hard times. Because during those hard times you either do one of two things, either you flounder and you fail and not learn, or you deal with a situation and you do learn. Spirituality keeps you balanced. I make a practice every morning, I wake up early, very early, just before the gym and that's what I, I go to the gym as well. That's part of my balance, I do my spiritual thing, head to the gym and that's all before the day starts and then I kick in. And at that point, I'm ready and ready to deal with whatever, and when nothing hits the Richter scale, then that's great. I'm still ready. I'm ready to do whatever I do. But if something does, I'm ready for that as well.
Keeps you earthed, it keeps you grounded.
Yeah, we love a good morning routine. We love to hear about a good morning routine. It's definitely a factor in a lot of people's success. Every big successful famous person will give you their morning routine and why it is so important. So now we're talking about success. Let's talk about failure. What's your mindset around failure? And have you had any spectacular ones?
Oh, yeah. I’ve had like fireworks!
We want to know! We embrace failure on this podcast.
Yeah so at the time the failure felt massive and huge. It's how you deal with them. At the time when I had my biggest failure, it's devastating. It was devastating, hugely. It’s hard to look at it when you're in it. When I say in it, it's happening. It's hard to smile and say, Oh, this is a great learning opportunity, I'll use this later, wonderful! It hurts as an entrepreneur, trust me. And for the audience I'm sure you've got startups with persons considering starting and those who are just new to it and have had a little bite of that failure. But I can tell you from experience that the failures that I've had have led me to MediWaste and the skill set, the skill set, the mindset that I have today, Resilient Entrepreneurs, this is the title of what we're talking about that you’ve got to be resilient. You ask any entrepreneur who you see today as successful and many might believe, Oh my gosh, how did they get there? They will tell you, they have been, to hell and back. Nobody sees that part. They just see all the great stuff and the millions and everything's going great. But yeah, resilient entrepreneurs, you're resilient because you deal with failure and you extrapolate all of the experience and the things that will propel you towards success.
I think to know that you will always get through it, that you mentioned, when you're in it, it feels really bad. But to know that it will not be that bad always and that you will always get through it. And I always say that it'll work out in the end and if it hasn't worked out yet, then you're not at the end.
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And know that other people have been through it. Right. That's a good one. I'm talking bad. I mean, you think your situation is bad, other people have been through it. And I think the mindset needs to be, yes, resilience, but Okay, so now, what do I do? Now what do I do? And you keep on seeking what you should do and keep on propelling yourself forward. That's all you can do. Because as soon as you fold, you've lost, you've lost. And then, we're all winners as entrepreneurs, we're all winners, always.
Can I just take you back to something you said in the beginning about how you've never arrived when you're an entrepreneur, how you're always seeking or chasing or building and you get to that place where you've, you've done something magnificent yet, it's not quite enough, it's that personality trait that I think a lot of us share. Yeah, can we talk into that a bit?
It's an imperative thing, right? Because you have something called competition. That's always knocking on your door. And so naturally you always want to know that you're doing it right, you're doing it in the most efficient way, your expense side of your profit-loss is as lean as it can be. On the revenue side, you're being as innovative as you can be. You're staying in tune with the trends of the day and not staying in tune but hopefully, you're at a point where you can set the trends. And so yeah! Amazon’s Bezos, Bezos says that they are always in startup mode. They are always in startup mode. And that's synonymous with you never arrive, you're always in startup. Okay, we're here. Because there's a cyclical nature to the success of a business. We take a look at Blockbuster. Yeah, that's an age-old case study. It's a beautiful one. Well, they wouldn't think it's beautiful, but it's a beautiful one where they rode the wave. They were startup, it was a great business, there was a lot of demand but they got complacent. They moved their mindset from startup role to have ‘arrived’ and were no longer a startup. What happened? They didn't innovate. They didn't transform themselves. So you had the likes of Netflix come in and take the mantle, if you will.
Blockbusters could have been Netflix.
Yep, 100%, they had the capital, they had the clientele, the trust...
The brand, everything. It's an interesting story to study for sure. And some of that speaks to technology, right? And I think a lot of people fear new technology coming and taking something away from them. You know, right now there's a rise in AI, it's all everybody is talking about in this space. We're hearing it all day every day. There are people that are nervous, we're finding new stuff, Vicki and I stumbled upon a really cool AI site last night we're really excited about learning more on. So what's your thoughts on when technology comes, how do we get past the fear of Oh, my God look at what I'm going to lose, in that same space as like staying in startup mode. Like what do you think about adding the new technology that's coming in such a rapid pace into that?
Well, I think technology is yet just another element that will potentially affect your business, similar to competition, similar to new products or new services. It's the mindset of the entrepreneur that would allow you to ride that wave and get ahead of it, as opposed to being under it. And the mindset is, I will do what I have to do in order to stay above board. AI is going to come. So if it does affect you, it doesn't affect every business, for instance, if you're a carpenter, it might in some capacity, I don't know. But guess what? Start learning about it. If it potentially does. So it goes back to what I said earlier, you’ve got to get out of your comfort zone and you're gonna have to learn things that you don't want to. I mean, this is maybe the ugly part of being an entrepreneur, but it's the real part. If you want to be ahead of the game, if you want to be successful, if you want to upscale and grow, well, no pain, no gain.
I also have a favourite expression of that, fear and excitement are the same emotion. Only fear is without the breath. So we, if there's something where we say Oh, what is this going to mean for our business? We can breathe into it and say, Yeah, I'm excited about this, I'm embracing it, how can I help it work to my advantage? How can I take advantage of it now, get ahead of the curve, as you said Donte and really apply this back into the business to make us even better than we are?
Yes. I happen to love learning new stuff. And now, over the years, I just love learning new stuff, particularly if it has anything to do with nurturing my baby. What is my baby? It's my business. And so if it's going to nurture my baby, I'm all in it, I'm all in. Because your business is your baby. And when I say your business, it's maybe a lowercase b, I just made that up, it makes more sense. I say business, because your business as you see it today might not be the business that it is tomorrow; there could be some pivoting in there, there could be some.. more than a pivot, it could be like a 3000 degree turn, like you're spinning. But your business is a creation that you have made it started at one point, it could be something else. And also entrepreneurs, allow yourself to allow the business to morph because what happens as entrepreneurs we get attached to the creation in our mind - it's got to be this way, and it's got to be that, it's going to be great. And we try to fit everything within this particular idea and we don't allow it to morph, and we don't allow ourselves to allow it to morph. If that makes sense.
Yeah, it makes sense. It's tricky too because on one hand, you want to try to protect it as much as possible, not let outside influences change your idea because that can often be a problem for entrepreneurs because we often start out at least as solo entrepreneurs, with this idea in our mind and then we start talking to others and then you stop talking to others because you don't like all the outside influences, it’s a really tricky balance, especially in the early stages. So what do you tell people? Because you work for BEDC, which is Bermuda Economic Development Corporation, and you help out and support and train and build and grow these amazing entrepreneurs. What do you tell them when they're in that phase of.. just the ideation part, and they're worried about too many influences. And my mom says I should be doing this and your loved ones are saying this, and everybody says - how do you protect and balance between your idea and allowing it to grow and morph into a successful business?
Yeah, that's a great question. So your idea is your idea and you may have gotten this idea based on assumptions that you have, based on assumptions. Those assumptions could be things that you've seen, there are external factors that you're saying, Well, you know what? I think I have a solution to this problem. Entrepreneurs naturally.. this is exactly what we do, we solve problems. And so you're like, look, I've got this solution and that's the ideation phase. Right? Believe it or not, nobody comes up with an idea because they just woke up and boom, I should make widgets. It's some external force that says, I should do that. Now once you get to that point, the first thing you should do is validate those assumptions. So there's no balance between people talking to you and your idea, there's zero balance. You need to talk to people, forget about balance. You need to talk to people so that they can validate your idea. Yes, you will go to the family and family is probably the weakest group of people to validate your idea. You need to go out to people you don't know. This is oftentimes, I'm between an introvert and an extrovert. But I can be very extroverted so I don't mind talking to people. I can go out and most times, I don't really care what they think. But I'm gonna be very sensitive. And I'm gonna have a plan and go out and validate my assumptions with regards to my business. You’ve got to do that and the more people you touch on whatever platform that you desire, whether your platform being yourself, I think that's the best if you go out yourself as much as you can, right? And then other platforms, surveys, you name it, but you have to be willing to be wrong. You’ve got to be willing to be wrong about your idea. Or, because if you're not, on the flip side, that can hurt you financially, emotionally, you name it. If you go ahead with your idea with blocking your ears, closing your eyes, I know it's right. You got to put in that work. I know that the passion is, you know what, I gotta get this idea going, it's got to get feet, I need to get a loan, I just need to go and it's going to work. Nope. Wrong. Don't do that. Please don't do that. Have there been lottery winners in the entrepreneurial space? Yes! What do I mean? What is Donte talking about lottery winners? Well there have been individuals that come up with, they had an idea, they're in the ideation phase and they just went bam, gung ho, give me some money and boom and it blew up. That's a lottery winner. What is a lottery winner? One in a billion, one in whatever, it's a lottery, it's not how you do it, you've got to go ahead and validate those assumptions and make it as much as you can, foolproof, as much as you can. There's still that risk, but you want to minimise that risk. That's what I'm saying.
But Donte, if I tell people my idea, somebody's gonna steal it, right? That's what everybody says.
My response to that is, I can give a blueprint to making a business or an idea, I can give you a blueprint. Ideas do not make money. You're not the first one with this idea. You're not, and you won't be the last. Entrepreneurs make money. Entrepreneurs make an idea successful. Entrepreneurs go that extra mile. Entrepreneurs wake up early. Entrepreneurs learn the stuff that they want to. Entrepreneurs find out what other successful entrepreneurs have done to be successful. Entrepreneurs do it, it's you, right? So blab it out, blab it out! It's okay, get it out there. Talk to people, find out if it works. Ask if the pricing is good. Ask if the widget should be green or yellow. Ask if it should be this size or that size. Ask if the service should be whatever, you've got to record this, get that data. Data is king, data is king. Record that data, learn how to figure out, how to utilise that data to your benefit and work that bad boy through and this is why I say you have to know your financials. That's one of the key data’s. Now you're saying for new entrepreneurs, I don't have financials; financial projections are massive, cash flow projections and that will help you in pricing, it would help you into understanding your breakeven and what you should pay yourself as opposed to what you think you should pay yourself, as opposed to what you can pay yourself? It will tell you, it will give you a timeline if you will, in terms of when you can do phases. So, financials is key, financials is key 100%, I would say that's the first thing you want to be as good as you can be with financials, particularly with your starting out projections.
Absolutely brilliant. Yeah, absolutely brilliant Donte, you've said it all, you have said it all. And I think this is such brilliant advice for people at any early stage of their business, whether it's an idea or whether it's, they've started and they're wondering where to go next. And I think it's important that we remind people that if they're in Bermuda and they're in that situation, that they should most definitely or can most definitely reach out to BEDC to get the kind of support that you were just talking about. And it's so valuable to have, to know that there's mentors, there's support, there's real factual information, there's people who are willing to help, and BEDC ticks all of those boxes. And then also, of course, to surround yourself with a like-minded community, which is the community we provide through the Level-Up League, just to know that you're not in it alone, which is a lot of the things that we've talked about today. Thanks so much for joining us.
Real quick, if I could talk about the BEDC and some of the stuff that we offer. My team - we do business advice, virtual, it's free, it lasts about an hour, you can do as many as you can. And you're going to talk to persons like myself and others who are passionate. We have eight-week courses, which we've utilised you guys to the point where maybe we should start paying you.
We do webinars and seminars, but Two Four One, you guys have been absolutely phenomenal. You're great entrepreneurs, polished and I love working with you guys. But yeah, the BEDC is a great source of financing as well, but a great source and you are, the audience, have an excellent source here with Two Four One, so great job guys.
Thank you so much. We do have one question that we need to ask because this is Resilient Entrepreneurs. So what does resilience mean to you?
Resilience is being able to take a hit and get up and still going, I'm talking about a hit that knocks you out emotionally, physically, it drains you. And you get back up and you get right back on that horse. And you say, Well, why did I get hit like that? Ah okay, well that's why. You learn from it. So you're able to duck. I don't know why I'm using a boxing analogy but it came to me. So you get up. Resilience is never giving up and definitely, that's the definition of it. But as an entrepreneur, knowing that you will get hit hard, but do you have to? You don't necessarily have to. The reason why many entrepreneurs, including myself, in my earlier days, got hit pretty hard going on with the analogy, is that I didn't realise or back then, I'm 45 now so back then. I mean, yeah, back then. We didn't have these these amazing entrepreneurship ecosystems that we have today, where you have these incubators and these accelerators and MSME, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise quangos out there, that are a part of government in a way. We didn't have all of this support. What this support does, it's providing you the ability to reduce the knockout factor. Yes, you might have failures but maybe it might be a little jab, we can kind of rub that off. So yeah, even a jab could hurt sometimes and you still gotta get up from that. So the point is, resilience, it's all about moving towards your goal come what may, getting up doing it again. Trust me, if I could tell you the dollar signs that I've lost in entrepreneurship well, it's relatively I guess, but for me it hurt. But on the flip side, here's the glorious side, I would say that MediWaste, my business MediWaste culminated, well, its success and its creation was born from all of the things that I've learned through failures and through resilience. And I utilise them now, it almost naturally comes, it just comes very easily now and MediWaste for me is the biggest achievement I've gotten. It's a multimillion dollar company so I'm proud of it.
Should be, and not to beat your boxing analogy to death but it certainly is important that people like you, in our corner for all of us entrepreneurs out there as we're trying to be resilient and build and create and be artists all the time in our own businesses and we're so grateful for you to join us today on the podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure and we'll of course include everything in the show notes on how to get in touch with BEDC and take advantage of some of their incubators and other programs, businesses so that we can just get that little bit further ahead faster. So thank you so much Donte, really appreciate you. It was an amazing conversation and I'm sure we'll be seeing you again soon..
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Thanks for joining us on Resilient Entrepreneurs. We love supporting entrepreneurs, especially with mindset, marketing and motivation which is why we’ve built an incredible community of business founders who meet weekly in the Level-Up League. If you'd like to know more about it, look us up at www.twofouronebranding.com
