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Big Grit: Jaspreet Singh

Jaspreet Singh, founder of Minority Mindset, joins Small Bizz Buzz in our final interview of Season 2 of the Big Grit docuseries to talk about his journey to entrepreneurship.

After straying from a more traditional path into the medical field that his family hoped for him, Jaspreet instead closed on his first real estate investment the day after he took his MCAT.

Fast forward to his growing business, Minority Mindset, which is focused on thinking differently than the majority of people. What started as a YouTube Channel dedicated to simplifying financial health and education content has turned into a movement. Today, Minority Mindset has surpassed 1 million subscribers on YouTube, and just getting started.

Click play for more.

Transcript:

Ryan: Hey, everyone out there. This is your host of the Small Biz Buzz, Ryan Carrillo. And today our guest is Jaspreet Singh, Big Grit champion, and owner of Minority Mindset.

Jaspreet: I remember telling myself, and this is not just like in the beginning, like I'm talking to them maybe a year in, that if one day I could get a 100,000 subscribers I'll be done. Like, that's it. [00:00:30] Like a 100,000 subscribers watching financial content, that would be amazing. I used to joke around with my friends. I was like, "Man, if we get a million subscribers, I'm going to shut down our channel." And then here we are, I kind of surpassed myself. And I think it's kind of funny. I had these limiting beliefs on myself and as I kind of think back, and I wonder why did I do that? Because in a lot of situations I don't, but I think I don't know. It's just like, [00:01:00] I never really thought much. I mean, I started it as a hobby.

It wasn't really, I'm going to build a business around this. I'm going to make money doing this. I didn't even turn on monetization on a YouTube videos for like six or eight months. And this was before you had to pass all those qualifications to monetize. I just didn't because I didn't know that you could. I didn't really care about making money through this. It was just something that I was enjoying doing. And so, no, I don't expect to see this type of growth. And then [00:01:30] somehow here we are with a million subscribers. Yeah. So, we call it the Minority Mindset, because it's all about the mindset of thinking differently than the majority of people. The Minority Mindset has nothing to do with the way you look, your ethnicity, or your skin color. It's all about the way you think.

And I called it that kind of by accident. But I started thinking that I thought differently than the majority of people back when I started college, because I was always like, I always had this entrepreneurial mind and I went to college [00:02:00] and I saw everybody was partying. And I had no idea that, that's what people did in college. I thought everyone went to college to study. So, when I saw that, I was like, holy cow, I'm not into partying. I don't drink, but I need something to do on Friday nights. So, I started hosting parties. And when I started to do that, I was like, well, everyone's going to parties. So, why don't I host the parties? It's like kind of thinking differently than the majority of people. It was the same mindset when it came to investing. Okay, everyone's blowing their money.

How about I invest [00:02:30] my money? And I kept thinking like this through a whole bunch of different ventures from real estate investing to other businesses that I started learning kind of the difference between a consumer and a producer. And so I always thought that I was different than the majority of people, which is why I named it, the Minority Mindset. So, when we talk about the Minority Mindset, it's all about the mindset of thinking different than the majority of people. Because if you're doing what the majority of people do, chances are, you're doing something wrong.

Ryan: Yeah, it's like that saying, if you ... [00:03:00] No, that's a different one. I was going to say, if you always do what you've always done, you always get what you always got. My football coach used to say that to me. This is kind of parallel to that, but that's really great. Thanks for sharing. So, what you do now is educate and empower the masses. What was the vision all those years ago? You started off with one thing in mind and it's evolved into this greater thing now. And you're, I mean, you're the keynote speaker at a really big convention [00:03:30] and you're kind of just beginning, right? You're only six years in. What happens at year 12?

Jaspreet: If you ask me what was the vision six years ago? There was no vision. It just was a hobby. I started Minority Mindset when I was in law school, working on a different business. I was working on a different business, making money, going to school. And I'd just like, I got scammed in that business. So, I actually started making videos and making social media posts about how to launch a business without getting screwed over. That was it. I was just [00:04:00] talking and being real because I just wanted to put this content out there. But then it kind of became fun. It kind of was like this is like a distress thing for me just to go and rant, because my friends will get bored of me. I was talking to them about investing in an entrepreneurship.

So, I'll just go talk to a camera. And slowly as it grew, I was like, okay, maybe this could turn into a real thing on YouTube. And then now we're really transitioning into a full media company. We're now, [00:04:30] obviously we have YouTube, but we have a daily newsletter, which covers the top finance to business news and is covered in a fun and witty way, because most people don't have the time to read CNBC wall street journal, Forbes, and decipher what's going on. We do that. And you can read it in three to five minutes every morning and know exactly what's going on and know how it affects you. We are building up our blog where every day we put up more financial education content. That way you have more access [00:05:00] to information, that way you have what you need in order to kind of work on your finances. And so we're really working on developing that financial media presence more than anything else now.

Ryan: I love it. And so maybe at year 12, you'll be as big as NerdWallet or bigger. That's who I think of when you're kind of talking about your business. Because I remember when NerdWallet, they were just this website you went to, they had some decent credit card information. What [00:05:30] rewards card is best for me? Man, they are like everywhere now. And they're a media company, right?

Jaspreet: Yeah, they're massive. They're huge.

Ryan: Yeah, but they're not personal. They don't have you. They don't have your message. So, I like your competitive advantage and I'm honored to be speaking to you today because I can see the future. And I bet it's very promising for you and your business. What else do you have going on right now? You said you got some other irons in the fire as every entrepreneur does. Is there anything that you would feel comfortable [00:06:00] sharing that is on your mind as far as your other endeavors?

Jaspreet: So, I'm an attorney and I don't practice as an attorney. I went through law school kind of to make my parents happy, but along the way I learned a lot. I mean, I did pretty good in law school. I did enjoy the process. I liked learning about law, but I always went to law school thinking a little bit differently. I knew I was never going to practice as an attorney. I never aspired to that. I never really liked the whole idea of that. [00:06:30] But I mean, I liked learning about the law. I liked learning, especially about business law. And that side of things, because I had been sued. My real estate company was sued one time because the tenant claimed that the bathtub was too slippery when the water was on. And so I had gone through the legal process. And so I was interested by that.

And so I always thought that the legal field is ripe for disruption. And so I'm working on something with a friend [00:07:00] of mine, who I met in law school, who we connected on the first day. He, just like me, probably the only two people in our class didn't want to actually practice as an attorney. Because I remember when I talked to him, he was like, "What do you want to do?" I was like, "I don't want to be a lawyer." He said, "Me neither." And we instantly connected. So, him and I have been friends since law school and you we're working on some things that we can do to help kind of provide the legal consultation to businesses without going through the traditional expensive route. [00:07:30] So, that's something that we're working on.

Ryan: Very nice. So, I'm just thinking as you're speaking. So, you said to make my parents happy, tell me a bit more about that. You went to law school, but your mind was elsewhere. You knew you didn't want to be an attorney. You were hosting your parties and man, that's that entrepreneurial bug. Once you get bit by it, it's game over. Did you always know you were going to be an entrepreneur? And did you have a clear vision for what that [00:08:00] would evolve into for you in life?

Jaspreet: I didn't know what the word entrepreneurship was until I was in college. I didn't even know that that was an option. I grew up in a very traditional Indian immigrant parents and in a traditional Indian house. The path to success is about becoming a doctor. And it was no different in my house. Since I was like two years old, I was always told by my entire family that if I wanted to become successful, I needed to become a doctor. So, I should become a doctor. And I [00:08:30] believed it. I said, okay, I'll become a doctor. I thought nothing a little bit. I wanted to be successful so I can help my family help my parents, my parents bust their butt. They're the hardest working people that I know, because they came to this country with very little. My dad came to this country with less than a $100.

So, it was just like, I saw how hard they worked and I wanted to give back. And so I was like, all right, I'll become a doctor if that's what it takes. No problem. I was never scared of hard work, but at the same time, I kind of internally, I liked [00:09:00] doing entrepreneurial things, even though I didn't know that's what it was. Like when I was in elementary school, I was like 10 years old. I started mowing my neighbors' lawns, just charging like $10 or something. I became a paper boy. I was delivering papers to people's houses. And then I started working on weddings when I was in high school. And then college is really when it started to shift because I started making decent money. And that was through hosting parties, which eventually became a whole event planning company that [00:09:30] started where I was hosting parties, concerts, and shows.

And we had events every single week. And so I was like, man, I'm making decent money. I don't have a degree. That's how I'm starting to learn about entrepreneurship. I was like, dude, I didn't even know that this existed. I didn't know that was an opportunity. I thought you needed a degree to make money. And so that's when I started learning about that. And at the same time started learning about investing. I bought my first investment property when I was 19. This is at the bottom of the real estate crash. I got very lucky that I was in college and [00:10:00] I had a little bit of cash in my bank account. And so I had like, I don't remember maybe 10 or $12,000, $15,000 in my bank account. And I went out and bought my first investment property for $8,000. And that was my first sign of wow, cashflow, passive income.

What is this? What is investing? So, that's what really started opening my mind and all of this that I was doing, I kind of did it in secret because if my parents knew that I was doing business or these other [00:10:30] things, they would have been very angry. So, no, I never envisioned being an entrepreneur when I was young. It was kind of something that I went through kind of through my own life process, because I always thought that I would needed to be a doctor. And so it was a whole journey on its own, trying to break it to my parents that, hey, I'm not going to be a doctor because they didn't understand like most people wouldn't, because they didn't have that financial education either.

Ryan: How do they feel about it now? Did [00:11:00] you call them when he got a million subscribers, were they cheering for you?

Jaspreet: Oh yeah, they love it now. It took a little while, but they love it now. I mean, it wasn't until I started, it was previous to Minority Mindset. I started at a different company. And it wasn't until I started getting featured on the news, or our company started getting featured on the news that they were like, okay, this could be something. So, that was when they really started accepting it, because then my parents' friends would call my parents saying, "Oh my God, I saw your son on the news. Congratulations. That's amazing."

And my parents were like, " [00:11:30] Oh yeah, we've always supported him." So, it was kind of like until they see the success, it's hard to accept it, which I understand because they want that safety after all they went through. And now with the million subscribers, I just made a million subscriber video. A very fun video where we gave back to schools and local businesses and our own audience watched it with them. And yeah, that was one of my favorite moments. They really, really loved it just to see kind of where we've come [00:12:00] and that they love it.

Ryan: Beautiful. Was there a catalyst moment for you where you decided like, this is it, I'm all in, whatever it takes, many entrepreneurs that happens, right? That's kind of what Big Grit is about. It's the stuff that unites all of us entrepreneurs across the spectrum is the grit to push through one of the recent, one of your big grit [00:12:30] contemporaries, Justin Wise said that he believes Big Grit is the price of entry for entrepreneurship. And I thought that was really great. What was the catalyst event for you?

Jaspreet: So, I don't think it was one thing, but I think it's kind of a running joke that I have, anytime I start a new venture, I have to get screwed over. And that's like the thing that I have to go through and it's hard to predict. Because when I started the event planning business, my first [00:13:00] party that I was hosting under my own company, we had planned it for months and it was like, it's going to be this huge event at this hall. The night before it got raided by the cops and it was shut down. And so now it's the day of the event that I've been planning for months. I have no place to do it and I have hundreds of people coming. And so it was like, okay, what do I do? Found a new venue the day of, I mean, it was like, I ended up losing money and that I [00:13:30] didn't really have, but it was seeing that and then not giving up. Kind of just keep going, learning that and then making the money back and keep going.

Same with real estate investing. I talked about the time I was sued. I think that would definitely deter a lot of people, but for some reason, in my mind, it just didn't really phase me. I was just like, there's people out there that have thousands of rental units. There's no way that they could get bogged down [00:14:00] by one. And so I have to keep thinking bigger. I started my stock company that I was telling you about. I got scammed by a fake marketing company. And even though we were scammed, we ended up having a pretty decent company. But that scam was the reason why I started Minority Mindset, so I could talk about how to launch a business. And when I started Minority Mindset, as soon as our Instagram page hit like 17,400 followers, this is right when I started YouTube.

So, we probably had like [00:14:30] a couple hundred YouTube subscribers. So, we had no YouTube presence. We had no other presence. It was just Instagram, 17,000 followers. Our account got hacked and deleted and now it's like, okay, what do I do? Do I just give up on this thing? Because it wasn't doing anything. It wasn't really generating any revenue. It was just for fun. Do I give up? No, I enjoy this. So, if you try to stop me, I'm going to come back twice as hard and then getting over that. So, you talk about one catalyst. No, there was many. And just kind of constantly [00:15:00] getting the setback and then starting over again, setback and start over again, a setback and start over again.

Ryan: So, you're telling me you know when you get screwed that your business venture is on the right path.

Jaspreet: I think so, unfortunately it seems like that's what it is. Hopefully that doesn't keep happening. But I think I didn't have any real business education. I didn't know how you start a business. I don't know how you run a business. I learned by doing. I didn't get a business degree and that was [00:15:30] kind of like my tuition. It's like you talk about the price of entry to be an entrepreneur. That was definitely my tuition, the thing that I had to, how I learned to do what I do, because you can't learn this in books, you just got to do it.

Ryan: What are some of the favorite pieces of content that you put out on the regular? The stuff that you know when you put it out, you're really helping people.

Jaspreet: I think really, I don't think there's one more than the other. We have a pretty large audience. [00:16:00] And so some people get more benefit from a real estate investing education. Some people get more benefit from our stock market education. Some people from the general money management stuff. I mean, it's a blessing and a curse, because we're very broad. We talk about a lot of things, personal finance, so we can speak to a lot of different people, but then obviously some people are going to say, "Oh, give us more real estate investing content." Others are going to say, "Give us less real estate content, give us more stock market [00:16:30] content." Others are going to say, "Give us more cryptocurrency content." So, it's just what I do is I really talk about what's important to me and what might be kind of relevant right now.

I don't try to ... I think the reason why we've kind of grown to where we are is I just try to be real. I don't try to just kind of dilly-dally and talk about whatever. I talk about what's important to me, what I can really speak authentically to. Because if I'm just speaking [00:17:00] in general of like hypotheticals, it's one thing, but I like to give my own examples. When I talk about real estate or stock market investing, I talk about things that I've done. I'll walk you through my own deals. I'll walk you through things, mistakes that I made. I'll walk you through all of that. That way you can learn and see it happen right in front of you. Because again, it's just like me speaking to myself when I was 19, this is something that I never had.

If I had somebody to walk through a real estate deal with, it would make things a whole lot easier. And I [00:17:30] would have learned a whole lot of things not to do and maybe be able to learn more things to do. So, that's really what I try to do is just kind of give you the content that you really need. And depending on which stage you're at, some people are going to be just getting started in their investment career. Some people are investing hundreds of thousands or if not a million dollars. And so depending on where you are, you're going to be attracted to different content.

Ryan: For sure. You just got me thinking, you're in a space that is arguably [00:18:00] the most competitive. It's up there, maybe second to insurance sales. And yeah. So, from a competitive standpoint when you look out there and look at who else is in your space, what are your thoughts? Are you reacting or adjusting what you're saying and doing to what they're doing or do you not really pay them any mind? And this is a really important topic to talk about because there's some people out there who will not get into business out of fear of competition. Ah, there's [00:18:30] already people doing that. I don't need to be in that space or there's no opportunity, but here you are, you're growing. You just hit a million subscribers in a very competitive landscape. What's your approach to competition?

Jaspreet: Well, if we talk about YouTube, it's really hard to talk about competition because people don't just follow you for your education. They follow you for you. And that's one of the lessons that I had to learn [00:19:00] too, is like, when I'm me, people like it. And I'm goofy. I'm weird. And that's why I'm on camera. I mean, this is reality. I don't try to act differently. The way you see me on camera is the same way you're going to see me if you see me on the street. I mean, I talk about the same thing. I talk about financial education. I love guacamole. I love joking around. So, that's who I am. And so in terms of competition, I mean, what is competition? Is someone else going to say, oh, I don't like guacamole. Well, that's your [00:19:30] choice. It's like, it's hard to compete against that.

And I don't really watch a lot of other YouTubers per se. Like, I mean, even when I started YouTube, the only reason I started YouTube was because I've seen videos on YouTube. I never listened to podcasts. I don't really listen to podcasts that much. I like YouTube, but I don't really watch the YouTubers like that. I mean, for me, it's just, I talk about stuff that's interesting to me. And I do it in a way that I would like. I don't [00:20:00] really pay too much attention to what else is going on out there.

Ryan: That's nice. Any advice for someone who's concerned about the competition? I mean, your approach is the right way to do it. You're you, take it or leave it. What about those who are concerned about what others think and are concerned about competition? Any sage advice to give them to encourage them to take a chance and to ignore what they think is competition or not [00:20:30] competition?

Jaspreet: There's always room for more good content. There's always good room for more good businesses. I mean, there's a lot of businesses out there in every niche is just, how are you unique and how can you be good? I think, this was Rami Sethi, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, company who talked about this. He said, "Every year there is a new best selling cookbook or there's new cookbooks every year. There's a new bestselling financial book every single year. How is it that every year it's a brand [00:21:00] new person? Well, because people are always looking for something new people are always looking for the next thing."

And so if there's a lot of competition in the space, that means there's a lot of demand in the space. So, it's just opportunity for you to now be innovative and be you. I mean, why are you different than everybody else? If you're going to do the exact same thing as someone else, then yeah, you're probably going to be beat because they're bigger than you, but if you're going to be different and you're going to present your own business in your own way, well now you've just created your own opportunity. You've created your own landscape.

Ryan: [00:21:30] That was free education and advice folks. I hope you took notes. That's awesome. Thank you for that.

[00:22:00] I think we're getting close to the end of our conversation here. I want to just talk one more time, a bit about the subject matter at [00:22:30] hand, Big Grit. When you were first tapped for the Big Grit campaign, what were your thoughts? Were you excited when you started thinking more about what this is about? How did you feel about Big Grit? And now that you've gotten to see the cut of that video, what are your feelings?

Jaspreet: Yeah. I didn't know much about the Big Grit when I first heard about it. So, I don't know what to feel, but then as I started to learn more it's kind of exciting that it was ... Just to kind of see that, oh, wow, this is [00:23:00] kind of cool. A whole documentary. And yeah, I just saw the first cut and pretty good. It was fun to watch.

Ryan: It tells your story well and it talks about those moments of Big Grit. And I love what it's all about because as a person who grew up with an entrepreneur in the family and someone who is surrounded by entrepreneurs every day, I'm constantly inspired by the journeys and [00:23:30] the stories. And I love how authentic they are, much like your content, the real man. And it's not always pretty, right? There's some ups and there's some downs.

Jaspreet: You got to go through the downs to get the ups.

Ryan: Are there any big downs that come to mind when I talk about that, that you don't mind sharing?

Jaspreet: Man. I mean, I talked about a lot of them like get just getting screwed over and getting scammed a lot of times. A lot of downs are really, I mean, the way I talk about it is every [00:24:00] problem is an opportunity in disguise. And that's the one thing that I always remind myself, because there's a lot of issues that come up. And I think this is what really differentiates a successful entrepreneur for somebody whose not. Everybody faces roadblocks, everybody faces hurdles. What do you do? Are you going to fight through it and find the solution? Or are you just going to complain about it, cry and stop? And you always have those two options. I mean, everything is a hurdle, but anytime we do anything new, it's like trying to build a brand new table and you don't have the instruction manual.

Where do you start? [00:24:30] You have no idea. Well, you got to get the tools. You start putting it together. As you start to build, it gets a little bit easier because you start to see, oh, this is what it's supposed to be. Oh, wait, I put the wrong leg here. You start to ... The first part is just kind of, that first step is really hard, because you have no idea what's going to happen. And this is new for anything. Like when we started hiring employees for the first time. Oh my God. It's like, there's so many regulations. There's so many different things have to file, so many things you have to do.

And like, man, this is a [00:25:00] lot of work, but as you start to do it, you start to kind of find the direction and you do that. And you see this along every phase of the business. From the starting point to your first sale to kind of getting your first employee to forgetting your ... different things. It's just, everything requires its own hurdle from starting to growing to scaling. And those are again, it's just, what are you going to do? Are you going to cry, complain, [00:25:30] and stop or are you going to keep learning, keep growing and find a way?

Ryan: Appreciate you taking the time today. And I wish you the best the rest of the year and beyond. Very cool you're speaking at FinCon, I'm looking at the website. There you are front and center. You excited about that?

Jaspreet: I'm super excited. I can't wait to be a FinCon.

Ryan: All right, well, thank you again for joining us here on the Small Biz Buzz with Keap. I'm Ryan Carrillo, your host. Jaspreet, thanks again. Take care.

Jaspreet: It was nice speaking to you, Ryan.




To learn more about Jaspreet, visit The Minority Mindset.

To watch his full Big Grit story, visit keap.com/big-grit

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