Summary

 Hello everyone and welcome to the Shades of Entrepreneurship.

This is your host, Mr. Flores. Today I'm here with a good friend of mine, a board member as well, Veronica, owner of Businesslight Bear.

How are we doing?

Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

I'm so excited to be here and yes, it is a really fun experience. So thank you for roping me in to the board to the board of Latino founders.

Like I can't say thank you enough. It's been such a fulfilling experience.

Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Oh, that is. Yeah, we'll get into that a little bit later because that has been quite a ride. But first let's introduce, give us a little background.

Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Who is Veronica?

Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Oh, how long do we have in this? Hello in question here.

Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

was like, how long do we have for this podcast? But let's see, when people ask me that question, it's like, who am I?

Well, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a feminist. I'm also openly because that's how our business is branded. We do operations consulting for startups, nonprofits and small businesses because we love to work with impact driven organizations so that we can amplify said income and impact with people.

First pleasurable and profitable processes. So like I love operations. love processes and like anything to do with being organized and creating that foundation to help you experience seamless exponential growth or steady growth because every, every organization has different goals is something that I love doing every day.

Like my partner was talking to his daughter the other day and he's like, so if you had unlimited income, money, what would you be doing?

And when so when I overheard that conversation, I was like, I actually went. be doing anything different. Granted, I'd probably be doing more ventures, becoming an investor in a philanthropist myself.

But like, I'm just like, I wouldn't be doing anything different necessarily, just more of what I'm doing. So that's me in a nutshell.

And I'm one of those millennials that loves plants, has a dog.

@3:21 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So my children are four legged furry and live on not the best parent of the plant shelf babies, to be honest with you, those haven't done too well in the florist household.

And you know, my wife can attest to this and she is not good either. So I know she cannot make fun of me because this is a, this is a family problem realizing.

@3:48 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

So tell us, let's talk about the business. us a little bit about your business, how you started it and why you started it.

Oh my gosh. So I was one of those entrepreneurs that was. never meant to be an entrepreneur. I'm Chinese.

so being first generation born here in America, my parents were like, you have to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a CPA.

You get where I'm going with this path that's already predetermined, stable, predictable. And so when I went to Stanford to go on that pre-med track, I realized that, you know, this actually wasn't what I wanted to be doing.

And anytime I have to deal with existential crisis after crisis of self identity or what I meant to in life, it always comes with lots of tears and ugly crying.

But then I also realized that there's always something beautiful that happens afterwards. So I just like let myself because it happened to me this past summer.

So I could talk about that a little bit. But like, it happened to me this past summer. And it made me realize I'm just like, this is not what I'm meant to be doing.

And luckily, one of my RAs in college was like, you actually might benefit from checking out the product design department.

And of course, being as ingrained in the other predetermined paths as I was, I was like, what the heck is product design?

And so, but it was actually everything that I was meant to be doing, just never cultivated and cherished and celebrated in an immigrant household.

And so lo and behold, because again, this is who I am, I'm just learning that I got to do things my own way.

When I go, I go into the product design department, I take a few classes and I'm like, you know what, as an Oregonian, what y'all are doing, very irresponsible, if I might be honest, because you're teaching these students.

While product design also has the word product from the beginning, it's more about problem solving and what are you solving?

These are like big problems.

@5:51 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes.

@5:51 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

How can we design like low cost, like little incubators to give to children in India, because the infant mortality rate is...

skyrocketing to things like how can we redesign the frozen food packaging for older adults or elders and seniors who have arthritis, right?

So it's not just about making products look good. That's why I really loved product design and so when I went there I was like guys it's a little irresponsible that you're not teaching about things like life cycle analysis or what happens when this product inevitably gets thrown in the trash in the landfill.

Right because I'm a native Oregonian. So I realized that if I'm going to design products I have to be environmentally conscious and if I'm going to design products or solutions.

I want to be business savvy about it. Their curriculum wasn't about that. So I had to design my own major and the Dean of Engineering was like we have 143 majors here Why can't you just pick one?

And I said because here's my eight to ten page rationale as to why it cannot be just like pigeonholed and that's how I've always been like this like spider webby kind of person.

So they're like, well, you don't want you ruining our reputation. they just flat out said, we have a reputation to protect.

So if you give us this program, we most likely are not going to say yes, and we're probably just going to reject it off the get-go.

So don't feel bad. They approved it in 10 days, which apparently was a record. So it was, to me, a sign that this was how I was meant to go through life was just to take things from different areas in my life, like how I was raised, being Chinese and also being American.

It's like, I can't just go all in on one or the other culture because they both clash. And so being able to pull things from different cultures and beliefs and practices has helped me become the person I am today.

So to answer your question in a really roundabout way, I started my business because I think I was like done.

Yeah, in fact, I knew I was done. I was like, I'm done playing. into not lose. I'm ready to play to win because being Chinese, because this is such a part of my identity, it's like being cautious, thinking overthinking everything, I still overthink things.

But it's just like, I was done playing not to lose. And so I'm like, hey, it's 2020, start of a new decade.

Why don't I play to win instead of for these businesses like Apple and Nike, which are great, right? They're innovative.

And I'm just like, I felt like I could do more something just wasn't sitting right. I could take my talents and my expertise and actually help bring ideas to life in a faster, more efficient and profitable way.

So that these people that I'm working with who have this desire to solve, solve , tech type issues, or even like a product that helps people with Parkinson's like eat better because their hands are shaking and so be.

put like a gimbal on a spoon and allows them to eat their, like drink their soup and eat their cereal well.

It's like these things matter to me more. So that's why I started my business. That's where I am today.

@9:12 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Such a long winded answer. No, that was a first. I want to awesome answer. Awesome. That was phenomenal. I want to take a step back.

I want to talk about this curriculum you created. So you created, I just, I'm just still baffled and like completely in awe right now.

You created a curriculum at Stanford University. And does it still stand today at this, like is a curriculum that still?

@9:43 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

No, because it's a self created major. So it's very unique to the individual. So I got to design my own major environmental design engineering.

Because I had to put the engineering word in there to satisfy my parents. But I am not an engineer.

@9:58 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Oh my god.

@9:59 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

I am not an engineer. But that curriculum to me was so wholesome and comprehensive. And I realized that upon leaving college, I was like, oh, wait, I just created a major that was pretty much the triple bottom line, balancing people, planet and profit.

And so to me, that was such, such a empowering experience. Cause I was like, oh, if I'm going to do this, I also want to make sure I take civil engineering classes to make sure like the life cycle analysis is great, to make sure that, hey, if we're all all about not using plastic, it's like, have you ever considered that the raw material that makes metal or aluminum could be really environmentally intensive, right?

So it's like, these are the conversations that we need to have that perhaps students are not having because they're just so focused on problem solving, designing, aesthetics, which they're the product design program at Stanford is great.

@10:55 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

The D school is wonderful like that.

@10:57 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

It's inspired a lot of my, I approach this to operations today that are very human and people centered. So I mean, I can't, I can't say anything negative about them.

It's just, this is how my brain worked as an Oregonian.

@11:10 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, no fair, fair enough. I, I same in regards to the D school. Uh, I studied the D school, I went to Syracuse, right?

And so went to business, go out in Syracuse, but it's the D school is a very synonymous with design product design.

I'm putting a lot of different diverse background professionals into a room and saying, Hey, create something that salt, I'd like to your point that solves a problem for this issue.

Right. That's the best part about the D school is they, they truly do come with a problem and they say, okay, solve it.

We're not telling you how to solve it. In fact, that's up to you. Uh, you get your brains together and figure out how to solve this issue.

Uh, a great segment. I have to go on YouTube and talk to you about putting on this week's newsletter.

Great little plug to remind folks to subscribe to the shades of

@13:00 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

will never solve the root problem of lack of operations because your operations is like the backbone of any business, the foundation.

You don't want to build your business house straight on dirt because you can't grow and fail and have impact because longevity and sustainability are the tenants to making an impact that actually matters to changing the world because that's what I believe that these businesses can do.

So what we do is we come in as fractional COOs or as consultants depending on what each company needs or organization needs and we first audit like hey what's going well, what's not going well, where are you trying to go, where are you now, and then we audit and provide a strategy roadmap to make sure that they can get where they're going so that they know if you want to go here or you want to five extra monthly revenue without burning out your team because what's the point in making an amazing profit if everyone hates where they're working on that or are.

stretch thin, right? So people first quality of life, that's important. And so once we complete the audit, then we're like, here, here's the plan.

And you can either do it yourself. And this is where we part ways or we can work together to make sure that all of the systems and processes, all the working, multiple running parts at the same time, moving parts are well oiled, smooth, and that people are leaning on the systems and processes rather than the people.

Because I can't remember things. I can, like, I can depend on a piece of software and a process rather than just trying to remember it all in my brain.

And so when you create this really holistic strategy for yourself, because no two businesses, no two organizations are ever the same, because if you cookie cut or something, just because something works for you, Gabriel doesn't mean that's going to work for me because we're just inherently different people with different experiences, beliefs, ambitions, drives, it's not going to work out.

So become in And we make sure that the business is just running efficiently. And we support the team, especially the operations team, because we've learned with being in this industry for so long.

Like, I've been in this industry for like over, well over 10 years. And there's really no program that actually teaches folks how to create holistic operations without it being formulaic or robotic.

And so, and this is where operations is hard. It's like every organization has different needs. But if you boil it down to what operations are at the end of the day, it's really just the how of your business.

So it's two sides of the same coin. The how your operations needs to align with your what, your vision, your goals, your aspirations, so that you can make that reality come to life.

And the biggest thing that I wish that I'm working on with helping founders, executive directors, all the folks that we work with is that people know more about operations than they think, because when they think about operations.

like, oh, this is just like a thing I got to check off or like, I'm not going to like think about it until I really have to.

But it's like if operations are the how you literally can inform us the business like, hey, something doesn't feel right.

Something is not working because or I feel like there is going to be an easier way to do this.

All of this art are all of these things are like clues that your operations need some work. So we come in, we make everybody run like well oiled machine.

We increase their revenue capacity. increase team happiness, decrease like expenses, increase profitability, make the business organization more well oiled so that they're set for whatever growth and pivots that they want to do.

@16:43 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Or if they want to exit and sell the company, we actually had a client that just increased valuation of their sale because the processes were sold as an asset because it was pretty turnkey.

Nice. Nice. And yeah, I think that's a, you know, for the folks listening, I think, you know, when you think about running a business.

scale in a business, everybody would be rich right now if they didn't run out of money. Because everybody would keep putting money back into their business and keep growing it and keep growing it right and tell.

But a lot of the times is you have to look at your operational waste. What are you truly spending money on and how is that truly impacting your bottom line?

It happens in every industry. And sometimes calling it like waste is actually like just looking at your operations and looking at the overhead costs.

Because there's different ways for you. In fact, I was speaking just recently talking about ways to lower our overall costs.

Like how do we leverage our buying power? So I can know, you know, organization, how do you leverage your buying power with a vendor and get bulk or discounted pricing, right, for large membership, you know, of that nature versus having 97 different individual accounts with the same vendor.

Right? That's a huge, and then none of those components speak to each other because they're all individual accounts. Right?

So it's, it's, it's a.

@18:08 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

And to your point, that's such a great point. Like I see a theme here is that humans were very routine driven.

Even if those routines and habits are not the most efficient, people are like, Oh, yeah, I don't work smarter or not harder.

Well, it's like it actually takes a lot of hard work to work smart. That's why it's like, well, I am not a habits expert, but as an operations person, I read a lot about psychology habits, all that stuff.

Because again, it relates to the how, how you and the business take action. It's like it takes like the 21 days or whatever to create a new habit or they're carving new neural pathways.

this is me. Copying and pacing when I've read because I'm not a neural researcher, but they're just like, it takes time to change how we.

And so even though. So things may be what you know and it's not the most important or the most efficient people will still lean on that because it's what they know.

And that's why when we work with clients like this, there's got to be some sort of coachability and openness to new possibilities and change.

And while it's going to be met with resistance because we're realistic people, it's like, how do we then help them move past that this showcase that while it may be uncomfortable right now.

Look, we've added some lube to your to your process. And this is how things are going to be smoother on the other side.

It just takes trust in you, your team and us for us to co-create and work together to get what you want.

And nine times out of 10, it works brilliantly.

@19:45 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah. that's a great takeaway for those folks listening. It's like, we have to be willing to take on constructive criticism because that's the only way we're going to be able to improve.

Now, you mentioned some books, jobs and knowledge.

@19:58 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

What books are you reading? My goodness. So lately I've been on a sci-fi, sci-fi binge, but in terms of book, Oh, wait, wait, hold on.

@20:07 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

What kind of sci-fi I'm on a fantasy fantasy binge, like, legit dragons and elves.

@20:14 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

I'm dragon lands.

@20:15 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I'm all about it.

@20:16 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

I'm that I'm that too. And I'm about to read Iron Flame. Like, that is a book that my friend has recommended that that's trilogy.

But I am all about fantasy sci-fi as well, as well as like, thriller and suspense. in terms of like, business books or habit books, like things like atomic habits by James Clear is something that I love to recommend because while it's not exactly operations related, it informs how you decide how you want to run your business.

So anything like habits related has been really great. Or even like Jim Collins is turning the flywheel. think that's that's who the author is.

That has been really impactful for me because it's like, what are the small things because I don't believe in massive changes overnight.

That's not me. It's like, what are the small little stepping stones and ripples that eventually lead to big impact later on?

And how can the fly wheel, because it's going to be hard for you to get that original momentum. as you keep adding to it, it's going to go faster and faster, which to me is like operations where you kind of slow down a little bit to speed up in the long run.

@21:27 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, and I must admit, you know, personally, I have kind of taken a step back and started looking at the way, you know, I start my day, right, and trying to create different habits in that sense.

For example, my wife recently read somewhere that if those individuals that make their bed every morning have a probability, a higher probability of becoming millionaires.

And my goal, I'll be completely honest with you, folks, my goal, I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 45.

And I want to be a multi-millionaire by the time I'm 50. Now, Now, I mean, millionaire, don't mean by like assets.

mean, like true net worth, right? Of over a million dollars by 45. And so now because, you know, to your point, I've been starting to make my bed every day every morning I wake up and I make my bed.

I'm, you know, I'm like trying to get into this habit. I try not to look at the phone off to, I'm trying to drink more water.

I keep trying to encourage folks to drink more water until I don't even drink enough. Right. But it's just, you know, trying to try to change these habits.

I know trying to change these habits. so I truly did actually write some of these books down because even though I do love my fantasy, sort of fighting books to kind of get me away from the everyday life, right?

I still do read in fact, you're talking about the D school creative confidence or a read that book recently, which is a really good book.

If you're looking to create, you know, product design ideas, but yeah, habit books are very interesting. Now, you mentioned you earlier, you're a Chinese American woman starting a business.

What are some of the issues you face either as a small business owner or being a diverse individual? What are some of those issues you face kind of growing your business?

@23:13 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Yeah, so about my identity, it's been something I've grappled with most of my life. I think it's become less and less lately, like for instance, because I grew up speaking three languages before I learned English, even though I was born here because my family is like, you're going to remember English and it's going to be as easy as first language.

And to their point, I am not so great in my other Chinese dialects anymore because there's no one to practice it with.

But being Chinese has that tension of being that model minority where we're the closest to that white identity. So for me, I...

struggle with like who I am. And sometimes that affects how I run business because I realize that I often can slip into that chameleon mode where I can become who I need to be.

And that does nobody, at least to call myself any favors. And what I've learned through my college career, through my consulting career now through this business is that the one voice that I need to hear from the most is often mine.

And so that's a big reminder for myself to like stay true to myself as much as that sounds so cheesy.

But that has been a struggle for me. able to like go between being Chinese and being American and being Chinese American and being whatever people need me to be to get to where I need to be has not always been the best.

my therapist has worked with me a lot on that.

@24:48 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I've been there too. I got it too.

@24:50 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

I got it too.

@24:51 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I love my therapist. Yeah.

@24:53 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

But as a business owner, the struggle that I have here is that I I'm in an industry and maybe this is where I need to change my narrative a little bit But historically so I'll just say historically being in an industry where nobody really cares about what you offer Even though every single organization for profit or nonprofit needs what I do It's hard right I'm not as flashy as sales and marketing and branding and you know all that stuff It's like what we do is like foundational behind the scene stuff for lack of better terms Even though everybody feels it both the teams on the inside of the business the customers the stakeholders the board members It doesn't matter and so that to me has been hard but it means that it's up to me to get creative as to why people should care or Focus more on marketing to people who are more say solutions aware rather than like unaware or problem aware

to make my job easier. I am not a marketer and people have often asked like why did you brand your business so and kink positive?

Was it to get the attention because sells? like absolutely not because if you ask any of my friends like I am, I don't believe I am of the nature.

It is just who I am. It allows me to be 100% myself, be clever, be witty without like being lewd.

Like we can use those puns, we can use the double entendres, we can make people excited about operations without it being offensive.

And branding my business the way that I have really is polarizing. I know right away who I'm not meant to interact with because they're like you can't use the word outside the bedroom, which I respectfully disagree, but to each their own, to the people that are like immediately upon hearing who I am at what I do and how I brand the business and all that stuff.

like you are my people come to my house now, we got to have dinner. And so that type of business building for me has been both very positive and of course I have my struggles.

But the biggest thing that I wish that would be a lot easier is like, oh, why am I not in an industry that like people are trying to do this with their money and just like throwing money at me?

So I get creative and find ways to market and we don't give up. And the one thing that I wish I would have learned better in business school was that your positioning and messaging and product market fit isn't just something you check off just like operations.

It's something you think about and iterate on over and over and over if not daily.

@27:43 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You know, you kept on talking about brand, right? so for the folks, you'll certainly see it when we start advertising it.

You'll see the brand. You sent me their media kit recently and I opened it up and there's a couple of photos and I'm like, whoa, this is this is

All right. Now let's talk about it. Let's talk about your brand. One, talk about how you kind of built your brand and talk about like some of the images you use to kind of really build up this brand.

@28:12 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Yeah, and brand for me has always been about the essence of who you are. Just like makeup, just like clothes, your logos, your colors, those things come and go.

But your brand is like who you are and what you believe. And our brand DNA, at the heart of what we believe is pleasure filled.

Well, people first, pleasure filled and profitable processes because that's what an exchange. And so everything that you do, every way that you interact with business like there with me, it's about feeling good, right?

I will treat you as a person. Whether or not we're talking business or ops, it's like a lot of people have said that like Veronica, you're one of the people that we can be ourselves with.

And that's what business laid fair is all about. Yes, it's operations, but being laid. bare stripping away the layers of beliefs and ugly sweaters and other things that people have put upon you to figure out who you are as a person to show up as you are.

That's what I'm about. So this brand that we've built is really just me being who I am personified in a business entity.

And so while I am building something much bigger than myself, it's like the first thing that I have to do in order for this to think to become big is just to embody about what feels right.

And integrity is like one of my core values in life and also in business as well as joy, pleasure, freedom, sustainability, ease even.

love that word because ease is not easy. It's not the same as easy. It's like the thing that you feel like you're meant to do without it feeling like an uphill battle is always like a sign to me that I'm on the right track.

And also for the clients as well. If something is constantly an uphill battle, we know that their operations are not to

going to be robust and resilient. So building a brand for me has just been like me being who I am.

So this business, we talk a lot about well lubricated operations instead of well oiled. We talk about roping people in.

We give our clients safe words because if things feel too much and we can't read their body language off the bat or they don't feel like being on camera that day, they use their own safe words.

Like we allow them the permission to come as they are. If they're breastfeeding because that's the only time that they can nurse their kids.

We're like no need to be ashamed. Eat your lunch. We know how to play that game where if you're eating and chewing, we'll talk and vice versa.

So the brain is really just about honoring who I am, who we want to showcase to the who we who we want to showcase and show up as in the world and just being decent people.

And then the colors and the logos and all that stuff came after because all that can change. So pleasure is our brand's DNA.

@31:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I love it. Now, what you kind of talk about clients, who is the typical client? Who do you, what kind of business do you primarily work with?

@31:09 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

We work with so many different businesses and so many different industries. The only caveat that I know we haven't worked with is that we haven't worked with any crypto people, but that's not my scene.

But these are primarily diverse founders. People who are women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA plus identified. These are folks that have an idea of how to change the world, whether they are in femtec, whether they are running a bakery that proceeds, go to certain organizations like these people want to make a difference.

These people like our mission statement want to leave the world a better place in how they found it in their own way.

So we work with a lot of small businesses who want to stay doing what they're doing, want that low and slow growth.

We also work with startups who want to like do that hockey stick exponential growth, exit the business and go on to the next thing, but also make a difference at the same time.

We also work with a lot of nonprofits who have come to us because they're like, well, how can we, how can we say that we're making a difference and impact in our community or whoever we're serving lives if we are operating in internal chaos ourselves?

So all these businesses that work with us, they have these big visions, these big lofty goals, and they know that operations needs to be addressed so that the level that they want to be operating at next, the higher level, the business can sustain.

The bit the operations can help sustain that so that the people are happy, are fulfilled. The customers, the communities, the clients are happy and fulfilled and like everything doesn't feel like a child where you have to like manage it, make sure it's fed every two seconds and it's just like your organization is this full-fledged adult that can operate on its own.

So that the founders, for instance, can take a vacation. and even be present in that vacation or not have to choose between flying across the country taking care of their sick relatives versus business things like that.

So that's how Shapes up like these these businesses. I'm thankful Know the importance of operations and if not we give them a little guidance before we work with them It's like this is what it looks like tell us what's not going well in your business Tell us what what's going well and here's how operations can make it better for your people for your profit or your customers Now what about your hockey stick where does where does business laid bare?

@33:43 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

What's what's the plan?

@33:45 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Ah? That's such a great question. Okay. Thank you for team me for this not that we plan this but Get ready for a narrative because it starts.

Let's do it.

@33:53 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Let's do it. All right.

@33:55 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Let's do it So my personal life has changed drastically. Historically, business laid bare has worked one on one with our clients because that's where the relationship gets built.

That's just what feels right. Quality over quantity except for food. But you know, that can change. So this summer, this summer, I found out that my life was going to be on the personal side drastically, going to drastically change.

And the way in which I was currently operating my business was not going to be sustainable. So I actually am taking the all of my own advice that we give our clients, like when something doesn't feel good or right, we have to figure out what's happening and where we can come out on the other side, more pleasurable and happier and satisfied.

And so with all that was happening in my life, my partner's parents would be coming to live with us for a while.

My partner's daughter now has a newborn baby. So it's like just a lot of change, right? a lot of I'm not going to be able to serve our clients with my team within integrity and high work ethic and

quality that we've been doing. So I'm like, okay, I have to operate differently. What's that gonna look like? And so this summer, I spent a lot of time crying in the shower, wondering like, what the heck I'm gonna do next?

that's all I knew. So then one day, I was like, well, how can I take all my wins and my losses, lessons, results that we've gotten our clients and turn it into a one to many experience that embodies everything because I don't want to have, I don't want every transaction to feel transactional.

That's why I was so hell bent on doing client work. So I'm like, setting up my own needs and requirements, making sure that all of my all the things that made me feel good were there relationships, relationships, freedom, spaciousness, because I need to be able to go to a doctor's appointment or help out family at the moment's notice.

so instead of doing one on one work, I now have something called the business whip. And so it's a one to many program.

I call it the ultimate hands-on operational support systems for those impact driven change makers because it equips them and their team with the right systems and processes for exponential growth, while also up leveling everybody's operational skillset at the same time so that they can handle the growth.

So not only have do we help them implement the systems and processes, but then we also teach them how to think like us, how to be strategists, how to go from task oriented waving for the founders to tell them what to do to being proactive and strategists themselves that can create systems and processes without us.

And so because that's been one of the things that we love doing as mentoring during our one-on-one engagements, seeing those operational folks on the team.

So, hey, I know how to organize, but I only know how to do band aid solutions because I don't know.

Like I said, because there's no training historical. So it's like here, let us teach you what we know. And what better way to do kinesthetic hands on learning than implementing systems and processes in the own business that you support.

So this hockey stick growth is where because it's one to many and we have live office hour days from like nine to five every Wednesday because it's hump day on brand.

It's like I can have the best of those worlds. Like come to office hours, bring your automations, your process maps, have any issues that you're working through.

We're here with you live working things out, working together. we're with them every step of the way. And then when they're not there on office hours, they can ask us questions asynchronously in the forum.

have training content. have templates and resources. mentally scalable because not every single founder is going to need us at the same time.

And we have office hours every week so it satisfies all the different time zone requirements. And then for me, I only have to sit at my desk for eight hours technically on Wednesdays or whatever days we have office hours.

And then the rest of the week, I can have that freedom and spaciousness to move about, to help out with family, to do what I need to do.

And so now I'm not limited to just a few clients, but we can work with many different clients while feeling like everybody has that relationship need that they need to feel that we're actually their partner.

And also for me to make feel like nothing is just transactional. So the business with is what I just recently launched a few weeks ago.

And we already seeing a lot of big wins in our clients business. So I'm super excited. And it's always open.

So like, if you want to work on your operations today, I'm not going to make you wait for another cohort.

It's open and there's a road map in which you You can follow and again, I've not really seen a membership type or program like this where we're available for like eight hours to actually help you access to operational experts that will give you answers and to solve your problems in less than an hour.

Because that's what happened yesterday. We retooled our clients offer so that she could deliver it with more ease and higher profitability and less tech and less moving parts all in an hour during office hours.

@39:28 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Wow. Wow. Well, for folks that are interested and want to get more information, maybe become one of your clients.

@39:36 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

How do they do that? How do they get in contact with you? How do they get contact with business laid bare?

Yeah. So right now go to www.businesslaidbear.com, which is the main website. And if you go to join the business with membership or www.businesslaidbear.com slash membership, you can check out what the business with offers, book a call, book a tour, and we can chat about.

What this could do for your organization. And being that consent is everything, enthusiastic consent is everything, I will never sell if a client doesn't consent to being sold to.

I will never push because that just never feels right. So when I just operate in a way that makes me feel good all around, I think like, it just works for me.

So just rest assured, this is a no pressure tour because why would I want to like force somebody into opening their credit card or getting out payment when it's not the right thing?

That just doesn't, that just makes the pool of clients and members like not where I want it to be.

So book a tour, let's chat and see what we can do for your business or organization.

@40:43 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I love it. Veronica, thank you so much for taking the time for being on the show. Thank you so much for talking about your business.

I truly do find a lot of value in building our relationship because you just keep, in fact, have a meeting, I think in a couple of days to talk about operating.

I mean, your brain, the way it works, the way you your whip it structure for business, I think is frickin phenomenal.

We've been able to really truly have that 24 hour sense of business. No matter what you need to have operational questions because you're right.

You might have an operational question in the middle of the night. Usually that's kind of how it happens. That's why entrepreneurs can't sleep at night because we're like thinking about operations and their website and all sorts of other crap.

Yeah.

@41:27 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Get it out of your brain. Just get out of your brain. We'll look at it as first thing that we can so that you can sleep because if you're not rested, like you can't pour from an empty cup.

So rest is just as important. Like I don't believe in grinding anymore. I'm at this stage where sure I hustle, but it's just like no more grinding, no more 16, 17, 18 hour days or I know Gary Vayner.

Chuck talks a lot about that. if you're not working 16 hour days, like what are you doing?

@41:54 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

It's like, actually, I feel like I can be more efficient than this. I love it. Unless you put some usher.

Ron, you might see some grinding out of me other than that. You know, I'm not going to see too much else.

@42:06 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Veronica, is there anything else you'd like to say before we leave? No, but the only thing that we haven't really talked about is Latino founders.

@42:13 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So actually, want to turn that on to you.

@42:16 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

We promised them we would bring that up a little bit. So plug Latino founders. So I've talked enough about myself.

People want to find out about me. We got links out the Wazoo that you can put in the show notes.

@42:25 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

There you go. There you go. Got links out of the Wazoo. So yes, Latino founders, so folks that are maybe unaware, we are 501c three nonprofit organization.

We're really focusing on supporting our underserved entrepreneurs here in the state of Oregon. Now, what does that mean? Right?

Well, first and foremost, Oregon has about 15% population of Latino population in about 20 30, about 20%. Currently about one of four students in the kindergarten class are Latinos right now.

So you're seeing a pretty large influx in that. I over 90, I think 91% of these are actually born in the state of Oregon.

these are Oregon. in born Latino entrepreneurs. so really we're trying to focus on how do we help scale and build their businesses?

Or how are we gonna do that? Well, first and foremost, brought an all-star rock star team together for a board of myself, Edgar Navas, Juan Brazan, Julie, Nancy, Yousenya.

We have a great, great phenomenal team of individuals. And each one brings a different tool and a different skill set, right?

You have Veronica talk about operations, Yousenya with her funding, Wendy and Nancy with their marketing, Juan with his nonprofit, you know, so many different skill sets across the board and Julie with her legal.

And what we're really trying to do is we created this business accelerator program to help build these businesses. so this 12-week business accelerator program is really focusing on one product market fit, MVP, my minimum viable product.

How do we actually scale the business? And it's what's your exit strategy? How do we run the operations? What are the finance looks like?

And then we're also bringing in some folks from the outside. We're hopefully bringing in some folks to talk about what does workman's comp look like?

Why do I pay for it? What are the benefits of it? What does it do? Not all of that.

We're talking about, hey, bringing some of the folks from the media. How do we get earned media? And then when we do get earned media, how do we act?

What are the things we should be talking about? How do we get the most out of that time? And so we're really trying to help scale these businesses because at the end of the day, we're trying to help create generational wealth for our underserved communities.

And thankful for the Oregon Community Foundation, they actually supported us with a $200,000 grant to really help kickstart this nonprofit.

So we're very thankful for OCF. In addition to that, the Carmen Rubio and Prosper Portlay came in with another $125,000 they awarded us there to Latino.

Huge, huge. Thank you. their their team on point came in with $2,500 and as well as Autodesk came in with $10,000.

So a big thank you to all those individuals that supported our team. So many other folks that were there, didn't just pitch it out and keep on talking about pitch with Latino.

At the end of this business accelerated program, we have a pitch competition where our local entrepreneurs can actually pitch their ideas to community members like you that are listening as well as venture capitalists.

So next year, thank you Veronica for us. You can visit LatinoFounder.com. In fact, we're hoping to have our next pitch competition in Redmond, Oregon because we also know that Oregon is 98,000 square miles of beautiful Greenland.

so we're truly trying to get out to the entire community to ensure that each one of our community members has an opportunity to showcase what they're doing.

But not only that, ensure that our community members have an opportunity to seize a phenomenal entrepreneur showcase. So thank you for running for giving me that little time to get on the so

@46:00 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

box a little bit but yes I appreciate you coming on the show I appreciate everything you're doing for a community and our entrepreneurs and small businesses I appreciate more importantly what we're doing for our nonprofit because I think we're just really starting to get going and I'm really excited at what's going to be happening the next five to ten years so Veronica's there anything any last words any departing words as a founder as an organization leader the last thing I leave you with is if it's not orgasmic don't settle it's 2023 if something doesn't feel right if something doesn't feel good whether for you or for your clients your customers whomever it might be you can change it and if you need help just reach out but if it's more of our grasmic don't settle I like it I like it but does not orgasmic do not settle Veronica the founder of business laid bear thank you so much for being on the show for those listening please subscribe to the newsletter at the shades of ead

@47:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You can also follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. So you can go ahead and check out these reels.

Thank you and have a great night. Perfect.

@47:15 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

That was so good.

@47:17 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You're great.

@47:18 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Thanks for letting me share my media kit. Because oftentimes people are like, yeah, upload all these things. I'm like, here, just take a link.

@47:24 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, you're good. This is great. You're great. Perfect. Yeah. I got all your stuff. And so I'll always showcase on the newsletter next week and co-featured.

And then you'll be main feature the fall of the week you're actually aired. then a co-featured again, the week after.

And then if you haven't even been like things that coming up, please let me know. I like to put things in newsletter.

yeah, but thank you again for your time.

@47:45 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Really do appreciate it. We have yet to have an Oregon based client. So would really like to pop that cherry.

@47:51 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

There you go. Perfect.

@47:52 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Let's pop comes from you. to send you a little thank you money.

@47:55 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Ah, sweet. Let's do it.

@47:56 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

right. Let's get let's pop that cherry.

@47:59 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Hoppin days. Be my friend with benefits. I literally send you money. Those musicians, that's where that tree problem daddy's was horrible.

I'm still upset that I bought that album so long ago.

@48:13 - Veronica Yanhs (she/her)

Oh, don't be.

Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I'm getting aged out. Don't worry. Alright, my love.