We Won The Shopify Build A BIGGER Business Competition
I’m an entrepreneur who’s living a life of abundance. Traveling to amazing places, meeting interesting people, and inspiring you to do the same.
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Transcript:
What's up guys?
It’s Allen and you might be asking yourself, “Why are you in the back of a car?” and I’ll tell you where I’m going in a minute, but first, I’m in the back of a car. Check this out.
How we doin’ up there? I’m recording a video.
[Driver] How are you?
Good.
Look at this leg room. Got some water. My suit.
So, I’m in the back of this car right now heading to New York City and why I’m going to New York City is really important and the fun part about why I’m heading up there.
So, a lot of you know that Cathryn and I travel a lot for business. We go to conferences. We do mastermind groups. We go and speak at events and tell our story of how we grew and built our business and how we won this thing called The Shopify Build a Business competition, and if you don’t know what The Shopify Build a Business Competition is, it’s for any new business who’s just starting out.
The platform, the e-com platform called Shopify hosts it and holds it once a year and it’s this big to-do and this year, they actually changed around the rules of the competition. It’s no longer for entry-level businesses or businesses that are just starting. Now, it’s for businesses that are above and beyond, who are already established or who are getting established and trying to get to the next level.
So, they’re calling this The Build a Bigger Business competition and Cathryn and I ended up winning it so what does that mean? That means we go up to New York. We ring the New York Stock Exchange opening bell again. We go on a flight to Tony Robbins’ island in Fiji, of all places and it’s gonna be incredible.
So, I highly recommend you hit subscribe to this channel because I’m going to be pumping out a ton of video based on us winning this and everything that we’re about to experience in the coming days, so as I’m up there, I’m gonna figure out where everyone’s going, what we’re doing, what’s all happening and I’m giving you a front-row seat as it’s going on.
I’m Allen, see you in a little bit.
So, before I start the video of us in New York City and everything that’s to come up there, I just want to show you something really quick. This is how I dream to travel and commute back and forth to the city rather than being on the bus, because the bus sucks and this is awesome, look. I’ve got my mobile hot spot out. I’m working with the team. I’m in comfort, not dealing with different smells and different people and all that stuff. This is the way it’s gotta be.
So, guys, I just got to the hotel and this place is incredible. It’s the Public Hotel in New York City and this room is really freakin’ swanky. So, they have built-in seating, marble whatever.
As soon as I walked in the room, the blinds went up. They have this crazy bathroom stall shower thing. It’s incredible, so, also the lobby and everything is ridiculous, as well. I can’t wait to see what else we’re doin’ here. Anyway, we just got here and got the itinerary for this week and, oh my god, I have to tell ya how crazy everything is going to get.
Three full days in New York City packed full of mentor sessions, dinners, parties and then we’re jumpin’ on a plane and heading to Fiji. So, get ready ’cause I’m gonna try to document as much as I can for this to bring you along for the ride, like I said in the car.
Now, let’s go find Cathryn and meet up with my friends at Shopify.
Oh my gosh, last year, I came into the hotel and there was a goodie bag full of awesome stuff and look what we have this time. A goodie bag full of awesome stuff, so let’s scope out what this is.
Dear Allen, welcome. This is the itinerary that I was just mentioning before. Oh man. Black card with Shopify logo on it. Let’s open this up. Oh man, oh man. Build a bigger business.
So, the card is just a way to say thank you, get ready for your mentorship sessions. Get ready for this experience and get ready to just enjoy the hell out of life, which is what it’s all about, baby! Why we do it. Alright, time to open up the box. Oh, man. Question the impossible. Tim Ferriss. Today, we have pens it looks like. Oh, nice. I love the feel of this leather. Feels really good. Got little buttons. We out!
– [Cathryn] What are you doin’?
– Nothin’. I’m feelin’ excited. Feelin’ excited.
– [Cathryn] Me, too. Why are you nervous?
I don’t know. Nervous about the whole thing.
Back in the room, met with Cathryn. We chatted for a little bit, then we went downstairs to go meet up with a couple of the people at Shopify, but by the time we got down there, they were gone, ’cause they’re setting up for our event for this evening.
So, there’s only one event this evening and it’s a cocktail and dinner reception slash party and that starts at 5:30 which is in, literally, 10 minutes and that goes all the way ’til the end of the evening. So, that’s what we’re doing tonight.
We’re gonna meet all the other winners of the Build a Business, Build a Bigger Business competition. So, let’s go head up. Right around this corner is the Shopify event.
I’m waiting for Cathryn so we can walk in together. In the meantime, I’m drinking some champagne because I’m a little nervous. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen everybody and I also don’t know a lot of people who are gonna be here like the other winners and what they do and just never met ’em, so, it’s a mixture of nerves and excitement and just adrenaline, for sure. So, let’s hope Cathryn hurries up before I jump in there and just pull the Band-Aid off, and here she is. She’s got her… You got your bubbles?
– [Cathryn] Got my bubbles.
– Ow! So, we just got up here and this view is incredible and also, the people are incredible that we’re meeting. We’re meeting a bunch of the Shopify people, a bunch of the other winners, all the other winners, actually, and yeah, really interesting stuff.
I love connecting with people and you know, hearing their story. A lot of them are really young in business. A couple have only been around for about 18 months but they’re still killing it, so, it’s really cool.
Let’s go have a chat.
So, people have flown in from all over the friggin’ place. These guys flew in from the U.K. on Sunday, other people from San Diego. A couple people are here from the city, so it’s easy, just like us, just a car ride in. A quick ride. A lot of the Shopify people are from Toronto, a majority of them and yeah, can’t wait to meet everybody else.
We just got off the escalator, and now we’re meeting everybody at the street and we’re gonna go walk to dinner, about a 10 minute walk down the road, and we’re gonna grab dinner and meet everybody and talk and blab and have drinks and all that good stuff.
So, here’s the crew that I’m with right now. This place is crazy. So, they brought us in this separate room and we have name tags on the tables and lemme go find my assigned seat.
Alright guys.
We just wrapped up dinner, and now, they’re loading us into this shuttle like cattle. I don’t know where we’re off to, but it’s gonna be fun. part of it. Cathryn and I, we’ve been through this before, so…
– We know what we’re doin’ right now.
– We understand what’s happening, but no one else does.
– Shhh!
– But no one else does. No one knows what the hell they’re doin’ right now. We don’t know where we’re goin’. We’re just following people blind, here. Everyone right behind me, not everyone. There’s a couple people in front of me, but we’re walking down Wall Street right now to go check out something. Oh, man, guys.
– [Man] People are coming around us.
– I see it! I see it already.
– [Man] We are?
– Oh my god. So, right there on the side of the building, New York Stock Exchange building. It’s incredible. You have no idea. So, this is really crazy right now. Everyone’s being extremely quiet, I think because everyone’s emotions are so crazy right now, seeing their logos on the side of the New York Stock Exchange.
It’s really an incredible experience and it’s definitely one for the record books so let me go down and get some better shots for you guys. Seeing your logo on the side of New York Stock Exchange is, it’s unreal. It’s unreal, even though if you have no idea what the New York Stock Exchange is or what it represents or any of the history behind it, having your logo literally right there is just unreal.
It’s seriously unreal, and the fact that we’re all online, all of our businesses and we’re blending the old with the new, like the old-school business style of taking companies public and how long that tradition is and blending it with the new style of business as far as being online and digital and running remote teams and not having an office or like, a central office, it’s really amazing to blend those two things together and to have those here, represented right now is, it’s phenomenal and I’m loving every bit of it and so are all of these people.
So, the team from Australia, they just called their parents via Facetime and it got emotional and it got deep and it was really awe-inspiring to see them celebrating the fact that they’ve done something so phenomenal with their business and with their lives and to share that with their family across half of the globe is really great, to see them taking selfies right now is really awesome. We’re sitting here in front of the New York Stock Exchange and literally, our logo’s on the side of the building.
– I think I’m on the set of this new world. It doesn’t seem real. I’m still in awe and shock.
– Seriously–
– I’m waiting for them to say, “Action!” It looks like a movie set.
– And like, we walk around the side of the street and you’d think everyone would just go crazy. But actually everyone got real quiet.
– Quiet. Yeah, so surreal, right?
Photo by Emanuele Bresciani on Unsplash