David: If you want to multiply money, it means you have to figure out the very specific steps that you need to take in order to make that happen. Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic, Can You Multiply Money? Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey David, of course you can. I have a tree in my backyard. Money grows on it and I just have to water it every year. What else do I need? David: Nice. No, that's great. You got a money tree. You're in great shape. When I think about the abilty to multiply money, I know that in the early stages of some of my businesses, and in the early stages of trying to figure out how to make them work, I was able to multiply money. But I was multiplying it by fractions, you know. So... If you multiply money by 0. 5, you now have half the money you started out with. So I think we're all able to multiply money. But, ideally, we want to multiply by whole numbers. Jay: Yeah, I agree, but we also subtract money. I'm not sure what the terminology is. Bbut a lot of times in an attempt to multiply money, if you're not careful, you're actually losing money. David: Yeah. And you will have to invest. You'll have to make investments up front. I think a lot of times people go into business, particularly small business owners, will go in with the idea of, "well, I'll just bootstrap it." And it's certainly what I've done, I did that a number of times and when it works, it's fantastic. And when it doesn't, it's disastrous. So as long as you recognize that going in, it's all okay. But having that focus, what will it take to get this going? How much will it cost? How long will I have to work for nothing, if I bootstrap entirely? A lot of those questions come into play. Jay: Yeah, otherwise it's kind of gambling. You know, starting a business is kind of a form of gambling, but the better the idea is, the more help you have along the way, the more financially stable you can be in the process, the more you increase the odds that your gamble will pay off. David: Yeah, and it really is a gamble in the truest sense of the word. Because you don't know if it's going to work. It might work and it might not. You may have a really good feel for it. You may have done it before and say, okay, I feel really good about this. I think this is really going to work, but it's still a bet. You're still guessing and betting that it's going to work based on what you know. You think you can multiply money, but you can't be sure until you try. I've never really been a gambler in terms of casinos and things like that, but I guess people who do that well and know how to do it, they can go into a situation and say, "okay, I have a pretty good feel for the fact that I'm going to make back a multiple of what I lay down on the table. And sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. And it's exactly the same in business. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Only in business, you may put a lot of things on the line, your family's future. You may quit your job. You really put yourself out there in many ways. I found success in making sure my family is supported with a day job and then I pursued other things on the side. Meanwhile, I had other family members who have said, "no, I'm going all in" and they put everything at risk. And that didn't turn out so well, but you know, it depends on the individual and the idea, I think. David: Yeah, absolutely. And I know in the early stages I tried doing sort of a sideline thing for a while and I could never personally make that work. Jay: Yeah, yeah. David: Because it was hard for me when somebody else was paying me money to do a job,