Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur | Start and Grow Your Own Business

Ever come back from a networking event with a stack of business cards, feeling like you’ve crushed it, only to hear crickets for weeks? Or maybe you’ve shared your big idea and gotten tons of praise like, “That’s amazing, I’d totally buy that!” but no one ever pulls out their wallet. This is one of the most common and deceptive traps in entrepreneurship. In this solo episode, Brian Lofrumento shares a personal story from his first agency about how he learned the hard way that interest and attention do not equal intention to buy. He breaks down why it's so easy to get fooled by positive feedback and a full pipeline, and reveals why the most critical job you have is moving people from "interested" to "invested."
✨ Why This Matters for You
Understanding this distinction is a game-changer for your business:
It stops you from wasting months of time and energy on "leads" that will never convert.
It teaches you how to identify true buying signals and separate them from polite compliments.
It empowers you to build a pipeline that actually generates revenue, not just a list of contacts.
You’ll learn to filter feedback so you're only building for your real customers, not just the fans.
It shifts your mindset from passively waiting for sales to proactively creating them.
📝 Key Takeaways
Interest ≠ Intention. Polite compliments, encouragement, and attention are not buying signals. Real intention is a commitment to act — to sign a contract, pull out a credit card, or place an order.
Your Job is to Move People. Don't wait for prospects to nurture themselves. Brian explains that it's your responsibility to build the relationship journey that turns a tiny spark of interest into the blaze of intention.
Beware of Misleading Feedback. Only take product, pricing, or service feedback seriously from people who have the genuine intention to be your customer. Listening to everyone else can send you in the wrong direction.
Test for Intention. When someone says, "I'd buy that when you launch," challenge them gently. Ask if they'd pre-pay or what they'd be willing to invest. This separates the talkers from the true buyers.
Focus on the Intentional, Not the Loudest. Your most valuable prospects might not be the ones giving you the most attention. Spend your energy on those who demonstrate real buying potential, even if they're quiet.
A Full Pipeline is a Vanity Metric. Brian’s early mistake teaches us that collecting contacts is just the start. The real work—and the real value—is in the follow-up and the intentional building of trust.
🚀 Put It Into Action
This week, conduct an "Intention Audit" on your business:
Look at your current pipeline or list of "interested" people. For each person, ask: "What have they done to show intention, not just interest?" (e.g., asked about specific pricing, booked a demo, requested a contract).
Identify one person who has shown interest but no intention. What is one action you can take this week to actively move them forward and test their intent? (e.g., send a follow-up with a clear call to action).
The next time someone says "That's a great idea!" thank them and then ask a follow-up question to gauge their actual intent, like "What would a solution like that be worth to you?"
🔗 Stay Connected
Subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode of this "Entrepreneurial Traps" mini-series.
Connect with Brian on Instagram @imetbrian
Share this episode with a fellow entrepreneur who needs to turn their fans into actual customers.

Kicking off Entrepreneurial Trap Week, Brian dives straight into the most common and dangerous myth that holds founders back: the belief that "if you build it, they will come." He argues this single idea is responsible for the biggest graveyard of failed businesses. In this episode, Brian challenges you to stop hiding behind product development and start focusing on what truly matters—distribution. He explains why even the most brilliant service or revolutionary product is worthless if no one knows it exists and makes a bold claim: you should be spending at least 50% of your time getting your business in front of people. This is the tough love you need to hear to turn your great idea into a real, thriving business.
✨ Why This Matters for You 
This isn't just theory; it's a fundamental shift that can save you from months or years of wasted effort:
It stops you from endlessly perfecting a product in a vacuum, only to launch to crickets.
It gives you clarity on the highest-impact activities that actually lead to customers and revenue.
It helps you overcome the fear of rejection by reframing outreach and marketing as essential, non-negotiable tasks.
It reveals why some competitors with "worse" products are winning—and how you can beat them at their own game.
📝 Key Takeaways
The Biggest Trap: Believing that a great product is enough is the most dangerous trap in entrepreneurship. Nothing else matters if you fall into it.
Ask Two Critical Questions: Before you do anything else, you must be able to answer: 1) Who, specifically, is "they"? and 2) How, specifically, will they come?
The 50% Rule: Brian insists that at least half of your time, energy, and resources must be dedicated to distribution—the work of getting your offer in front of your ideal customers.
Distribution > Perfection: A mediocre product with fantastic distribution will always outperform a world-class product with no distribution strategy.
Action Creates Momentum: Entrepreneurs often retreat into "building" to avoid the hard work and potential rejection of sales and marketing. True progress comes from customer conversations and outreach.
Build Your Audience First: Brian shares the story of his own podcast, explaining that its top 1% status wasn't luck. It was the result of launching to an audience he had already built from his book, giving him instant distribution.
🚀 Put It Into Action 
This week, take a hard look at where your time is really going:
Where are you hiding behind "building"? Are you endlessly tweaking your website, logo, or onboarding process instead of talking to potential customers?
Answer the two questions for your business: Who is your specific "they"? And what is one tangible action you can take today to make sure they see you?
Do a calendar audit: Does your schedule reflect the 50% rule? If not, block out time specifically for distribution activities like outreach, content creation, or networking.
🔗 Stay Connected
Subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode of Entrepreneurial Trap Week.
Connect with Brian on Instagram @imetbrian
Share this episode with a fellow entrepreneur who is stuck in the "building" phase and needs to hear this.

Ever feel like you’re doing all the "right" things—launching a podcast, sending follow-up emails, running ads—but getting zero results? In this Solo Sunday episode, Brian pulls back the curtain on a subtle but destructive mindset that sabotages countless entrepreneurs: the "Checkbox Mentality." He reveals why simply "doing the thing" is never enough and how this trap convinces us that effort equals progress, even when it doesn't. Brian shares powerful examples, from sales follow-ups to content creation, to illustrate the massive difference between just checking a box and pursuing excellence. Get ready to confront this common trap and learn how to shift your approach to unlock the results you’ve been working for.
✨ Why This Matters for You 
This isn't just another mindset talk; it's a diagnosis for why your hard work might not be paying off. Understanding and overcoming the checkbox mentality will help you:
Stop wasting time on activities that produce no real return.
Transform your marketing and sales efforts from empty actions into powerful, result-generating systems.
Differentiate yourself from the 99% of competitors who are just going through the motions.
Shift your focus from being busy to being effective, leading to real, measurable business growth.
Build a reputation for excellence that attracts high-quality clients and opportunities.
📝 Key Takeaways
Beware the Checkbox Mentality. It’s the dangerous belief that simply completing a task (like sending one follow-up email) is the same as achieving the goal.
Effort Isn't Enough; Excellence Is. Showing up is the bare minimum. True success comes from doing things with intention, optimization, and a commitment to being the best.
"I Tried That" Is a Red Flag. When you hear yourself saying you "tried" podcasting or "tried" ads and it didn't work, it's often a sign that you only checked the box instead of committing to excellence over time.
Excellence Requires More. The alternative to checking a box is to go above and beyond. Instead of a generic email, send a custom Loom video. It’s more work, but it gets dramatically better results.
Succeed Through Persistence & Quality. It's not about just doing the thing. As Brian says, it's about "doing the thing long enough and excellent enough until it succeeds."
🚀 Put It Into Action 
This week, Brian challenges you to audit your own actions and escape the checkbox trap. For every task you work on, ask yourself:
Am I doing this just to get it off my to-do list, or am I striving for an excellent outcome?
What would it look like to go above and beyond the average person's effort on this task?
How can I inject more intention, creativity, and energy into this to ensure it produces a real result?
🔗 Stay Connected
Subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode (especially this week's special series on "Entrepreneurial Traps"!).
Connect with Brian on Instagram @imetbrian
Share this episode with a fellow entrepreneur who needs to stop going through the motions and start getting real results.

In this special Collab Week episode of Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur, eight founders answer one deeply personal question:
What would you say in a voicemail to your younger self?
You’ll hear from Lisa Larson, Jane Alexander, Nate Hebbert, Nicholas Cook, Mike Gross, Leslie Hemedes, Shawn Sundsvold, and Stephen Custer as they look back on the earlier versions of themselves — the ambitious ones, the scared ones, the grieving ones, the overthinking ones, the waiting ones, and the ones who had no idea how much life and business would eventually teach them.
This episode is full of hard-earned wisdom about trusting the process, accepting help, grieving what you lose, protecting your spark, saying no sooner, starting before you feel ready, surrounding yourself with the right people, and realizing that the path rarely unfolds the way you thought it would.
For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur who feels behind, uncertain, afraid, or tempted to wait for perfect clarity, this episode is a reminder that you do not need the whole road mapped out. You need the courage to take the next step — and the willingness to keep becoming the person your journey is shaping you into.
✨ What You’ll Take Away
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
Trust that your experiences are shaping you, even when they feel messy or disappointing.
Accept help, be vulnerable, and share your story more openly.
Stop forcing every opportunity to become “the one” and trust the direction your energy is taking you.
Make room for grief so you can continue loving, dreaming, and building.
Choose the right people to surround yourself with.
Say no earlier, think less, and move before everything feels perfect.
Come back to your “why” when fear, rejection, or uncertainty gets loud.
Stop waiting for the perfect moment to start the thing that has been on your heart.
Recognize that some people are wired to build — and that safety is not always the same as alignment.
🎙️ Meet the Collab Week Contributors
Lisa Larson — Mindful Corporate Mastery
Lisa Larson is the founder of Mindful Corporate Mastery, where she helps leaders and high performers build clarity under pressure before reactivity takes control. Her work focuses on performance-focused mindfulness, micro-interventions, and sustainable operating rhythms that support clearer thinking, better decisions, and long-term performance.
Connect with Lisa:
Website: https://www.mindfulcorporatemastery.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-larson-atx/
Free Program: https://awakeningperformance.com/5-day-clarity-challenge/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EqbbvCrXoBgtEt21ZItVX?si=fMY2efj0S7KTfwCikdibHg
Jane Alexander — Emma Advisor
Jane Alexander is the founder and CEO of Emma Advisor, an AI platform helping families navigate the path from high school to college with more clarity, strategy, and confidence. After an unconventional educational path and more than a decade advising leaders at over 200 colleges and universities, Jane built Emma Advisor from the belief that opportunity should not depend on insider knowledge, social capital, or expensive consultants.
Connect with Jane:
Website: https://emmaadvisor.ai/
Nate Hebbert — SelfWare Consulting
Nate Hebbert is an entrepreneur and software engineer who previously worked for 3M, KPMG, and Domo, where he developed custom Java code for Fortune 500 clients. After burnout threatened to derail his career, Nate became obsessed with helping tech companies beat burnout without pressing pause. Today, he is the founder and CEO of SelfWare Consulting.
Connect with Nate:
Website: https://selfwareconsulting.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beat-burnout
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SelfWareConsulting
Nicholas Cook — Money 101 Academy
Nicholas Cook is a blogger, teacher, real estate investor, and founder of Money 101 Academy. His background includes work as a financial advisor and paraplanner, teaching personal finance, English, literature, theology, investing, and algebra, and building online projects across writing, web design, YouTube, ecommerce, affiliate marketing, and email marketing.
Connect with Nicholas:
Website: https://money101academy.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-cook77/
Life, Business, and Creativity Blog: https://nickcook.blog
Mike Gross — Michael J. Gross LLC / Management System Certification Training Solutions
Mike Gross is a trainer, training provider, consultant, and auditor who helps organizations make sense of ISO standards and apply them in practical ways. With more than 35 years of experience, including growth into executive leadership roles, Mike focuses on helping organizations build understanding through training first, then refine and improve their systems. As a committed solopreneur, his approach is practical, straightforward, and centered on leaving people more capable than when he started.
Connect with Mike:
Website: https://mj-gross.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mj-gross/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/michael-j-gross-llc/
LinkedIn Showcase: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/mscertts/
Leslie Hemedes — KeepSaiQ
Dr. Leslie Hemedes is a clinical psychologist, entrepreneur, and founder of KeepSaiQ, a family intelligence platform reimagining how families preserve memories, stories, and meaning across generations. Her work sits at the intersection of psychology, entrepreneurship, technology, and human connection, with a mission to help families preserve not just what happened, but why it mattered.
Connect with Leslie:
Company Website: https://keepsaiq.com/
KeepSaiQ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/keepsaiq/
Leslie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-hemedes-psy-d-b02b4022/
Shawn Sundsvold — GoldBear Media
Shawn Sundsvold is the co-founder and COO of GoldBear Media, a marketing agency based in Westminster, Maryland. After years of solving business problems across sales, operations, management, and marketing roles, Shawn joined his wife Kelly full-time in GoldBear Media to help small and medium-sized businesses improve their marketing, branding, online presence, social media, email marketing, and growth.
Connect with Shawn:
Website: https://goldbear.media/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldbear.media/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoldBearMedia
Stephen Custer — Dry Humor Marketing
Stephen Custer started Dry Humor Marketing because he believes marketing is seriously fun. He helps clients combine strategy, data, video, photography, websites, and authentic storytelling so they can inspire people to act instead of simply throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks.
Connect with Stephen:
Website: https://www.dryhumormarketing.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-custer/
🚀 Action Steps For Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
Write a short voicemail or letter to your younger self. Notice what themes, regrets, or encouragements come up.
Ask where you are forcing a path instead of following the energy, signals, and opportunities already showing up.
Identify one area where you need to accept help instead of carrying everything alone.
Look at one disappointment or closed door and ask whether it might be redirection rather than rejection.
Choose one thing you have been waiting to start and take the smallest possible step this week.
Protect your spark by reconnecting with the deeper reason you wanted to build in the first place.
Surround yourself with one person, room, or community that reflects the kind of life and business you want to grow into.
Practice saying no to one thing that is not yours to carry.

In this special Collab Week episode of Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur, nine founders answer one creative and surprisingly powerful question:
What is a concept from another discipline, hobby, or part of life that changed how you think as a founder?
You’ll hear from Shawn Sundsvold, Jaimz Hodge, Jane Alexander, Drew Dorenfest, Erik Berglund, Lisa Larson, Nate Hebbert, Stephen Custer, and Nicholas Cook as they pull lessons from recovery, fiction writing, gardening, baseball, fitness, running, software engineering, sketch comedy, poetry, and more.
The result is a wide-ranging episode about patience, systems, storytelling, recovery, consistency, craft, perspective, and the small lessons that quietly reshape how we build.
For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur who feels like business wisdom only comes from business books, this episode is a reminder that some of the best founder lessons are hiding in plain sight — in the hobbies you love, the disciplines you practice, the challenges you survive, and the patterns you notice when you slow down enough to pay attention.
✨ What You’ll Take Away
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
Use life’s highs and lows as perspective instead of letting them define you.
Move beyond passion by intentionally studying your craft.
Build a startup with the patience and care of a gardener.
Stop swinging for home runs and focus on getting on base consistently.
Treat your business like something that needs regular self-care.
Build recovery into your operating rhythm instead of glorifying exhaustion.
Apply systems thinking from software engineering to business problems.
Use storytelling to build trust in sales, marketing, and leadership.
See creative hobbies as training grounds for better communication and business growth.
🎙️ Meet the Collab Week Contributors
Shawn Sundsvold — GoldBear Media
Shawn Sundsvold is the co-founder and COO of GoldBear Media, a marketing agency based in Westminster, Maryland. After years of solving business problems across sales, operations, management, and marketing roles, Shawn joined his wife Kelly full-time in GoldBear Media to help small and medium-sized businesses improve their marketing, branding, online presence, social media, email marketing, and growth.
Connect with Shawn:
Website: https://goldbear.media/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldbear.media/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoldBearMedia
Jaimz Hodge — Cart Catalyst
Jaimz Hodge helps ecommerce brands convert more customers by eliminating the invisible friction in their buying experience, from ad click to checkout. Through Cart Catalyst, he helps entrepreneurs get their products and ideas online, selling through Shopify and advertising through Google Ads.
Connect with Jaimz:
Website: https://www.cartcatalyst.com
Jane Alexander — Emma Advisor
Jane Alexander is the founder and CEO of Emma Advisor, an AI platform helping families navigate the path from high school to college with more clarity, strategy, and confidence. After an unconventional educational path and more than a decade advising leaders at over 200 colleges and universities, Jane built Emma Advisor from the belief that opportunity should not depend on insider knowledge, social capital, or expensive consultants.
Drew Dorenfest — Client Magnet CRM
Drew Dorenfest is a marketing expert who has worked with global brands including Netflix, Apple, Warner Bros., the NFL, and more as a video editor. Today, through Client Magnet CRM, he helps small business owners grow their brands through more clients, more 5-star reviews, stronger SEO, and more sales.
Connect with Drew:
Website: https://clientmagnetcrm.com
Erik Berglund — The Language of Leadership / Loominary
Erik Berglund is the founder of The Language of Leadership and Loominary, where he builds custom skill simulation systems that help teams practice the difficult conversations that drive performance.
Connect with Erik:
Website: https://www.languageofleadership.io
Website: https://www.loominary.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emberglund/
Lisa Larson — Mindful Corporate Mastery
Lisa Larson is the founder of Mindful Corporate Mastery, where she helps leaders and high performers build clarity under pressure before reactivity takes control. Her work focuses on performance-focused mindfulness, micro-interventions, and sustainable operating rhythms that support clearer thinking, better decisions, and long-term performance.
Connect with Lisa:
Website: https://www.mindfulcorporatemastery.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-larson-atx/
Free Program: https://awakeningperformance.com/5-day-clarity-challenge/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EqbbvCrXoBgtEt21ZItVX?si=fMY2efj0S7KTfwCikdibHg
Nate Hebbert — SelfWare Consulting
Nate Hebbert is an entrepreneur and software engineer who previously worked for 3M, KPMG, and Domo, where he developed custom Java code for Fortune 500 clients. After burnout threatened to derail his career, Nate became obsessed with helping tech companies beat burnout without pressing pause. Today, he is the founder and CEO of SelfWare Consulting.
Connect with Nate:
Website: https://selfwareconsulting.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beat-burnout
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SelfWareConsulting
Stephen Custer — Dry Humor Marketing
Stephen Custer started Dry Humor Marketing because he believes marketing is seriously fun. He helps clients combine strategy, data, video, photography, websites, and authentic storytelling so they can inspire people to act instead of simply throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks.
Connect with Stephen:
Website: https://www.dryhumormarketing.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-custer/
Nicholas Cook — Money 101 Academy
Nicholas Cook is a blogger, teacher, real estate investor, and founder of Money 101 Academy. His background includes work as a financial advisor and paraplanner, teaching personal finance, English, literature, theology, investing, and algebra, and building online projects across writing, web design, YouTube, ecommerce, affiliate marketing, and email marketing.
Connect with Nicholas:
Website: https://money101academy.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-cook77/
Life, Business, and Creativity Blog: https://nickcook.blog
🚀 Action Steps For Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
Identify one hobby, discipline, or life experience that has already taught you something useful about business.
Pick one area of your business where you have relied on talent or instinct, then study someone who has mastered that craft.
Replace one “home run” goal with a smaller, repeatable action you can take consistently.
Block time on your calendar for business self-care: systems, team support, metrics, strategy, or reflection.
Build recovery into your week before your body or brain forces you to.
Look at one recurring business problem and break it down like a system: inputs, steps, decisions, outputs.
Turn one fact-heavy pitch, email, or piece of content into a story with a hook, journey, and takeaway.
Revisit a creative hobby and ask how it might sharpen your communication, leadership, or founder instincts.