Hi everyone Joy and Jason are back. We haven't actually done this for a couple of weeks. So we're excited to bring you a brand new episode. And today we're going to talk about equipment. What do you need? Do you need it? And how much would it cost you to start a business?

00:23

Hello, Jason, how you doing?

00:24

Hello Joy, how are you?

00:26

I am good. Thank you. There is a reason why Jason has that green screen behind him because this is what this episode is going to be about. Alright, so Jase let's dive into this. Can you tell people a little bit? Can we start up with minimum cost as an entrepreneur? How much did it cost you to startup?

00:44

Yeah. So if you're going the online entrepreneur route, there are some basic needs that you're going to have to have, but it's not going to cost you an arm and a leg. So the first thing that you're going to need is a computer and I don't recommend, although I guess you could start in the very beginning with your smartphone, I really recommend that you either get a laptop, and or a desktop to work from laptops are nice because you can bring them wherever you want, obviously, and work from wherever you are. But sometimes people just have a desktop around, and that's how they're getting going. So that's absolutely fine. So let's talk more about once we have that in place, just some of the critical and functional components of the computer and or laptop that you really want to have in place. So let's talk about your RAM. Your RAM is your random access memory. And so this is important because this is where the computer is storing information as you're going between screens and downloading here and you have 55 different tabs opened. So the more RAM that you have, the more your computer can essentially do all at once and keep things up to speed, and keep things going. So I would recommend that you have at least four gigabytes of RAM. And that's a great starting point. And with the four gigs that'll allow you to have multiple tabs open while you're doing some sort of a meeting like this at the same time, you'll be able to share your screen and you'll be able to search while you're doing all these things at the same time with relative ease and fluidity. So four gigs, I definitely recommend you start there. And the nice thing about RAM is it's easy to add to it. And it's relatively inexpensive so you can buy ram sticks really cheap and they usually come in either 2 4 8 or 16-gigabyte sizes. It just depends on the motherboard on your computer, what type you need to buy and how fast it actually sticks in but for desktops, you could probably put a new stick of RAM in an upgrade about eight minutes. For a laptop, it gets a little bit more confusing, but it's not that bad. But so four gigs, so let's start there with your RAM. Your video card. So your video card.

03:14

The video card is really going to help with how good your videos are coming across. And if somebody's sending you video, and it's an HD or something like this, it's nice to have a video card that has that type of output. And so, I will tell you this, all the newer computers and laptops that you're going to buy today will have the minimum video card requirements that you're looking for, as long as you're not also gaming on this computer at the same time, which requires just tonnes of GPU. You're going to be good now if you have an older computer or laptop, whatever is in there, if you can see your screen, you're probably going to be okay. But as time moves on, you might want to upgrade to a better video card. And you'll know you have to do that when you go into any type of program and it says, can't run this, you need a better video card, but you're really not going to run into that too much. So I don't want to spend too much time on like gamer video cards that you might need that have a dual purpose, you know what I mean? So that's the video card. The next big huge important thing is going to be your camera. A lot of times a lot of laptops come with a camera these days, which is absolutely fine. And you can also buy a webcam or whatever if you don't have one on your laptop, or your PC monitor doesn't have one. But we really want to make sure the at least the one thing that your camera has is you want to make sure that it's 30 frames per second minimum. What does that mean?

04:55

It means when I'm talking to you Joy, it doesn't look like an old Chinese movie where they say something, and then that kind of thing happens and the sound comes out later. So you'll be able to the computer will be able to process as close as to real-time as possible on what's going on and outputting it to the other end. So 30 frames per second are ideally where you want to be minimal if you can get up to like 60 62 that's outstanding. It's not necessary all the time, you'll be just fine with 30. But, you know, as you're doing presentations and little things like this, and you want to seem more credible, you want to look more professional, especially if you're speaking to someone on the other end about a possible collaboration, or you're selling your product or whatever it is, the more professional you look, the better. And sometimes that's just the simple upgrade, and a spend of $25 or $30 to go from a camera that's 15 to one that's 30 frames per second, and an additional 30, or whatever to one that's, that can go up to 60. So, highly important, definitely something to think about when you go computer shopping, or you're looking at the one that you have. Also, now we want to talk about memory. Now memory is different from Ram. So RAM is the random access memory, the memory that your computer is using to run all the products and windows that you have open, where your memory is where you're going to store your files, and folders and all these types of things. You're probably more familiar with a memory from this standpoint than you are with Ram. And so you want to have in my opinion, you want to have at least 125 gigabytes of RAM on your computer minimum and memory is still another thing that's relatively cheap these days, especially on Amazon and stuff like this. You can upgrade your memory and you know, if you're buying or you know, if you're buying a computer or a laptop, it's really nice to have like a terabyte of memory because as you start getting busier and busier, and taking on more projects, and you want to save these things, and even backing up your hard drive, you can suck up a lot of memory real quick. It's nice to have, you know, Google Drive on the side, and these internet-based memory banks that you can access, but it's also really nice to have and you should have a decent size. So if you can start with 125 starts there. But if you really can go to 500 gigabytes. And that'll just be you just won't have to worry at that point which is nice so.

07:49

You know, investing in one of these little babies is good. I mean, this robot, it's so tiny look at it, it's so tiny I think I paid three or 400 bucks for it four terabytes. And I mean, you can take this everywhere with you. So if it's not in your budget to buy a computer that has a whole terabyte of things on it, I mean, you can always just use one of these as long as you're very gentle with it and you don't pass it around and shake it around, then you know, your information is safe on it. So

08:17

Absolutely. And so this is called an external hard drive. And the reason why it's called that is that it sits outside of your computer and it simply attaches to your computer with a USB cord now the thing that you have to remember about these is these are memory only you cannot operate a program from these so you can't download like a video editor and put it on your external hard drive and run it, you can but it's it takes up so much of your computer that you don't ever do that these strictly for file storage. And like Joy says you can get real cheap these days. I mean, you can pick up a cheaper one terabyte probably for around 100 bucks.

09:01

Oh, wow. Yeah, I get that US process but in New Zealand. I forget that. Technology stuff in New Zealand is a lot more expensive than in the US definitely. Okay. I forget that sometimes. Yeah, no right. Feel sad for us that we always have to pick up all these things so expensive.

09:23

Oh, I feel oh I feel terrible. But you know if you can't  get a hold of one of those right in the beginning don't worry about it because services like I mentioned before, like google drive you can get I think it's like 100 gigs for 299 a month. They give him I forgot how much they give you for free.

09:46

It's like $2 99 cents. Yeah, you get this I've got, I pay extra for Google Storage and it is literally $2 99 cents and it's like, I think it's an extra 30 but it comes with a 100 gigs. Anyway, the $2 99 that I've got, trust me, it's not running out. So and I'm running videos and I do a lot of video type stuff so imagine if you don't do that yet it will take you forever to get that capt. It really does.

10:16

Yeah, anytime you can back up your computer or your laptop or whatever it is, you feel because that shit, anything could happen with electronics and that your shit could be gone. And there is nothing worse than that feeling. So if you don't have it outside of your hard drive in your computer, yeah, I would look into trying to get that or update at least your Google Drive for the $2 99 cents a month to have that kind of storage you'll be thankful for.

10:52

Even just like your photos, you know, even if you just backup your personal files, like again, I'm not it's a bit off-topic, but I have a friend that lost all her photos on her phone like over 6000 photos because the phone crashed. So I mean automatically I know I like an Apple for example, you have that automatically but with Google, not necessarily so you have to set it up if you have an Android phone, so if you just go you know, make sure that you backup these things on the cloud anyway, you know, it will definitely help you and I mean if guys saying was like, obviously on your computer as well but your phone, it's so easy to backup files on your phone, because a lot of the times I actually just take videos on my phone, and that was the next thing that I was going to you know, Jason was talking about having a good webcam, which is great to talk to people that you can use your phone to, I do a lot of video recording just using my phone, three quarters of my videos are actually all my videos that I do on YouTube, that I'm not sharing my screen is from my phone, phones these days are really amazing and giving a good thing so if you do not have a webcam, or you don't have money to have a webcam and you've got a phone with a half decent camera, I mean it comes so I mean all the phones in the last year at least have really good cameras.

12:00

I know you do a lot of stuff on your phone more than I do and I, the phone, the camera on my phone, I have a decent phone, it's probably way better than the one that I have sitting on top of my monitor. I just don't use it as much. I don't know, I guess everyone's different like that.

12:18

That's the thing. Yeah. And also just to dive into so what Jason was saying with the laptop. We don't want to talk price on here because I mean, it depends on the country that you're in. Okay. So you didn't need to go and find your best option if Amazon has this option. We are in your country, whatever else. But also, if you don't have money for a laptop, a desktop is a lot cheaper in general than a laptop. So yes, you obviously don't have the portability of it, you can go and sit in a coffee shop and work or whatever else. But if you don't have the money and you're just starting out, you can get a desktop for a quarter of the price than you would pay for a laptop. So that's another option for you if you don't have $1,000, or even five or $600 for a laptop. You can get it for like two $300 for a desktop, which is the same concept, you can have your RAM that Jason talked about, you can have your memory you can have all of those things for a fraction of the price. So that's another option for you, which is obviously what laptops is better especially if you know you are then you're gonna start seeing clients and things like that but if that's not an option for you yet it's a great starting point if you don't have the budget.

13:22

Yeah. 100% and you know, if a desktop is where you start, you know, that could be one of your main business goals. Yeah. Monetarily wise as you move towards, you know, you move towards getting the laptop.

13:38

Yes, exactly. I've had quite a few conversations lately with people where they are fixated on the technology they not fixated on or if that's the right word to use on the actual starting a business. So guys, I just want to explain this to you so you understand your technology is going to help you to make money but that's not the sole reason you're going to make money, your time and effort that you put in every single day that is gonna make you money. So if you buy a $2,000 laptop, and you buy a $600 mike and whatever else, you're going to spend like five con equipment, and you're not making money, that's your own fault. So I just want to make sure that you know, people understand it because the other day I saw a price with someone saying, I've got $1,500 for a mike, what can I get for it for that? You don't need to pay $1,500 for a microphone. That's crazy. You can get like a really good Jet eye one, which by the way I'm ordering for 100 bucks and that's it why spend  worry about the content. This year, my phone on here I have an app, so sorry, Jason going on content. But I was assuming that that microphone was the next thing that we were talking about. And on here, and if you guys are on screen, you can you know if you're going to look at this on YouTube, you're going to see this. Just gonna see if I can pull this system up or this app that I've got. So I have an app called voice record. So if you, if you can see the little button there, if you can see, it says voice recording. And on that, that is how I record my podcast episodes. That actually sounds better than my microphone. And I don't have the best microphone yet. I've been slowly investing in that because it for me, it was more about the content. I am not excited about technology, but more on the content. And but this is the thing and my podcast episodes that are recorded and that act actually transcribes it for you. And I think I pay like $3 a month for it, which is nothing. And it transcribes it for you. If you upload it, you can change the speed, you can add in audio, you can do everything with it. It's literally like an editing software tool for voice over things as well. So it's amazing. So I mean, for apps like that, that's an iPhone app. I don't know if it's on Android though. But I mean, that is how simple these things can be. You know, you don't even if you want to start a podcast, all you need is your phone. You can do everything on it. You don't even need a computer, you don't need a microphone. So, videos, if you're not going to share your screen, just use your phone, you can do everything from your phone. If you're going to built software for people or built funnels or do those types of things, yes, you're going to need a laptop. But I mean, if you're just starting out, and you just want to make noise, I call it noise, you know, do marketing and advertise yourself and do you know your attractive characters, people get to know you, all you need is a phone. But then it gets into the details. And Jason has some really, really valid points, you know, as far as the RAM and the monitor, and those things go, What's your point? What's your thing on the mic? Because Jase, I know you've got a good mike because you've got a friend that recommended that to you, that is a very good podcaster so what's your evaluation?

16:48

So I think it's nice to be able to have a mike like this is the one I have here, which by the way I'm not using at the moment. So when you know you get one of these guys. So this mike is good you know, it's a good decent I'll say condenser mike. And so this mike with the arm was like it was less than 100 bucks. Now, I mean, but I don't have it in now because it does require an external power source that broke and I need to order a new one. But like Joy said with the phone, I think it's good to have a microphone. Because when you start as if you start doing things like webinars and things like this, you want to sound as clear as possible. And you want to be able to have a microphone that has the ability to diffuse the outside noise and getting rid of that for you. I think that's it's a good thing to have, fortunately for you to get to that point where you can get something decent is not a lot of money. So you know, it's just another thing you can keep on your list of things we're working towards, but that is not going to you know, not going to break the bank but it's a good thing.

17:57

Yeah. Well, my mike and I'm on a decent laptop here, I mean, this is like a couple of thousand dollars worth of laptop it's a gaming laptop. So it's like it's a really good laptop, but the sound on it is terrible. Like, if I unplug my mike, it sounds like I'm in a tunnel. It's really really bad. So and I mean, as I said, this mike was like a $60 mike. So it's not like it's a wow, like a most expensive laptop or a mike because I didn't want to invest a lot of money in it at the time when I bought it because I felt like that is not the reason you know, I wanted to invest in the actual things that I'm doing with it. And in saying that, you know, you just need a like the cheapest thing to start out with just so you can actually get going and with your content and like maybe I. Barely

18:47

It's terrible if I unplug it and this is a decent laptop, you know, so in saying that it doesn't matter how amazeballs your laptop potentially can be when you buy a new one the sound output or input however this it can be shocking when it comes to not having a microphone. And especially if you're going to do like what Jason said, if you do webinars and voice me out, like, you know, sharing your screen meetings or any meetings with a client, when you use your laptop, it's worth the 50 or 60 bucks if you just thought out to invest in it. I do need to get another microphone, that's for sure. But that's, that's my next thing in the next couple of days. Okay, so in saying that, Jason, let's talk about the green screen. So you've got that green screen behind you. Can you show us what that is? Because I don't have a green screen guys there you go. Jason has invested in the green screen and he thinks he and his girlfriend made it. Didn't Cam make that for you? I didn't make that.

19:46

That's nice. I think he crocheted that out on the deck. No. So what actually greets, you know, green screens are really cool. And I really only started getting into them recently and what they're really doing is video editing. So if you don't have like a nice place to record, or you're doing something more professional green screen is where you can manipulate your background. And if you don't know the science behind that there's a whole science you can go look that up on your own. But to get like, for example, this I bought this as a green screen, it wasn't, it was like, honestly, it was like $25, right. And what it's hanging from is like a clothes rack, like a portable clothes rack where you hang your clothes on. So I just put the clips across the clothes rack and so if I want to record something with the green screen behind me, I just simply put it behind me when I'm recording and then I can...