There’s nothing quite like starting young. But most of us don’t build a business before we can vote. Never mind several of them.

Hamish Sutherland is 17 and already on his fourth business.

He felt the spark to get ahead early on but turns out it’s hard to get a job when you’re eight. Rather than let a tricky thing like employment law hold him back, he just started his own business instead.

By 13, that was a lawn mowing and water blasting business. At 15, he wrote a Kindle book that made $60,000. Then he moved into a property investment project. Now he’s building AI-focused businesses, fresh off an entrepreneurship intensive in Malaysia.

The world of work is changing fast, and it’s easy to freeze when you’re not sure where you fit into that change. Hamish isn’t freezing. He’s looking for the opportunity in it.

In this podcast we talk about:

• How to start a business as a teenager with no money or experience

• Making money on Kindle direct publishing, and how his book made $60,000

• Investing in property young

• AI business ideas for 2026, and where he’s focusing next

• Using social media to grow a business as a young entrepreneur

• Gen Z entrepreneurship, and why young people are more willing to take the risk

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re too young, too late, or too unqualified to start something of your own, this episode is the reminder that none of that has to be true.

This episode of Making Cents is proudly supported by Odoo. Go to https://www.odoo.com/r/hpl now and try it for free, for 15 days.

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Production and video editing by Lana Byrne

Audio engineering by Tash Chittock

Filmed by Fanaticals

There's nothing quite like starting young, but most of us don't build a business before we can vote, never mind several of them.

Hamish Sutherland is 17 and already onto his fourth venture.

He felt the spark to get ahead pretty early on, but turns out it's kind of hard to get a job when you're eight.

But rather than let a tricky little thing like employment law hold him back, he just decided to start his own business instead.

By 13, that was a lawn mowing and water blasting business.

At 15, he wrote a Kindle book that made $60,000.

And then he decided he would try investing into a property project.

Now he's interested in building new businesses and just got back from an entrepreneurship intensive in Malaysia.

Again, can I repeat, he's 17.

Yes, I also feel old and tired right now, but also very much inspired.

Learning young, I think, actually gives you the opportunity to not create these preconceptions of business.

What it's like, look, the world of work is changing fast and there can be a freeze response when we see so much change and don't necessarily know where we fit into it.

But Hamish is looking for the opportunity in the change.

Stuff is moving so fast.

It's not what works, it's what can can I do, what skills do I have, what am I good at?

And for me, it's people.

And look, he's impressive, but it's frankly also not easy when you're trying to go a different path.

When you're going for it from such a young age, sometimes people refuse to take you seriously, which can have real consequences for what you're trying to create.

Got a salesman, he came up, he said, nice to meet you to my mum, and he completely ignored me, even if I wasn't even buying the property.

I would have thought you at least say hello, but actually I was his customer, so.

Welcome to Making Sense.

It's the podcast for people who want financial freedom without giving up their coffee.

I'm Francis Cook, a financial journalist and fellow financial freedom seeker who makes money simple for you.

Today, it's building big, not taking no for an answer.

This episode of Making Sense is supported by Odoo, the affordable way to get your business working Smarter.

Go to odoo.com, that's o d double o dot com, for more.

I want to help as many people as possible build a better life for themselves by understanding and taking control of their money.

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Hey, Mish.

Welcome.

I've got to say, one of the things, I say this all the time.

Everyone I talk to about money stuff always says, I wish I started earlier.

That is the most common thing I hear.

You might be the only person who I doubt falls into that.

Because you have been thinking about this, the stuff actively since you were eight, right?

Tell me about it.

Yes, it was eight years old.

The little, little me at eight.

But starting at eight is an interesting task because you're so young that I don't know, but people just think it's a little weird, especially family, when you say, hey, mom, I want to start a business.

And then she goes, are you crazy?

But, you know, it is interesting to be that young and try these things that are traditionally for people a lot older than what I was.

Well, yeah, because I don't think I even started thinking about this stuff properly until I was in my late 20s.

So certainly you were well ahead of me.

What do you think sparked it so young for you?

Like, was this something that was talked about at home or you got ideas from friends, like, what happened there?

Money was talked about a lot in my house, but I think the main thing for me was just that the opportunities were there and I could see them as a little kid.

I wanted to do more because I was trying to get employed at 8.

So I sort of.

People didn't.

Obviously people didn't hire me.

Eight years old, that would be just weird and probably not legal, to be honest.

But yeah, I was just looking for these opportunities and I tried to find them.

But I think that you don't need money to be talked about at home.

You just need to go, I want this.

How do I get it?

And then work towards it, even if it's in small parts.

Interesting.

Okay, so you wanted a job at 8.

People said, no, don't really think we can employ you.

What was your response to that then?

Well, I never actually got anything back.

I handed out my CV in person, I called people.

I did everything you're supposed to, but I don't think I ever even heard back from anyone, which was disappointing because I was like, you know.

But I think I didn't understand it, 8 years old, why they couldn't hire me.

Because I don't know, when you're young, it feels like you're like, oh, I'm, I'm old, but I'm not.

You know, you're eight years old, so it's like, yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

Okay.

You pivoted from that and you started towards your current obsession, which is building businesses.

I kind of love that at 8 years old.

Well, no one will hire me.

I guess I'm just a business owner.

Exactly.

Big, big task for an 8 year old, that's for sure.

So where did you start?

Started doing Handy Hamish.

So that was my first business.

It was lawn mowing and landscaping, which I've done when I was 8.

And I was like, I'm not getting hired.

I want to make my own business.

So I went to the neighbors, right?

And I knock on the door and I will give a little bit.

It is easier or something, you know, when you're quite young because kids like, oh, that's so cute.

Like, you want to make some money.

But then there's.

There is a transition period when it becomes, oh, you're a preteen, go away.

You know, like, it's like you're annoying me rather than you're cute.

So the Handy Hamish was the main start of all the business ventures that I've done so far.

But that was probably the most fun one I had.

It was the most active and probably the hardest one as well, I would say.

I look back at some of my first jobs, didn't start anywhere near as young as you, but cafe work, and I look back at some of that stuff and I'm like, that is the hardest I've ever worked for the least amount of money.

It's kind of crazy how that ends up.

But you built on that, right?

So you had your, your handyman work.

Incredible.

But you certainly didn't stop there.

Now I lose count when I try to divvy up what you've done.

So I think by my count, you've had four actual businesses, but a million and one side hustles to get to where you are now at 17.

But run me through, because I'm sure I've missed things like what businesses have you built inside hustles?

What's your count?

Oh, to be honest, I don't really.

I don't have a. I was, I was thinking about this this morning.

I like, oh, wow, I've done it.

I've actually done quite a lot of things and I, I probably up to something like 20 or 30, like, things that I've tried.

But I think the most important lesson for me was that you don't get it right on the first go.

Like you never do.

And even people won't see what you do behind the scenes, but they will see the success that you have later.

And they're like, oh, how did that come so easy?

It was like, it didn't.

Didn't come easy.

So 20 or 30 are the four businesses I've had.

Mainly it was a Hani Hamish one, and then there was the publishing.

But, yeah, there's probably 20 or 30 actual side hustles that most of them absolutely went and I lost heaps of money on.

So, yeah, tell me more about that.

Okay.

What was your worst side hustle?

I think my worst side hustle was probably when I tried affiliate marketing, and I was.

Didn't go well, that's for sure.

Run us through what affiliate marketing is.

So affiliate marketing is where you go on a platform, which.

There's lots of different platforms for affiliate marketing.

You.

You see someone else's product and they want you to do the promotion for them instead of doing it themselves.

And then every time you get a sale, you get a commission so that you're.

You're becoming an affiliate for them.

So it's like a funnel.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Like a funnel from you to them.

And it sounds great in theory.

I have seen it really not work out for you.

I'm not surprised this didn't work out for you.

Tell me what went wrong.

I just did it in a really young way.

Like, I just, you know, I just didn't understand it, but I did.

I did really give it a go.

And I never got a sale ever.

Not even once.

I see a lot of people talk about affiliate marketing as if it's like this really easy.

You can just make money online in your sleep.

And I'm just like, I think it's probably actually one of the harder ones.

Yeah, marketing's definitely a tough.

A tough business to be in any type of marketing at all.

What about one of the memorable ones?

What's a side hustle that you look back on?

You're like, that was a wild idea.

My most memorable side hustle as such was probably when I got scammed.

It wasn't ideal and I'm not proud of it, but I think it's really important to show that you'll fall for a few scams.

I definitely did.

My scam was someone from my school had posted, actually.

Well, they didn't post it.

They got their account hacked.

So embarrassing, looking back.

But they posted.

I have a person who, if you give them money, they'll Put it in crypto and they'll give you like two times back.

I just so bad talking about it.

Like a crypto investing scam.

Yeah, they're so common and they can look super like people copy my profile and message my followers and try, like, pretend to be me, and they catch people.

It can look super legit.

He had his bank account like it.

And it was even a kid's bank account.

Like, the scam was quite detailed.

And I went to my parents, I said, oh, I want to invest in this.

And they said, are you sure?

And I said, no, but I like, I want to give it a go.

And then they said, okay, maybe just put in much money you're prepared to lose.

I put in a hundred dollars.

And at the time it was a lot of money.

And so didn't work out, obviously, or did in the.

I logged into their accounts, which was just a fake website, $12,000 I had, and I was like, okay.

Then they were like, oh, pay us more money to be able to withdraw.

And then I. I knew it was a scam at that point.

And I was like, back then, at the end, my parents were like, oh, can you show me this Instagram account from this crypto advisor and this lady in bikini and a supercar?

So, yeah, it was.

I probably should have thought that one through a little more, but I didn't.

That's really funny.

But can I just say that, like, a lot of.

As you're building, as you said, there's a lot of scams out there.

There's a lot of failure out there.

What's that classic saying about an overnight success is five years in the making?

You know, so everyone has to go through these quite difficult learning experiences to go through that young, while you're still living with your parents, while you've still got that safety net.

I mean, that to me feels like a huge safety net, a huge way to be able to learn.

I mean, is that how you've approached it 100%?

Like, starting a business is really hard.

It's much easier when you're younger.

Especially because I think when you're younger, you don't have as many preconceptions about what it's like.

Because when you get older and older, you start to see and you start to have your own.

Not even beliefs, just ideas of what something can be.

But when you're younger, I think actually gives you the opportunity to not create these preconceptions of business, what it's like.

Of the side hustles that you've done.

Obviously you've got some.

Some great good ones, some ones that didn't work out.

But I remember we've talked before about you even at school.

Had some side hustles.

Was I right?

Yeah, you know where I'm going, eh?

Exactly.

Uniform one, yes.

Okay, so you identified a problem, you had a solution.

Walk us through.

First of all, I just wanted to say sorry to my teachers.

It's probably not the best behavior, but it's all right.

I was doing it for a good cause, for myself.

So when you forget your PE gear at school, it's scary.

I'm like, oh, jeepers, I'm going to get big trouble.

Yeah, Big trouble.

Yeah.

So I remember I would bad marketing, but I'd use that fear and I'd be like, hey, I think you're getting in heaps of trouble.

Would you like to rent my PE?

I don't have PE next period.

Or I rented out like five times in one day for like $20 per time because I was so scared.

Probably not.

Not good taking advantage of fear.

But I made like a hundred dollars in one day just by.

I couldn't do it every day, but.

And then my mom put the clothes in the wash and said, you're not doing that again.

That smells terrible.

So it was not good.

But I think it was a great learning experience that there is a market for anything.

There's so many opportunities, even if it seems dumb.

I'm just saying I actually think that's brilliant business.

You identified a problem, you had a solution, you charged appropriately.

That's just good business.

Of course it is.

Yeah.

And you say, you know, marketing through fear.

Well, that's kind of one of the most core marketing tactics there is.

It is.

It's true.

What about in terms of what you have built, that you felt as was a success, even if you're not doing it anymore, and what you learned from that as you're looking for building your next thing?

My publishing, that was my best business that I've had so far.

But what I learned from it was that you have to be super careful about because I.

The money I made was a lot of money, but I didn't actually get a lot of money because the.

I was on Amazon.

So they took fees and they took printing fees and they took selling fees, and by the end of it, I barely had any.

So I think the.

The biggest lesson I learned was always look.

Not even the fine print, because that's just an overall lesson, but always look at what you're going to get in the end.

Because it can look like a lot, but not actually be a lot.

Yeah.

And so that was when you self published a book?

Yeah, I, it was 12.

But one of them, one of them was the one that took off because I enjoy cooking, so it was a cookbook.

And yeah, I did quite well.

Yeah.

That's amazing because there was a real Amazon self publishing gold rush for Wale and it's really died off.

And I wonder if it is that same thing that people learn, the same thing that you have that kind of works out really well for Amazon.

Yeah, well, definitely.

I, I, it was during COVID when I first started it, I was 11 or 12 and for the first while it was like nothing.

Like I knew it, no sales.

And then all of a sudden I had one sale and then I had three, then I had five and then eventually it got onto top 100 kids cookbooks in Amazon and by that time then it just blew up.

And in total now it stopped selling.

Now like I'm not advertising at all.

I moved on.

But in total it did 80,000 when I was 12.

So it was, it was quite a significant amount of money.

So.

Wow.

How much of that did you get to keep?

I don't remember.

I think my profit margin was about 20%.

Yeah.

So not, not a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

You'd be looking at the top line number and be like, I've made it.

And then even you're getting like a real good chunk afterwards.

You're still like, oh, but where did.

All my money go?

Why did, why did you take it?

I did all the work, but yeah, I guess using their platform.

But I still think it might be a little much that they take, but guess it's their, their choice, their platform.

Oh, I know, it's, it's really funny because I did a couple of books the traditional way and people will, you know, talk to me about my various income streams and they'll be like, oh, and your books.

I'm like, that is not an income stream.

That is a, that's a credibility stream rather than income stream.

That's to show that you can, you're a credible person.

Right.

You do not make a lot of money from books unless you're David Williams.

But we're not David Williams, so it's not going to work.

Exactly.

Yep.

Oh my God.

Read me to filth.

I love that.

It's true, right?

Yeah.

I always talk about it as a PR exercise, but I like your explanation even better.

So what did you do with the money that you have built up through this Time, you know, you were trying these ideas, giving it a go, making some solid money at various points.

You are of course a teenager at that point.

If I'd made that much when I was a teenager, it would have all gone on lip gloss and the movies.

What did you spend it on?

Well, I have to say there was no, maybe not the Glip Boss, but there was movies involved in there.

I have a really nice car, which I absolutely love.

So there was some spending, but I invested a lot of it, most of it actually.

So I invested in a real estate property, which is quite a funny story.

And I also invested into the stock market.

So I did lots of research and I picked some safe ones and I picked some not safe ones and I lost some money, but I also made some money.

So it's all.

Yeah, it's all a balance.

So for me, I think the most important thing and my parents sort of saying to me, balance it up, don't just save it all and definitely don't just spend it all.

Yeah.

What's your thoughts on that particular.

Particularly as I think you're spot on.

You do want to.

You're an amazing time of your life.

We can be building something big for the future and like compounding is so on your side right now, but you also gotta live.

So did you have like a percentage split or did you just kind of play it by ear?

There was no science behind it, it was just play by ear.

Often I would say, if I really want something, really want it, I'm gonna buy it.

And because I had that money, I just bought it.

Like I, my PlayStation, I love playing games.

I had a PS4, I was like, I had PS5 and I just bought it.

I was like, that's what I want, I'm buying it.

But if I didn't really want it, I just didn't.

I like, I made a really hard cutoff.

Do I really want it?

Yes.

No.

Am I going to buy it?

Yes.

No.

So very much the values based spending thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that.

Okay.

You mentioned investing in property and there's a funny story behind that.

Is it to do with age?

Because I imagine trying to buy an investment property young could be like the potential for A, legal roadblocks B, people not taking you seriously.

Huge.

100%.

So it was an age thing.

I think I just turned 17, so it's from my other side hustle as well, the money I'd saved up.

And so I went down to Christchurch because that's where we'd done a lot of Research, me and my mom about different investments and all that, all that kind of property stuff.

We went down, we went into the broker real estate office.

We got a salesman, he came up, he said, nice to meet you to my mum and he completely ignored me.

He didn't even look at me, not even once.

He looked at me and my mum not once but twice, told him that I was buying it and he still didn't look at me.

Definitely misjudged that completely.

Even, Even if I wasn't even buying the property, I would have thought you'd at least say hello.

But actually I was the one who.

I was his customer.

I was like, you're just ignoring me.

So I think that was probably the most.

Not even.

Not discriminated because I feel like that's quite a harsh word.

But maybe, yeah, maybe discriminated that I like as a young person that I was.

Yeah, that must be frustrating because I mean you've built a lot of stuff, you've worked really hard and like, yeah, of course you're young but you're the one there with the money to even be pushed back from your mom, I guess, a little bit.

Welcome to how it feels to be a woman going to a car yard.

You're going to be really great partner in the future because you're going to understand all this stuff.

But is that for like, did you end up going to work with someone.

Else right from the get go?

As soon as I left the real estate office, I said no.

I was like, I want a different salesman.

Good for you.

Love that.

So what did you end up doing on the property front?

Because that's intriguing.

Property can be tricky.

Well, definitely young because there's all sorts of legal roadblocks, but I ended up investing as a fractional investing.

So I invest in a rental property with my parents because that's what they're into.

But there's all sorts of other ways you can do fractional investing with platforms and there's developers who actually do this, particularly online that they'll sell parts like, like a stock.

You can do fractional investing, which means you don't buy whole stocks of a shares$300, you buy $10 of it.

And that works because the platform will let you.

You can do that all the time.

But for me, I did it with my parents and so I bought a property in the Ramire area.

So amazing.

And I imagine looking for an investment properly, we looking for something sort of smaller like unit townhouse.

Yeah.

Something that would be easily rented because I don't Want to be up for a massive amount of money each month, particularly when I'm younger and I'd like to be enjoying, you know, school and sport and all that, you know, all the young person stuff.

I didn't want to be up for a massive amount of money, so I bought in an area that was good rental.

But actually, to be honest, it hasn't gone ideal for me with the property markets.

I bought at the peak sometime.

Yeah, something like that.

I bought at the peak and it.

Oh, it was an idea.

And I'm like looking at the market, I'm like, oh, that's all my money.

There you go.

So you'll be holding it for quite some time, waiting for that to be.

I think so, yeah.

Yeah.

Look, I already know a comment we're going to get, so I want to put it to you so that we can talk about it because people are going to like, it's fair and it's not fair in terms of.

People are going to say, well, did you have much help from your parents?

Whether that was financial, whether that was information and things like that, how much support did you get from the family and how much do you think that helped you along your journey?

This is a question particularly with my friends, because my friends come from all areas of life.

Yes, I did get help from my parents.

I'm not going to deny that.

But I also think that particularly even just listeners right now, if you're listening and you're young, you're already taking the first step because you're seeking that opportunity without someone helping you do it.

Like you already doing it yourself.

So if you have help, that's awesome.

If you don't, that you can also do, you can do it on your own, but you really, you have to seek out the opportunity.

And it's not easy because I see particularly on social media, people going, oh, I made.

Here's how I made $10,000 in a month.

Easy.

Like, you know, they'll say, even say easy in it.

And it's like, that doesn't work.

Well, maybe that business works, but you have to try a lot of times before it's even going to get close.

So that people are like, I've tried, so it doesn't work.

It's like, no, you tried for like five days.

Like, it's not going to just happen like that.

What do you think was the biggest thing that moved the needle for you to actually build something real?

Not getting.

They're not being able to get a job because I wanted to make money and I Couldn't do it.

And I like to figure out problems.

And I think that could be the same for a lot of people, particularly because the job market for 16-24s has been the lowest amount of jobs that you can get.

That is, I think, ever.

Or is it maybe 20 ever been.

I think the last time I checked, this could be out of date, but it was the worst in 30 years, at least.

Yeah.

So it.

And it's super.

Like the youth unemployment is really hard.

You look for another way to do something that you want to do.

If you want to make money, go and do it yourself.

Don't complain that you can't get a job.

Just, I will.

I can't really say that I definitely complained, but I would say complain if you're doing something.

Yeah, complain if you don't.

Yeah, complain if you're doing something.

Exactly.

That's right.

I often say, like, I. I don't want to hear complaints if you're not doing anything about it.

If you are working hard and trying to change it.

Cool.

Complain away.

Within limits, definitely.

Yeah.

I gotta say, like, I think your generation as well, particularly, I get the vibe, and then this might, this will be a huge generalization, but I get the vibe that your generation is particularly motivated to get that hustle going.

Like, I see a lot of people who are far more switched on to the opportunities that are out there than certainly people from my generation were.

And sometimes I wonder if it's the Internet that people just sort of see other ways of living and are like, oh, and get ideas.

And sometimes I'm just like, I don't know, maybe it's the environment.

What do you think pushed you to be looking for opportunities?

Is it that feeling of there is so much opportunity out there, or is it that feeling of, oh, oh, heck, there's not much of a safety net.

I have to make my own opportunities.

Maybe a mix of both.

Like, walk me through your mindset.

Well, I think there's two different parts.

I think the first one is, yes, there's definitely significant amount of opportunity for young people, particularly today with online, because you don't, I wouldn't say hide behind a screen, but you can.

If you're young and you're in person, people will underestimate that's just going to happen.

There's.

There's no going around it.

So if you're behind a screen, people might not do it.

Especially if you have those skills.

I think that there's lots of opportunity, but that actually sometimes creates not a very good image.

Because people will be posting, I think social media is the biggest one.

People will be like, as I said, making crazy claims how I made 10 grand in five days.

You know, just young people look at it and go, oh, it's so easy.

I'll just do that.

And then they try it.

But what they're trying won't work straight away.

And the threat and opportunity, I would say, particularly with AI, that's the massive topic talked about at the moment.

There's lots of opportunity for business owners and also jobs.

But in a job you're not going to make extra money because you use AI, you're just going to get your job taken out because AI is a thing.

So particularly when you're in business, you can use AI to your advantage.

And as a young person, I think that there's a lot of hesitation even for me.

I don't know if I want a job, I don't think I do, but I'm not sure yet.

I'm scared that there might be many jobs specific because AI will take them all.

So opportunity and threat, definitely.

But I think I would be leaning more towards the side of threat for jobs and benefit for business, at least in the short term.

That is such a good perspective and I haven't thought about it that way.

That's actually really sort of reshaped some of how I'm thinking about it because I personally feel quite conflicted about AI too.

But I'm also a bit like, well, it's here, the genie's not going back in the bottle.

But I think potentially maybe that is.

Yeah, because I run a business these days, it's easier for me to take that sort of sit on the fence thing of like, well, there are some things it's useful for and some things it's scary for.

And maybe that's a position of.

As a business owner.

Of course I would see it that way.

That's super duper interesting when you're looking at how things look like they might unroll in the future.

None of us, of course, have a crystal ball, but you, as you are launching into adulthood, I'm sure you're doing your best to look into the crystal.

Ball, figure it out.

Right, so what do you see as like potential opportunities that you want to lean into?

I think for me, from a business perspective, it's so hard to say because there's just stuff is moving so fast.

I. I had one business that I was going to start and I research everything about it and I, I went on my trip to Malaysia and that took I was two months.

So when I got back that business wasn't available anymore.

Like it was just mental.

So the business was AI receptionist.

So creating.

No, I don't, what I don't want to do is I don't want to take jobs.

But for businesses that can't afford a receptionist or something in that area and AI would pick up the phone and AI could book the appointment and that was a really good idea at the time.

I did the numbers and it looked great.

But as soon as I thought it was a good idea, so did everyone else.

So there was so many businesses that just, yeah, just took it and I was going out of a tradies nothing.

And then within two months I'd search up and I could scroll through the number.

It just popped off.

I was.

It's amazing.

It was actually incredible.

Not at the time, but looking back it was really.

It's scary.

I think it is scary.

But there is opportunity, but there's also that threat.

So you gotta, you gotta balance it out.

That, that is wildly fast.

So within two months that went from great to done.

Exactly.

And that's why it's so hard to predict what I'm going to do next.

You got to find something that's not going to get completely wiped out.

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Right back to it.

You mentioned the Malaysia trip because at just 17, you did just go off on an intensive entrepreneurship course in Malaysia.

Tell me about that, how you found it, what you wanted to get out of it and what it was like heading over there at this young age.

Going over there was scary stuff that I. I like being scared.

I'm pushing my comfort zone.

Getting on the plane, definitely a scary feeling.

I remember sitting there going, what am I doing?

Am I crazy?

I think I am.

The course was nice, the people were nice.

I did struggle with some of the language apps because it's in Malaysia, but the course is in English.

I would say the workshop itself.

Either I knew what they were talking about or I had absolutely no idea because the stuff I knew.

I remember the topic that I was quite versed in was marketing and social media and the topic I had no idea about was business math and, and business math.

I could not do business math.

It was just, it was so bad.

I can't do math.

I'm not great at math at all.

As soon as I saw letters, I was like, oh, I'm gonna struggle.

So I did a struggle.

I don't even think I passed it.

I'm not sure yet.

And I got the grades, so yeah.

Oh, it's so my poor mum.

My mum's a math teacher by trade and she tried to teacher me through the final years of high school.

Don't recommend it.

Don't recommend it for a good teenager parent relationship at all.

It was blood.

Poor mom.

She did her best, but I, I just still will see the spreadsheets and the Excel, you know, like you can do all sorts of amazing things with it.

My partner, thank God, will do things in Excel and he'll show me it and I'm like, looks great.

Don't know what you're up to.

And it's funny, isn't it?

You can be very business minded and very interested in this stuff and still find that nitty gritty.

I kind of think there's like, there's a creative aspect to business which doesn't always necessarily mesh well with things like maths.

It's not great.

Differently.

Tell me a bit about.

Because you said that you like scaring yourself.

Same time, kind of.

It sounds a bit like you like pushing your boundaries, right?

And is that sort of what you're using this for you, like, going into these opportunities, seeing where you can push a little harder and how far you can get with it, is that sort of the mindset?

Yeah, push.

Pushing the boundaries, I would say, is the most important thing for me, because every time I do it, it shows that I can go further.

So it's scary.

I know it is, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

That's the mindset you gotta have.

Because if you don't do that, you're not gonna get new things from doing the same stuff.

It's just not gonna happen.

It doesn't just fall 100%.

So what do you think was the biggest thing you got from this, the workshops in Malaysia that you're going to now use going forward?

Oh, I would probably say the international exposure that I had, I mean, in terms of people.

So learning about other people's cultures before you work with them, particularly if you're in a new country, you should learn how people interact with each other there.

Because I think a great example is when you go for a handshake in Malaysia, at least from what my friends in Malay had told me and how people reacted when I did it.

You don't squeeze.

You just do that.

And if you squeeze, it's a sign of aggression.

So I.

Apparently I was being aggressive to everyone.

It's just, you know, here it's nice, firm handshake.

People like that.

It people shows respect there.

It's not.

So you got to really be careful.

You could throw.

I think I throwed off the wrong image.

To lots of people, I would.

Nice, firm handshake.

And I thought they just had really not.

Well, some of the people didn't have strong hands.

I was like, what are you doing?

So.

But no, apparently I was showing aggression.

But I.

You gotta learn the culture.

That's fascinating.

And those little things can be everything for a relationship.

Right.

That actually touches on something that this episode hasn't gone out, but it will have by the time this one goes out.

I was just going through an episode that we recorded the other day where they were talking about New Zealand.

We're so good at having ideas.

We're not good at taking it to the world, which has really, really stuck with me because I think that's true, that we are this little island, and I think the tyranny of distance has kind of snuck its way into our brains.

And yet everything is so digital now that that distance doesn't always apply in the same way anymore.

So that's really interesting.

And you Taking on that global mindset, you're like, I need to understand how to interact with people first before selling anything to them.

Definitely people, People are important.

People skills are important.

In my opinion, the thing young people struggle with the most as technology becomes more and more prevalent, which it is, everyone has technology, even if it's a small way, a big way, everyone does.

I know so many people have tried business and I'm like, what do you want to do?

And they know exactly what they want to do, but they don't want to talk to people about it.

Like, if you want to build a website for someone, you're not just going to be able to build it and just money come to you, you have to talk to them.

And I said to someone, you should call the company and say, do you want a website?

I'm doing this, this is who I am.

And.

And they were like, I don't want to call.

I said, well, it's not just going to happen, you have to call.

It's the people skills, I think are the thing that young people struggle with the most because they have to do it less and less every day with the technology.

That's a really good point actually, because it's, it's you, you build up these muscles by just making yourself do it repeatedly.

Right.

So if you don't have to do it as much, that's going to be turn into your weakness.

For me, I've been just doing people skills or people stuff for so long.

I just love people, I love talking to people and that's.

It's not even a skill, that's just my passion.

But some people aren't like that.

Particularly introverted people who are on social media, I find it quite disappointing, but also I completely understand why that is the situation.

Yeah, yeah, I, I think it's going to be something that we're all going to have to start actively working on, to be honest, as screens become more and more embedded in our lives.

Coming back to what you mentioned earlier about your AI business idea and how fast that moved.

So there was an opportunity and then there wasn't.

So where does that leave you now?

Are you working on anything currently?

Are you now casting about looking for new ideas?

Currently I am working on something.

So I thought to myself, what can I make that will actually not get wiped out within two months?

Because that I would say probably not the best experience.

So it's really hard to find something that's not definitively wiped out.

Even car washing can be wiped out.

There'd be robots doing it Any even labor can be wiped out.

So it's like, I guess it's finding the thing that will last the longest.

And for me, I think I'm just still figuring it out.

Are you still thinking AI would be part of that?

For me, maybe not.

Maybe in some way, yes, definitely.

Google has AI, so probably that kind of thing.

Yes, but maybe not directly with AI because I'm not a super coder.

I know some smart people and I'm not anywhere close to what their level is.

So I have a friend that I had do some work for me, particularly on the coding side.

He's been recruited by us, a company in the US and he's making way more than what anyone is back here.

Like, he's just, I just like.

No.

Disappointed.

Yeah.

Similar age.

Yeah, he's.

He's gone.

Oh, he's going next year.

And I'm like, oh, I really, I could use him.

He's so useful.

He's also such a nice guy.

And I'm like, oh, it's so disappointing.

But I'm, I'm not at the same coding level.

I've got to play to my skills.

And I think as time goes on, it's not.

What works is what can I do, what skills do I have, what am I good at?

And for me, it's people.

I'm good at talking to people.

I'm good at selling to people.

But maybe for you it's coding or maybe for you it's marketing.

Anything.

I so agree with what you just said.

I think the future is going to be figuring out what are you uniquely good at and then how do you apply it in the current situation?

And I do think the more human skills are going to be the ones that are harder to replace, harder to get by.

So you're looking at those.

Are you sort of looking at any areas where they might apply for you?

Sales.

I think sales, because for me, having an AI go, hello, welcome to this business, can I sell this to you?

No, you just hang up straight away.

It's like it's a scam.

But if it's a person, well, you probably hang up straight away as well.

But, you know, maybe.

Maybe last a little longer.

I definitely.

You even just search up like conversion rates between people selling and AI, it's massively different.

It's.

I think that's going to be the hardest thing to replace.

And even if the voice is super spot on and it's exactly like a person, it doesn't have that human animal.

It's not going to connect.

You it might not understand the product.

The questions, what, what if they ask, what do you do to predict sustain sustainability?

The AI is going to be, I do not compute.

Like, it's not going to work.

It won't work at all.

That human creativity element as well.

I also think like AI is again, not saying this is right or wrong.

This is just what exists.

AI tends to scrape the Internet or everything that's there and then give you the middle of the road answer.

They give you an amalgamation of everything that exists and then gives you the most cookie cutter version of what you're asking for based on everything else that's out there.

So if you want to push the boundaries, try something new, get something a bit bespoke.

AI is almost certainly not.

You're going to need a person for that.

That's not replaceable.

Right.

And that's kind of a good thing to know.

And lean into this one time where I created, I tried to create a trading algorithm with AI.

It said, wow, this is amazing.

You've created more than hedge funds.

And I'm like, whoa, that's so cool.

And I was like, 13.

And then I tried and I was like, I lost all my money.

And it went, oh, you're right, that wasn't a good idea.

I was like, well, you just lost all this money.

You're too late now, isn't it?

It's really frustrating.

Yeah, that's hilarious.

Speaking of with all of the, the social media and the digital world, because you also have built up, especially through the handyman side of things, built up a really strong social media following.

Do you think social media is an important tool now?

If someone's wanting to get into the.

Like, I think social media is an absolute blessing and a curse to society.

And that's quite a cliche thing to say, but I think it is.

Social media is an amazing tool.

It's pretty much free advertising.

Like, if you post a video, it is not hard to get a hundred views.

Do you know how many people.

100.

You got to look at a hundred people in a room and be like, wow, that's such a small.

It's not a small amount of.

It's a heaps of people.

So you're advertising, you post a video and you get a viral video of 500,000 views.

That's.

That's like 10 times the size of Eden park of people.

And you're advertising.

It's not costing you anything at all.

So you're showing people whether it's your personal brand or whether it's your business that you're advertising for or whether it's anything else.

You're getting all this free exposure and all you're doing is posting videos and you know it's not costing you a cent.

Yeah.

How do you look at using that for whatever your future projects might be?

Do you have a process in mind of how you would use social media for whatever those plans are?

So I do.

I think it's probably not going to be for advertising because the people that I'm going to be advertising to aren't the ones following my social media, which is disappointing, that's for sure.

But I would really like.

They're mostly younger people looking to get into the space and getting tips and tricks from me with my limited business experience even still, I don't know, 10.

Years ish of trying things and experimenting.

But no, it doesn't really feel like that.

But I want to help them do something.

So what I did, I set up, I said I want to hire.

Well, not even hire, but just get people give them their first job.

I guess this comes back to the thing, you know when you apply for a job and it goes, you have to have two, one to two years of sales experience.

It's like, oh, I don't have that and you're an entry level job.

How am I supposed to get the experience if I can't work?

And it's like they're like, oh, it's not my problem.

It's like, well it's my problem and I'd like to solve it.

But anyway, given their first job so they can put something on the CV and they have sales experience, they get these jobs.

So that's the first thing helping them do that.

But also getting them started because I think the hardest thing is getting started.

If you have an exact direction, it's like, can you sell this?

Yes.

Can you call this person?

Yes, I can.

That it directed.

It's a job for them, might not be that great but it helps them start out.

So that's what I've been doing and it also benefits me.

So it's a win win for everyone.

Nice.

So that's basically sort of your mindset as you're going through businesses as well.

Is it sort of like, okay, identify, I've got to find this goal and work backwards from there of the strategy of how I'm going to then make that happen?

Yeah, I, well, I don't like marketing, I don't like the ads and I like selling.

I like talking to people.

So if other people who are talented in that can do it for me, gain experience and get stuff on their cv, that's just, that's just good business.

Right?

Yeah, gotcha.

What's the other thing of like, you don't need to be good at everything in business.

You just need to be like, good at identifying who is going to be good at that and then employ them.

When you get sick, you go to the doctor.

When you have a car, as you go the mechanic.

When you need to do sales, you don't try and do it yourself.

You get, what if you can?

And I get.

It's different for everyone.

You get someone who's good at it.

It's quite, it's quite easy, but it's also quite hard at the same time.

100%.

I think one of the things that I really enjoy as we're talking, because we've, we've talked a little bit before this podcast, and you always really have had this attitude, at least when we've been chatting, of you're not waiting for permission for things.

You're just like, I would like to try a thing.

Here we go.

Which I think is the most freeing attitude that usually takes people decades to land on.

Certainly I was in my 30s before I was like, oh, I can just try things.

I don't have to wait for someone to tell me I can.

So I think it's incredible that you've landed on that this young.

But the whole sort of not waiting for permission and just trying things can, I think sometimes both help and hurt.

It's mostly help and I think it's the best thing to embrace.

But there's a downside to it too.

So when have you found it helps?

When have you found it hurts?

Oh, it's definitely.

This is just a complete work on for me.

So I think that helps because you will go out, you'll try and find these opportunities.

You will start to understand and learn from other people.

For me personally, why it hurts me is because I started so young.

This is the preconception.

Even when I was younger, I created for myself eight years old, and I said, I know what I'm doing.

I don't need anyone else to help.

So I could be taking advice from Jeff Bezos and I'd be like, oh, no, I'm good.

I know what I'm doing.

It's just terrible mindset.

And I know, I know that it's bad and I still do it.

And it's, it's, it's a work on for me.

Everyone has Work ons.

It's my work on.

I'm terrible at taking advice.

I think the best way to take advice is to listen to people's perspective.

Take what you think is useful and selectively use it.

Don't take everything they say, use it, but don't not listen, which is what I do.

So I gotta work on that.

That is hard though, right?

Cause you, you also have to be quite sure on what you're doing and you have to have a direction.

And yeah, like you say, the flip side of that is that it's sometimes hard to take on board the feedback that you actually need as you're looking around and you're looking for new opportunities.

Now how do you filter through ideas to find that gut instinct of this could be a good one?

Like to you, what makes a good.

Business if you enjoy, doesn't matter if it fails and it doesn't matter if it fails anyway, but if you enjoy it.

I remember when I was doing car detailing just for fun when I was a lot younger and it's just, yeah, well pretty much I was making money and I got to see the coolest cars.

I think I cleaned a Porsche GT3 and I was like, I do this for free.

I do, I pay them to clean this car.

So if you do something you enjoy, you're not working.

And I know that that said a lot, but it's true.

Yeah, I love that so much.

Whereas I'd be like that's a what now?

Car.

So that one wouldn't be for me.

Yeah.

What do you think is the next step for you?

Like if I get in touch with you in a couple of years and say come back on the pod and inspire us all again.

Where do you hope you'll be?

What do you hope you'll be working on?

Taking some time to think about it without jumping right into it is the most important and my perspective because I've always been a super long term thinker and that has got me in some really weird situations with all sorts of bits of life.

Doing what you're doing at the present, doing it well and then thinking, not thinking.

You got plan ahead but don't plan too far.

That's always been my struggle.

I've always tried to be.

I don't want to do this because in 40 years time it's not going to work out.

Don't do that.

It's bad idea.

That's what another work on for me.

Yeah, yeah, 100.

And I think that's a trick as you said, about how things are Moving so fast in the business and career world now is.

It is actually really hard to plan.

And it's like, oh, but in 10 years that'll be gone.

It's like, well, maybe in that time I'll adapt.

And it's hard to balance that ability to back yourself, to adapt with also looking for.

You are trying to build something long term, right?

Definitely.

I, I remember this.

The perfect example was when I was talking to my uncle and he was telling me, oh, you know, he's quite in, he's very into the AI space.

And he was like, maybe within 30 years, we don't know how everything's going to go, but stuff will be free.

And I'm like, I will do everything.

And I'm like, well, what am I building this for?

If everything's going to be the same and everything's going to be free, then what am I doing?

I'm just wasting my time.

But that scared me.

I'm doing all this work.

Am I even going to get anything out the back end?

But you can't think like that because you have no idea what's going to happen.

Well, yeah.

Do you ever find that a little bit?

Because I sometimes look at the future and it feels a bit murky and I still have sort of 15 years of work history to fall back on somewhat.

Even if a lot of that is now obsolete.

There are skills in there that I'm like, okay, I can repurpose that.

But do you ever sort of look at the future and be like, potential for paralysis is truly huge.

Oh yeah.

Well, I was talking to this guy who did websites.

It was a professional job.

He owned a business.

He said, within a year my business will be gone.

Like that, Just like that.

And he's been in business for 15 years, been doing websites.

He said, within a year I will not have a business anymore.

He's worked, he's built this from the ground up.

15 Years and it's wiped out within one year.

And he didn't even do anything wrong.

It feels almost unfair.

But that's, that's how it's going at the moment.

It's.

It's quite scary.

And nothing is.

Nothing feels long term.

It does feel a little shaky.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I guess in that position, what do you do?

I, I guess you just have to back yourself to pivot to something new.

Right.

I think gaining the skills, any skills that you'll be able to apply to lots of different paths of life.

Um, for me it's sales.

You can sell lots of different stuff, but for Someone else.

It could be graphic design or it could be interior design.

You know, maybe an AI's replaced the online part of that, but maybe you need some sort of special in person.

You don't know until it happens, but something that you can have broad amount of skills that's not gonna get completely wiped out.

I think anything with computers at the moment, scary.

You're either going to be wiped out or you're going to be at the back end.

There'll be just a split because people who are wiped out won't have a job, but the people who are really good at it will keep advancing AI and they'll get paid the most.

So you're either going to make a lot of money or just no money at all.

So it's like, which end do you.

Or of course you want to be on the more end.

So it's hard.

Yeah.

And I do think, like, what you were saying before about looking for creating your own opportunities as we go into this brave new world, I kind of feel that's.

That's kind of where I land on the only way to handle all of this instability, this change, is that at least if you're building your own thing, you can watch this happen and you can say, oh, that, that looks like it's going lean this way, and you can take a bit more sort of control of it.

I kind of feel like that's the only response.

It's not necessarily even saying that's a good or a bad response.

I'm just sort of like, I think it's the only response.

Only there's only.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Yes.

Okay.

If people want to keep in touch with you, your journey.

Are you still keeping the social media up to date?

How can we keep tabs on your next amazing business venture?

100 I have mainly.

I mainly do Instagram and TikTok and it's handy.

Hamish.

It's both of them.

If you want even want to contact me and ask questions, I'm always happy to keep young people that want to ask questions.

I'm no expert, but I do have a little bit of experience in it.

Yeah, well, yeah, I just keep coming back to you.

Like a decade of experience at 17.

You're launching into adulthood far better than I did.

Perfect.

Hey, thank you so much, Hamish.

Love having you on.

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