Jeremy Shapiro is a serial entrepreneur and Founder of Bay Area Mastermind located in Silicon Valley and has been helping entrepreneurs grow their business for 25 years. Having worked in SaaS, technology, information marketing and other areas, Jeremy now spearheads Bay Area Mastermind and helps “solopreneurs” become “business owners”.
So tell us what is Bay Area Mastermind?
We formed the Bay Area Mastermind to provide growth focused founders, business owners, and entrepreneurs a home to connect, share, celebrate, and grow.
By design, our members are all entrepreneurs, with a team, and a growing post-revenue business, meaning they’re beyond just having an idea.
Our members get together once a month for a full day of working ON their businesses – instead of IN their business for a change.
Members get to share their real challenges in dedicated member hot seats and discuss what they’ve accomplished, what’s working, what’s not, and where they need help most.
Can you tell us what exactly is a mastermind?
We follow Napoleon Hill‘s definition of a Mastermind being the “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.”
Hill further says that “When two minds meet there is the creation of a third greater one!”
And that’s just what we do in our Mastermind.
We follow in the footsteps of the titans of industry who came together behind closed doors for a full day of peer advisory, resource sharing, and camaraderie.
What I love seeing is when new members come to our group with their big burning question seeking answers but then spend most of the day scribbling down brilliant ideas from all their “aha” moments during everyone else’s hot seats. THAT’s where the real magic is.
That’s the difference between knowing what you don’t know vs discovering what you didn’t know you didn’t know…
How does having multiple different insights from different industries help?
We all have trade organizations where we can meet more people just like ourselves.
The question you have to ask is if you want to learn how to do whatever everyone else in your industry is doing? Or if you want to leverage the brilliant ideas from OUTSIDE of your industry and DISRUPT your industry.
We carefully curate our Mastermind groups to have a diverse range of businesses specifically for this reason.
I love seeing the lightbulbs as member’s eyes widen about the idea from someone else’s business that they can use in their own.
One of our members had an 8 figure e-commerce business and leveraged what he learned from a retail business in our group who was having huge success with direct mail.
One of our members was a contractor literally digging up backyards and took the ideas he got from the savvy online marketers in our group, doubled his business year over year, and then sold it for a healthy sum.
One of our members with an old school software business took the ideas from our group, and launched a brand new online Software as a Service business that quickly eclipsed his existing business.
Most of the best ideas come from OUTSIDE one’s industry.
Having first hand experience working with multiple businesses, what do most business owners struggle with (you can discuss working on your business rather than in your business)?
So many entrepreneurs are in reality Self Employed. They have a glorified job. They may call the shots, and choose the direction of the company, and enjoy all the perks of owning their own business, but… they fail the true Business Owner test.
Ask yourself this. If you stepped away from your business for 1-3 months – that means like fully offline, in the wild, fully offline – and you came back, what would things look like?
Would your business have crashed and burned? Would your business be the same? Or would your business have GROWN? If your business thrived in your absence, you may indeed have a real business.
If your business didn’t thrive in your absence… I hate to say it – but you have a glorified job. Except you’ve taken on ALL the risk of being a business owner.
Many business owners have a hard time stepping away from their business and are in fact the biggest obstacle in their own business.
Other times, business owners WANT to get out of the way, but can’t afford to replace themselves in the business.
One of the biggest areas that our members work on is SCALING their business so they achieve true business class and CAN step away from their business. So they can take time to raise a family. To travel the world. Or enjoy the fruits of their labor.
How can business owners join Bay Area Mastermind?
We learned long ago that it doesn’t make sense to blindly join a Mastermind or for a Mastermind group to be presented with a new member before having a say.
This led to the creation of our Mastermind Test Drive program which provides the opportunity for qualified founders, business owners, and entrepreneurs to join our full day Mastermind for a day of working ON the business – instead of IN the business. Only after trying us out – and the group seeing the fit of a prospective member – do we offer a membership.
Simply head to BayAreaMastermind.com/testdrive to learn more about our Mastermind and submit an application!