
36 segments available
Serial entrepreneur CHRIS KOERNER reveals how he built 80+ businesses from scratch, turned side hustles into millions, and why ONLY $500 is all you need. Chris Koerner is a self-made entrepreneur and content creator, known as the “King Of Side Hustles”. With over 1 million followers, he now teaches people how to build and scale a business and he is host of the ‘The Koerner Office Podcast’. He explains: ◼️The brutal truth about passive income (and what to build instead) ◼️How to turn $1,000 into $10,000 fast, with a step-by-step formula ◼️The #1 habit silently keeping you poor without you realising it ◼️How to use AI tools to launch and scale instantly ◼️The simple framework for testing any business idea with $0 00:00 Who Are You and What Do You Do? 02:36 What Businesses Have You Started? 05:33 Is This the Best Time to Start a Business? 08:52 Copying Businesses 12:53 Experimentation and Testing 20:11 Your Experience With Buc-ee's 23:00 Is Entrepreneurship for Everyone? 30:24 Should We Have Plan Bs? 36:14 Passive Income 39:10 How Important Is Passion? 41:55 How to Know If You Should Pursue an Idea 47:10 How to Validate Your Ideas 48:49 How to Test a Product 52:02 How Important Is It to Learn Facebook Ads? 57:11 Ads 58:51 The Different Types of Entrepreneurs 59:54 How Important Is Focus? 01:02:04 Did You Feel Guilty for Trying to Build Businesses? 01:07:04 Rejection and Failure 01:09:59 Team Building and Business Partners 01:12:30 Equity Split in a Business 01:15:13 What Would You Do With $500 for a Business? 01:20:57 Drop Servicing 01:27:53 Making Money From Vending Machines 01:36:16 Ads 01:38:19 What Business Would You Do With $1,000? 01:41:09 Online Business With $1,000 01:43:38 What Would You Do With $5,000? 01:49:11 Don’t Ignore This When Starting A Business 01:50:09 Which Has Been Your Most Profitable Business? 01:52:13 Keep Trying and Experimenting 01:55:36 Any New Business Ideas You’re Trying? 01:56:34 Business That You Should Stay Away From 02:00:33 Should You Really Become an Entrepreneur? 02:03:43 What’s One Thing Steven Did That You Appreciated? 02:08:17 What’s the Most Popular Question You Get? Follow Chris: Instagram - https://bit.ly/4oFom0i YouTube - https://bit.ly/3XBUI16 X - https://bit.ly/3Mc0UdJ The Diary Of A CEO: ◼️Get the 2026 Goal Setting Guide - https://bit.ly/ytgoalsettingguide ◼️Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼️Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼️The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼️The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb ◼️Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼️Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Wispr: https://wisprflow.ai/DOAC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/DIARY Adobe: https://Adobe.Ly/OneBetter Ketone-IQ: https://ketone.com/STEVEN for 30% off your subscription order
"A lot of people are looking for passive income from side hustles. Yeah, it's the financial ompic and it's more accessible than ever. Like 90% of the ideas I talk about can be launched with $500 or les..."
"you're [clears throat] on? >> I am a father. I am a husband and I'm a serial entrepreneur and I love talking about business and starting businesses and inspiring other people to do the same. >> Why bu..."
">> Yeah. So, I was 9 years old living in Utah and I lived across the street from a golf course and these golf balls would fly in my yard and I don't know what gave me the idea, but I started selling t..."
"sit at this moment of time with technology, with AI, with in fast internet, with mobile phones, do you think this is the best time for people to start something to to start a side hustle or to try? Ev..."
">> People think, you know, people don't think that that's a thing because they think if I copy a business that's already working, then I'm not going to get any customers because that this existing bus..."
"how in business basically everything, again speaking broadly here, can be put into one of two categories. either like old problems where thousands of people have come before you and the same solutions..."
">> And this is what I find is founders waste years trying to experiment where old problems are still um strong and still hold. >> Yeah. >> And this is what I the mistake several of the mistakes I made..."
"you can think think of all your friends. >> Yeah. >> You can probably put them in groups of this person should, this person shouldn't. Mhm. And what defines who goes in which group? >> To me, it's how..."
">> Do you think that really matters? The whole idea of a plan B. Do you think people should have a plan B when they embark on entrepreneurship? Can I contradict myself 100%. All right. So, the rationa..."
">> A lot of people are looking for passive income from side hustles. And I wondered what your your op opinion was on passive income because it's a word that comes up so often in the comment section of..."
">> So how important then is passion in this equation? Like how important it is for for you to love the thing to be successful at it in your view? I think you need to fall in love with business with co..."
">> Yeah, I have a a Sunday shelf, >> which is just a digital board on my Monday board where when I have ideas that like captivate me at 11:00 p.m. at night one night, instead of trying to act on them ..."
">> you used the word validating earlier on when you're talking about these ideas and I I think this is something that could really really help a lot of people who have a lot of ideas is this idea of t..."
"published uh several years ago called the lean startup which talks about this idea of just like testing an MVP as quick quick quickly as you possibly can. >> Can you explain that to the audience who p..."
"up in 10 minutes. How important is it to understand Facebook ads and how long would it take me to get a sufficient understanding of Facebook ads? you could be proficient in a couple days if if you had..."
"try it. I've had so many founders speak to me and say, "Why didn't this particular ad that I ran on this platform work for me?" Maybe the copy wasn't good, the creative wasn't strong, but usually the ..."
">> I've heard you say that there's various types of entrepreneurs. There's the sort of zero to one entrepreneur who's good at starting things. There's the maintainer. And then there's the finisher. >>..."
"that's what you get. >> One of the things that I find really interesting about your story is you you've started what is it 75 80 businesses. >> Mhm. When I speak to people like Kevin Olirri who have w..."
"because of the situation you put your family or your partner in? >> Yeah. More than once. Yeah. More than many times. Give me an example. I spent I spent 18 months working on a project um that had no ..."
">> Have you developed a new relationship with rejection and failure because, you know, starting 80 odd businesses, you must have dealt with a lot of failure. >> Mhm. >> And and how does that feed into..."
">> What have you learned about team building and business partners through this process? What advice would you give to someone who's sat there alone listening to this right now? Do they need a busines..."
"Yeah. I mean, 50/50 is the old standby, right? Um, could you imagine if you like you go on a first date and it's like, how many kids do you want? Four. Okay, we'll have four. We'll get married and tha..."
"different amounts of money. >> Mhm. >> And all I want you to do is to let me know if I was giving you this amount of money, what business you would start. Okay, so the first one has $500 here. Awesome..."
">> What about a physical one? >> All right. For a physical one, I would um have you heard of dropervicing? >> No. So the phrase drop shipping has kind of has a bad rap and some of it for good reason w..."
">> I've just finished writing my third book. I haven't firmed up the title yet, but I have started mocking up some different designs. And I've been doing this with Adobe Express, which is one of our s..."
"another box here. This box has slightly more money in double. Okay. $1,000. What would you do with $1,000? All right. So, for whatever reason, when I see $1,000, I think um about the wedding rental bu..."
">> No. >> So, basically what you do, we keep coming back to this is like a big ad for Facebook, right? I swear it's not. >> But, um, people are using local Facebook ads. Um, let's say you live in Bois..."
"it. >> Mhm. $5,000. What side hustle do you start if you've got $5,000? Okay. So, if we've got a sliding scale of active to passive income, the closer you get to this to $5,000, the more realistic the..."
">> Yeah. What What are the macro things you you think about at the moment when you're trying to decide on a new side hustle or a new business to start? Are there like obvious macro things that happeni..."
">> Of all the businesses you you've started, which one has been most profitable? >> And was the easiest? >> Oh, man. So, like what is the winner? >> I would say either um [clears throat] my RV parks b..."
"any side hustles that you've heard about that you wish you'd started? >> It's funny because a lot of the ones that I wish I started, I started. Like a lot of the 80 that I've done, I just it's somethi..."
"And looking forward, Chris, what is um is there anything that you're mulling over now in terms of new business ideas that you could give me? >> Man, I lately it's been about like stuff I can launch wi..."
">> I have this phrase called mirage opportunity >> which um which I use when I look at an industry that never seems to work for anybody but seems so obvious. >> Mhm. >> Do you know what I'm saying? >>..."
"that are considering starting their own business, their own side hustle, building passive income. Many of the people that think they want to be an entrepreneur, they just like the idea of it and they ..."
">> No. Chris, we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question left for you, I love this question for obvious re..."
"most popular, most frequent request you get through that website >> on business ideas to talk about? Yeah, >> probably the AI agency, the AI implementation agency idea that I talked about. >> And what..."