Start It or Scrap It is the ultimate brainstorming session you didn’t know you needed! Join Mike Terkanian, a seasoned business attorney with a knack for spotting potential pitfalls, and Mr. Gummi, a dynamic marketing expert with a flair for turning dreams into reality, as they dive into the wild world of Reddit. Each week, they uncover unique ideas, dissect ambitious plans, and give honest, actionable advice. Whether you're looking to fine-tune your business pitch, pivot a passion project, or find the courage to scrap what’s not working, this duo has you covered. Laugh, learn, and get inspired—because every great idea deserves a moment in the spotlight (or a reality check). Ready to Start It or Scrap It? Tune in now!
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Start It or Scrap It is a business podcast hosted by Michael Terkanian and Mr. Gummi, with 83 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.
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Michael Terkanian and Mr. Gummi hosts Start It or Scrap It, a business show with 83 episodes published.
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Episode #83
The Most Brilliant Marketing Campaign I Have Ever Seen (And It Came From Colombia) | Ep. 83
Aug 13, 20261h 5m
Send us Fan Mail A Colombian beer brand offered soccer jerseys at four different price tiers based on how large you were willing to make their logo. The biggest logo got you 80% off. Hundreds of thousands of Colombians chose the biggest logo. That is the opener for Episode 83 of Start It or Scrap It. And it sets up one of the best marketing conversations we have had on the show. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Cold open highlights 1:00 Intro and World Cup quarterfinals discussion: Norway, Morocco, and the Colombia joke 4:22 The most brilliant marketing campaign Gummi has ever seen: Aguila's Size Your Price jersey campaign 7:00 Why FIFA did not block it: national jerseys are controlled by the team and the sponsor, not FIFA 7:20 Using marketing to supplement what customers are buying anyway: the walking billboard model 8:10 Gummi's $7.80 polo strategy: Alibaba, subtle logos, and 30 shirts handed out that morning 9:40 What branding actually is and why it is not the same as advertising 10:20 The phone call from the car that had been sold for months 11:00 The vinyl window decal that got a lead at a parking lot the next day 11:35 Co-branding: splitting every door direct mail with a complementary business 12:45 Why who you co-brand with matters: the FIFA controversy example 13:00 House washer plus landscaper: cut the mailing cost in half and do twice the reach 20:00 Hybrid vs in-person work: the water cooler idea problem 26:30 Why text removes emotional inflection and why one sentence has seven different meanings 28:00 The project manager who thought the client was annoyed based on a simple request email 30:30 Defense tech side hustles and Sam.gov introduction 32:00 How Sam.gov works: registering your business, searching RFPs, and why so many go unanswered 33:35 The women-owned business certification and WBInc: the winning formula for minority-owned businesses 36:10 What the government actually outsources: Air Force.com, Space Force.com, the healthcare.gov build 36:49 The 3D printing human organs government contract already out for bid 41:00 The robot takeover discussion begins: what people are actually afraid of 42:10 What LLMs actually are: pattern recognition and next-word prediction, not true AI 43:35 Why hallucination is not lying: the key distinction between LLM error and human deception 45:40 Claude's token efficiency bias: why it may check its own previous answer instead of re-running a task 48:30 What true AI actually means: self-initiated tasks without human assignment 51:40 Claude's Fable Five model noticing and auto-correcting an error it was not asked to find 53:00 The danger of letting AI agents loose on primary systems 54:55 What to realistically expect from the first Optimus robots 56:00 The pipe leak test: why Optimus will not self-initiate a fix 57:00 The tractor, the automobile, and why automation shifts work rather than eliminating it 59:40 If robots handle the mundane, humans get back the time for creativity and the arts 1:02:20 Entertainment as social control: the gladiators, the television, and why creative conversations drive change 1:03:00 Closing, Clayton McDonald coming on the show, and next week preview Hosted by Mike Terkanian (business attorney and software developer) and Gummi Sigurdarson (marketing expert) Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/FtHT4ehZ3Jg Subscribe for weekly live business breakdowns every Thursday at 11:30 AM EST. Follow Start It or Scrap It: Instagram: https://instagram.com/startitorscrapit TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@start.it.or.scrap.it X: https://x.com/StartItScrapIt LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/startitorscrapit/ #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #marketing #startitorscrapit #branding #ai #government #worldcup #llm #robot #founders #businessgrowth #cobranding #samgov #promotionalproducts
How to Start a Business, Sell a Business and Survive SaaS Tool Fatigue | Start It or Scrap It Ep. 82
Aug 6, 20261h 8m
Send us Fan Mail If your paperwork is this sloppy at the closing table, what else am I not seeing underneath? That is the line Mike has heard buyers say before walking away from a deal. And it is the reason this episode opens with one of the most important warnings any business owner building toward an eventual exit needs to hear: your tax return is not enough. Not even close. Episode 82 of Start It or Scrap It is a live Q&A covering what buyers actually look for when acquiring a business, how to break into the specialty coffee market, where the line is on AI monitoring your employees, how to cut your SaaS stack down to what actually matters, and why the John Deere right to repair lawsuit is the most important tech case nobody is paying attention to. In this episode: M&A preparation: what buyers actually want to see, why sloppy paperwork kills deals at the closing table, and what it signals to the buyer when your records are not organized Starting a specialty coffee business: sourcing directly from South American farmers, the bumper crop trap that catches new buyers, starting with two exceptional blends rather than a full menu, being the Liquid Death of coffee, nailing the flavor profile and the packaging before anything else Why Mike killed a SaaS product that was 75% complete because the market dynamics shifted and the economics no longer made sense The John Deere right to repair lawsuit: why it is the benchmark case for tech-dependent hardware, what happens if John Deere loses, and why the farmer 200 miles from the nearest dealership with a broken harvester during a narrow harvest window is the human face of this legal fight TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Cold open highlights 1:00 Intro and welcome 2:00 Arnold Palmer vs John Daly intro music debate 3:30 Showing a cow: the unexpected conversation and animal show businesses 7:00 Horse breeding rights and how much champion stallions earn per session 9:00 Reindeer Made asks about M&A: what buyers actually look at 10:00 Why your tax return is not enough to sell your business 11:30 What sloppy paperwork signals to a buyer at the closing table 13:00 Asset purchase vs entity purchase: the two main deal structures 14:30 Why buyers prefer asset purchases to avoid inheriting liability 16:00 The provisions that give buyers an out after signing 17:00 Start documenting everything now if you ever plan to sell 20:00 Reindeer Made follow-up: how to start your own business from scratch 24:00 Being A Roast asks: how to enter the coffee market 25:00 Sourcing your beans: go to the South American farmers directly 26:00 The bumper crop trap new buyers fall into 27:00 Colombia's coffee bean export regulations and what that means for sourcing 29:00 Start with two blends and make them exceptional 31:00 Be the Liquid Death of coffee: packaging and brand identity 33:00 The Barrel bourbon comparison: testing unique flavor profiles 34:00 19 months to perfect a formula and why that is not unusual 35:00 Coffee drinkers are habitual: how hard it is to break into the market 36:00 Nail the packaging, nail the flavor, use the Yeti model to find your audience 38:00 Bum Bum Bum asks: AI monitoring employee productivity - where is the line? 39:00 The ethics of keystroke and camera monitoring in 2026 41:00 Why Big Brother surveillance causes massive turnover 43:00 The developer who turned down a great remote job over the camera requirement 44:00 Where AI monitoring is ethical: output-based tracking vs behavior tracking 45:00 Simone Bags asks: how are you handling SaaS tool fatigue? 46:00 Gummi cut $1,000 per month in redundant SaaS subscriptions 47:00 Mike killed a SaaS product 75% through development 49:00 Needs vs nice to have: the audit that changes everything 51:00 Claude's shoebox test: 99% accuracy on random receipts 53:00 AI is replacing dedicated SaaS products entirely 55:00 The bookkeeping lady who was using AI test results from two years ago 57:00 Kia pickup truck and market saturation parallels 58:00 The John Deere right to repair lawsuit nobody is watching 1:00:00 Why the Copyright Act of 1976 cannot handle today's software issues 1:03:00 Best business decisions of the last 12 months: not signing a lease 1:05:00 Mike's best business decision: moving to Dallas and proximity to partners 1:07:00 Closing and next week preview Hosted by Mike Terkanian (business attorney and software developer) and Gummi Sigurdarson (marketing expert) Subscribe for weekly live business breakdowns every Thursday at 11:30 AM EST. Follow Start It or Scrap It: Instagram: https://instagram.com/startitorscrapit TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@start.it.or.scrap.it X: https://x.com/StartItScrapIt LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/startitorscrapit/ #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #startitorscrapit #mergers #acquisitions #coffee #ai #saas #righttorepair #founders #businessgrowth #exitstrategy #foodbusiness #techlaw #productivity
How I Almost Lost Everything to a Social Engineering Scam (And How to Protect Yourself) | Ep. 81
Jul 30, 20261h 5m
Send us Fan Mail Mike teaches white hat hacking and social engineering. And yesterday, a scammer almost got him. Episode 81 of Start It or Scrap It opens with Mike breaking down exactly what happened: a spoofed Google security email that was verified clean at every technical level, a convincing phone call from someone with an American accent, and an auto-saved password on a fake login page that gave scammers 30 seconds of access before Mike changed his password and locked everything down. If he had waited three more minutes, they would have had access to his brokerage account and potentially everything else. The episode then moves into one of the most practical conversations the show has had about where business opportunity actually is right now, why the trades are going to be the gold mine of the next decade, and how to use AI as a business tool rather than a reason to stay on the sideline. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Cold open highlights 1:00 Intro and World Cup US team discussion 3:30 Mike reveals he almost fell victim to a social engineering scam 4:22 The Poland login panic at the World Cup set him up for this 5:30 The spoofed Google email: how it passed every technical test 7:10 The convincing phone call with an American accent 7:48 He entered his password and immediately knew what was happening 8:00 How he got out: changed password, froze brokerage account, hung up 8:27 Three more minutes and they would have had everything 9:13 How someone who teaches this fell for it anyway 9:50 The number one rule: never enter your password when asked via a link 10:53 Your bank and Google will never call you about a security issue 11:35 Enable two-factor authentication on every account 12:42 Different password for every account, no exceptions 13:00 Scammers exploited the anxiety from the Poland incident two weeks earlier 15:10 Mighty Tiger question: how to step away from doing all the work 17:00 The process of building processes: start with the first hire 18:30 Document the job, hire someone, then build the next process 22:15 Gnarly Carl question: business models that are underrated right now 27:18 The trades are going to be the gold mine of the next decade 27:38 80% of current tradespeople are within ten years of retiring 28:29 Average age of a home builder has increased 20 years in seven 29:33 Two couples: trade school vs college degree, who is winning? 30:03 The college fund argument and why the electrician path may win 32:06 Supply and demand in the trades: prices have doubled in five years 32:58 That is the one thing that will not change in 100 years 33:42 The CEO of Ford and the mechanic shortage 34:50 Lean on Me and what mechanics made in the 80s vs today 36:21 You do not have to do the work to own the business 36:47 Sponsor someone through trade school with a work contract 37:24 The handyman franchise whose ideal buyer was a restaurant manager 38:42 If you can project manage, you can own almost any service business 41:27 Benny Link question: should AI competition stop you from starting a business? 41:51 AI is not a reason not to start. It changes what you should start. 43:42 Gummi is building a personal AI assistant to answer his phone 45:22 How AI filters out unqualified leads before they reach you 47:41 AI and the skill gap: great people get dramatically better, others get marginally less bad 50:00 AI chatbot case study: filtering 90% of junk calls for a client 51:50 The AI voice agent for Okeanos that handles 70% of calls without a human 53:00 Does AI voice remove the upsell opportunity? The tradeoff discussion 56:15 Clayton McDonald and the AI business discussion: Codex breakdown 57:00 Marketing your AI business and why coding knowledge helps output quality 58:00 How regional language nuance makes the difference between good and great AI output 59:30 Claude argued with Mike for six minutes about something it was wrong about 1:00:00 You are in the top 2% of AI users if you know to prompt by region 1:01:00 The wife at the Fortune 500 company who was the advanced AI user 1:02:00 Clayton invited to be a guest on the show 1:02:45 Daycare vs T brand: do not start a daycare 1:03:38 Closing Hosted by Mike Terkanian (business attorney and software developer) and Gummi Sigurdarson (marketing expert) Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/kZWdUExmI94 Subscribe for weekly live business breakdowns every Thursday at 11:30 AM EST. Follow Start It or Scrap It: Instagram: https://instagram.com/startitorscrapit TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@start.it.or.scrap.it X: https://x.com/StartItScrapIt LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/startitorscrapit/ #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #scam #startitorscrapit #socialengineering #trades #ai #cybersecurity #founders #businessgrowth #handyman #tradesman #artificialintelligence #voiceagent #codex
How to Make Money From the World Cup (And Start a Business With $10K) | Ep. 80
Jul 23, 20261h 3m
Send us Fan Mail Mike and Gummi went to the France vs Iraq World Cup match in Philadelphia. They watched Iraqi fans set up drums in the concourse during a weather delay and turn a thunderstorm into one of the best moments of the tournament. Then they came back and talked about how small businesses can use all of it to their advantage. Episode 80 of Start It or Scrap It is a live Q&A covering World Cup business strategy, the best businesses to start with $10,000, a business model that generated $5 million in three years with zero ad spend, nostalgia marketing, and why your promotional product budget might be the best marketing money you are spending. In this episode: World Cup business opportunities right now: how to become soccer-friendly without spending a fortune, why country flags and colors are completely free to use while FIFA branding is not, how to use the decision round bracket to position your products and marketing in the right cities before the matches are announced How to capitalize on international fans visiting American cities for the first time and genuinely loving everything about being here Nostalgia marketing: how to tap into shared cultural touchstones without it feeling forced, why smell and music are the two most powerful nostalgia triggers, and how to make summer nostalgia work for a local business right now The deck company that went from zero to $5 million in three years without placing a single ad: monthly promotional products to past clients, a first-year anniversary gift basket, and an engineered referral system built entirely on staying top of mind TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Cold open 1:00 Intro and welcome 2:00 World Cup obsession: Gummi's social media is good again 3:30 The decision round breakdown and how to use it for business 5:00 Country-colored merchandise and soccer-friendly business strategy 7:00 Licensing warning: do not use FIFA branding without a license 7:45 International fans visiting the US and the business opportunity 11:55 Mike and Gummi attended France vs Iraq: the Iraqi fan experience 13:30 Weather delay, lightning exclusion zone, and the drums in the concourse 16:30 Starting a business for beginners with $10,000 17:45 Why service-based businesses are the right starting point 18:30 The handyman business: marketing, referrals, and the flywheel 22:30 Become the central figure: refer what you cannot do 24:00 You do not have to do the labor yourself 27:30 Connor's story: from estate cleanout to property maintenance 29:00 Adding a recurring revenue layer to a once-and-done business 30:40 Snowbirds and vacant home monitoring as a business model 31:30 Franchise alternatives: franchise brokers, SBA loans, and Rita's 35:00 You Break It: the rage room franchise that beat 40 others on ROI 36:30 Marzano6 asks: nostalgia marketing tips for this summer 37:30 What nostalgia actually is and why smell and music trigger it most 40:00 How to use summer nostalgia without it feeling forced 43:00 Promotional products done right: quality over quantity 45:00 The hat that starts conversations and the t-shirt worn on Christmas 46:30 Customer acquisition cost vs promotional product cost 49:30 The deck company: $5M in 3 years with zero ad spend 51:00 Monthly promotional items to past clients as a referral engine 52:00 Riding viral waves: what happens after the wave is gone 53:30 It is ten times easier to keep a customer than get a new one 55:00 Start trends instead of chasing them 56:00 Godin asks: is it too early to plan for Christmas marketing? 57:00 The answer: no. Start planning now, start advertising in November 59:00 Black Friday is largely a pricing myth 1:01:00 Founders Drop update and closing Hosted by Mike Terkanian (business attorney) and Gummi Sigurdarson (marketing expert) Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/F-Gpcz87rD0 Subscribe for weekly live business breakdowns every Thursday at 11:30 AM EST. Follow Start It or Scrap It: Instagram: https://instagram.com/startitorscrapit TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@start.it.or.scrap.it X: https://x.com/StartItScrapIt LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/startitorscrapit/ #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #worldcup2026 #startitorscrapit #marketing #businessideas #franchise #nostalgia #promotionalproducts #founders #businessgrowth #sidehustle #handyman #soccer #recurringrevenue
GTA 6 Side Hustles, AI Voice Scams, Business Banking and Why Your Big Bank Is Working Against You
Jul 9, 20261h 5m
Send us Fan Mail Most small business owners do not know what they need to open a business bank account. Most of them are also at the wrong bank when they need to borrow money. And most of them have no idea that a video with 117 views can generate more business than one with 5.7 million. Episode 78 of Start It or Scrap It covers all of that and more with Kevin Dolton, a 39-year banker and relationship banking manager at First National Bank and Trust of Newtown, one of Bucks County's oldest and most established independent banks. In this episode: What you actually need to open a business bank account: the documents most people show up without, why the bank cannot open the account without them, and how to walk in prepared the first time What happened when 97 websites got hacked and malware sat dormant for 30 days: how AI turned a week-long all-hands cleanup into a three-to-four-day one-person job The GTA 6 digital side hustle opportunity: selling skins, mods and in-game digital assets before the market gets flooded, and why getting in on day one in a niche that nobody else is filling is the play How AI voice cloning is being used to scam people by replicating the voice of a family member, using publicly posted social media data to make the story believable, and why the best defense is verification before reaction The social media chaos survival strategy: build a real community around a niche, stop chasing views, and find the people who actually want what you have World Cup 2026 business opportunities and the broadcast licensing reality that will get you into legal trouble if you try to show matches publicly without the right license TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Cold open highlights 1:00 Intro and welcome: Kevin Dolton from First National Bank 2:36 Kevin's background: 39 years at one bank starting as a teller 4:07 What it takes to stay at one company for 39 years 5:38 What you need to open a business bank account 7:22 Fictitious name registration, EIN numbers and the paperwork most people miss 8:46 Go to the bank first and ask what documents you need before you get anything 9:41 What Gummi has been up to: 97 sites hacked, malware dormant for 30 days 10:47 How AI turned a week-long cleanup into a 3-4 day one-person job 11:30 The reality of being a business owner when emergencies hit at 2 AM 12:57 You cannot predict what is going to happen when you start a business 14:22 Triple the money. Triple the time. The honest advice from a 39-year banker. 15:29 Kevin's tip: look for a no minimum balance business account in your first year 16:28 Community bank vs big bank: the difference when you need to borrow money 17:50 Can a signed PO or contract help you get a loan? Here is how it works. 20:25 The relationship is everything: why a banker who shows up at your office changes everything 22:46 Vanity metrics are lying to you: 117 views vs 5.7 million views 24:53 The story of a community built around weird AI music and 12 million Spotify streams 27:00 GTA 6 side hustle: selling digital skins, mods and in-game assets 28:45 The WordPress plugin model: why giving away the core and charging for the add-ons works 31:00 Go niche inside the game before the market gets flooded 33:46 Banking tip for side hustlers: always tell your banker you still have your day job 34:32 Social media chaos: how do entrepreneurs stay consistent when everything is noise? 37:30 Working in your business vs working on your business: the shift every founder must make 40:45 You can hire a boss. You do not have to become one. 43:19 Boats, marinas and solving problems before they become problems 46:00 Stop spending business revenue on personal toys: what bankers actually see 47:15 AI scams: voice cloning, fake arrest calls and how social media data makes it believable 51:25 The $30,000 fake arrest scam: how they used a boarding post to target a mother 53:40 How AI is going to automate social engineering at scale 56:24 Assume everything on social media is false until proven otherwise 57:00 World Cup 2026: sponsorships, fan events and the broadcast licensing trap Guest: Kevin Dolton First National Bank and Trust of Newtown Website: https://www.fnbn.com/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kevin-dolton-9007868 Bank Social Media www.facebook.com/fnbnewtown www.twitter.com/fnbnewtown www.youtube.com/fnbnewtown Hosted by Mike Terkanian (business attorney) and Gummi Sigurdarson (marketing expert) Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/8HfhvRs79Ko Subscribe for weekly live business breakdowns every Thursday at 11:30 AM EST. Follow Start It or Scrap It: Instagram: https://instagram.com/startitorscrapit TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@start.it.or.scrap.it X: https://x.com/StartItScrapIt LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/startitorscrapit/ #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #businessbanking #startitorscrapit #communitybank #founders #ai #scams #socialmedia #sidehustle #gta6 #banking #businessgrowth #vanitymetrics #cybersecurity
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