From Side Hustle to Full-Time Freedom with Nicholas Uzoni

0:00Hey, welcome back to Vision Pros. I'm really excited today to get to introduce you to Nicholas Yuzoni. He's a callin' in from Dallas, Texas area. Nicholas, would you please introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about you. Yeah, for sure. Sue, I appreciate you guys having me on. My name's Nicholas Yuzoni. The website is nickelissuzoni.com. You'll probably never run across another Nicholas Yuzoni in your life. I started this business a few years ago. I run the whole thing out of my house here, out of my home office. Really enjoy it. My big family man, working from home is great. It allows me to be surrounded with my family all the time and allows me to take care of a lot of different customers and solve a lot of different problems each and every day, which is fun. So it's always a good time. That's fantastic. Well, I'm dying to hear more about it. I've been on your website. It's beautiful folks. You should go visit, but let's dive right in. Nicholas, would you tell me about your vision for your business? Yes. So I grew up my parents at one time or another were always small business, they were small

1:06business owners. My dad, he's close to the end of his career, but he's a mechanical engineer. Him and my mom had started a business. My mom then kind of took over that business as my dad went and found some other opportunities as well. I'm from Detroit, Michigan. So the southeast Michigan area is full of small businesses, which all really kind of primarily serve the big three. The big three automakers, small business to me and business ownership is something I've always been super passionate about. Even when I was just, you know, doing corporate America jobs, which were great kind of cutting my teeth and a few different industries, I always had kind of, you know, that itch, you know, a little bit in the back of my head. You know, maybe I want to do this, but, you know, you get a comfortable corporate job with a comfortable corporate salary. It's a little, be a little scary, a little difficult to make that jump. But when I did make it, I mean, very quickly, I saw the opportunities that kind of laid out in front of me. So from a vision standpoint,

2:10I mean, for me, you know, I'm a first generation American from my dad's side. A lot of people sacrifice for me to kind of build a good platform for me. I'm just trying to take that next step of my family's legacy. One of those conduits to that is through building this business. I want to build something that continues to expand, that continues to expand outside of Dallas, Texas. I'm grateful that I have clients really all over the United States now, and I have young kids. So for me, I want to be able to build something that, you know, I tell my kids all the time, that you are goal one day to come in and fire dad. You know, you need to come in and take the business over and push dad out. That would be my happy day to watch my kids come in and fire me and say, Dad, we got it from here. We don't need you anymore. You can go collect your little paycheck and go retire if you want. But in all seriousness, that's when I'm building always something for tomorrow, with my transactions, with my relationships, with any partnerships I have. I tell everybody,

3:14Hey, we want to win today, of course, but I'm really aiming to build something for tomorrow, no matter what that is. And again, I've been blessed to have a lot of really great long-term tomorrow relationships and opportunities that are really presented themselves. I feel very fortunate, blessed to have that. That's fantastic. I love that. The long-term view on things is so important to have. I forgot to have you say a little bit about like what your business does for people. Sure, sure. So originally, when I started it, I started it on the side. I was working a corporate job in 2020. They had us all work from home, like almost everybody else in the world. I kept my job, but by keeping my job and working from home, I saved a bunch of commuting time. So instead of sleeping in later, I was up at 4 a.m. every morning, building this business. So where I got started was off of just building websites. I taught myself how to build websites,

4:16slowly but surely accumulated some clients, how to build my skills set out from there, expanded a little more in a more digital marketing, got into the SEO space, learned some skills through there, got into email marketing, graphic design, print design, kind of slowly but surely built that skill set out. And then I saw other opportunities present themselves through data analytics and reporting. That's really where I cut my teeth in the corporate space was through reporting and analytics and data. I'm kind of the, sometimes a Steve Erkel kind of nerd. Most people don't like data. I do. I don't know why. I've just something strong with me, I guess. Nobody else thinks it's cool and I do. So I've always enjoyed that, been able to work with the quite a few clients now for a long time in the data and analytics space, which is fun. And then in the fourth quarter of last year, I also launched a software development arm in my

5:16business as well. So if I look at my business, it's kind of three prongs, the digital marketing with websites, data analytics and reporting, and then software development. Sometimes clients, bridge across all three of those prongs, sometimes a couple, sometimes they just sit on one, which is fine. It's not a one size fits all shock around here. That's for sure. But it's fun because that allows me to, like I mentioned, will be started. I mean, it's literally a different challenge and a different whirlwind every day. But that to me, like I get up every morning excited to work. I love it. And it's different industries, different customers all the time. Never a dull moment then. No, no, no, no, never. That's great. How would you describe like where did this vision come from? I talked a lot or a little bit about like a long term, you know, kind of building something long

6:18term. I remember, I specifically remember before I started this business, again, then it was kind of dreaming about a side hustle. My wife and I had accumulated a little bit of medical that that we were, I was looking at this with my comfortable corporate salary that, you know, you get a bonus one time a year and you get, you know, your marginal raises. There was no other money coming in, you know, you can look and say, well, my paycheck's the same, you know, 26 weeks out of the year. So I looked and said, okay, how can I do something a little extra? I remember asking my wife, like, what can I even do extra? And she told me, she said, well, you know, like, you seem to do a great job and you're nine to five. Like, can you do that elsewhere? And when I shifted my mindset outside of, you know, what can I build? You know, what can I, you know, change the world with or something like that? I just became super practical and asked myself, okay, I know how many people I take care of in my corporate space and how many different projects

7:21and different collaborations I have. How can I do that for my own clients? How can I do that kind of partnering with other clients or partnering with other businesses and finding problems they have? And when things were so small then, that's where I really established this principle and that's where it still exists today. At the end of the day, if I sit down with you to discuss some problem you have or some sort of business opportunity we can do together, that's really going to be my question is, hey, what problems do you have today? Okay, tell me your problems. I'm not going to tell you my solution. I want to understand the issues you're having now so that we can find success in the future. I'm not going to, I'm not going to sell you a cup if you're not thirsty. If you need a, if you need a vehicle, I'm going to sell you a vehicle to get there. You know what I mean? This is just an example. I want to find a proper solution so that it's good for today. We'll also accelerate in success for you and hopefully me in proxy tomorrow as well. Oh, that's great. That's excellent. I love that. Not on one size fits all.

8:27And what's your why? What's driving you through all of this? Kind of kind of combining those those last two things we talked about is I've been blessed to have again, I have some one-time clients that I do something for them and we shake hands and we say great experience and maybe I don't talk to them again, but I do have a number of clients that I've worked with now for a few years. I mean, one of them, I did some stuff today and he's been a client of mine since the middle of 2020. I mean, for me like that, that's exciting because I've been able to watch his business turn from what was a good successful business already into something that is, I mean, ridiculous. I mean, he's done so so well. I've been able to play a little piece in that success, but it's been fun to walk with him through this and take on new challenges, take on new growth opportunities and just to see where it's at.

9:28I mean, that's, you know, getting paid for my efforts, yeah, obviously that's, you need that, that you need that for sure, but being able to partner with him and see myself as a partner in a business owner's vision and kind of help accelerate that, the catalyst there, that is, I love that. I mean, that that gives such satisfaction beyond just the financial side of it, but then also motivates me to always look for that solution to say, hey, how can we take your business even further, you know, is this something you're looking for? What other problems do you have that we can fix? And that's, that's exciting. That keeps me getting up at 5.30 every morning knowing that there's something new and big and exciting to take on other than just, you know, kind of mundane tasks every day. Right. Right. And then serving some clients for, you know, five years, six years now. That's fantastic. Yes. Yes. That's awesome. Well, I'm dying to hear more.

10:28I'm excited. I hope you'll come back. We've got so much more that I want to find out. Yeah. Oh, it would be great. I mean, I think it's a fun story. Maybe I'm biased, but, yeah, I'm always happy to tell more about it and, you know, maybe, maybe share a little bit that might inspire somebody else because I know I need a little inspiration and push even when I was just getting started myself to be a little more believe in myself. We all could use that for sure. Well, thank you so much for being here. This has been really cool. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Looking forward to our next job. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pro's Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. Well, more, more engagement as well. One by people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.