In 2011, Nick Ruffini went back into the restaurant business — this time with his brother.
Then in 2013, he went back to music and started a podcast called Drummer’s Resource. In the past three years my guest was transformed Drummer’s Resource into a full-fledged media platform — including a podcast, blog, and social — with entertaining, inspiring and lifestyle-focused content for drummers.
Now, let’s hack…
Nick Ruffini
Highlights from the interview
- [3:20]: Nick explains that one of the biggest contributors to his success was consistency. He constantly kept at it, doing things he didn’t want to do day in and day out.
- [6:54]: Nick’s family worked in the restaurant business. Working with them in the family business was something he grew up doing, and it gave him a lifetime of business experience he would later leverage. As a kid, he also did lemonade stands and other small businesses. By college, he’d started a small band booking firm. His dad read Entrepreneur magazine regularly, and he always wanted to be featured in it someday. After college, his focus was on touring until he later decided to open a restaurant of his own. He feels like there was never a time he wanted to do anything other than work for himself, either in his family business or in a business of his own.
- [11:50]: Nick built a podcast first, then focused later on finding ways to monetize it. These days, it’s more of a media company, but it started as a podcast he’d started when he still owned a restaurant with his brother. He’d recently released an album, and though he wanted to stay in music, he didn’t want to feel like he was at the mercy of someone else due to needing money. He was burned out, however, on the restaurant business, and wanted something different.
- [26:46]: Nick talks about his experience with “analysis paralysis.” He’ll sometimes get too fixated on long term consequences of decisions and won’t engage in an action as a result. It took him a long time after starting Drummer’s Resource to make his next move because he wasn’t sure what would work the best, or become the most successful.
Resources and links from the episode
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