We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Fergus King a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Fergus, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
I was clever when I was a kid, and I was good at school. Those things rarely translate to confidence these days, but I believe they were necessary building blocks for me to gain confidence from my parent’s divorce, rather than lose it.
As with most children, my parents were the basis for what I considered to be right and wrong, or skilled and unskilled. If someone was smarter than my dad, that meant they were smart. If someone was nicer than my mom, that meant they were nice. They were the benchmarks for how I thought about things, but there is a point for every child where they discover that their parents can be wrong. When I discovered my parents were wrong, they were fighting with each other, going through a terrible divorce that included drugs, restraining orders, and desperate pleas. As I watched that struggle, I realized that my parents were only human, and that no adult really knows what they are doing.
I hear that sentiment all the time. “Everybody is just winging it, so don’t worry.” or “Nobody really knows what they are doing, so you can be yourself and be just as valid as anyone.” These are good takeaways, but they are not how my seven year old brain thought. My thought upon discovering that adults didn’t have their shit together was “None of the adults know what they are doing, but I know what I’m doing! So I can do it better.”
That is really where my confidence and self-esteem began. I realized that everyone is fallible, and if I believe in myself, there is no reason to think I’m not doing a great job.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Did you know 39% of all student debt holders did not graduate college? That is a staggering number of people who are weighed down by debt with few prospects to pay it off!
For the last five years, I have been working on a new solution to student loans. I am now the managing member and the only current agent for Studious Solutions, LLC.
Studious is a new kind of insurance where parents or other family members will pay a small monthly premium, then we pay off their child’s student loans if the child drops out of college due to grades, injuries, another pandemic, or even because they just aren’t feeling it!
With a Studious policy, that 39% would not have student loan debt and they would not regret their time at school. Furthermore, any child with a Studious policy would have freedom to go to college if they choose to. The penalty for failure would be removed.
My nephew is our first insured child, and his policy only costs $32 a month. If he drops out of college, he will be covered for over $29,000 in debt. He will have the financial freedom to go to college if he wants, and with Studious, there is no reason not to try. Our hope is that many more children will go to college with the opportunity a Studious policy gives them, and that children with little chance for social mobility can successfully obtain degrees instead of accepting their fate.
The reason Studious is so exciting is that it tackles the debt problem proactively instead of reactively. Talks about Student Loan Debt are all about debt forgiveness, and about how the student debt complex is a broken monstrosity, but solutions to the core issues are rare. Instead of just forgiving the current debt, Studious Solutions offers a way for the next generation to have less debt than the generation before it!
It has been a long journey to get Studious ready, with countless hours spent on math, licensing, courses, and fumbling through a lot of the work myself. I am excited to say that Studious is ready, and we are hoping to officially launch with an ad campaign sometime in the next year. Keep a look out, or you can contact me directly through our website, studioussolutions.com!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Perseverance is the first and main quality I would suggest for anyone starting a business. The road has been long, and confusing, and more than stressful, but every step is manageable. I have yet to run into an expense that costs more than $600 at one time, and most of the expenses I have run into are around $50. Google will go a long way to finding answers to any struggles you have, and to finding people who can provide those answers and other assistance for a smaller cost than you expect. You can do this. It is important to remember that no matter how difficult things seem, the next step you need to take is small and manageable. As the next one will be, and so on until you have made it over the hill.
The next quality I suggest is admission of ignorance. I am very good at math and contracting, but I know next to nothing about advertising. If I tried to do everything myself, it would take me another five years to make a second sale. People around you will be excited to share their expertise. It is important to be willing to admit you don’t know how to do something and to get help when you need it. This extends to when you are burnt out as well. Your friends or coworkers will support you if you let them know you could use the help.
The last suggestion I have is more on a particular area of knowledge than a quality. Learn how a website works, how online ordering works, how to run an email campaign instead of rent a billboard. Any chance at commerce these days, especially for a new company, must be done online. Whatever your goal is, whatever product or art you want to share with the world, a website is an inescapable part of the modern journey.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
I kept searching for the one hurdle that decides whether Studious Solutions will be a success or not. I would complete one task, and find the road in front of me surprisingly clear. I found it unnerving, because surely there is a reason someone isn’t doing stuff like this all the time, right?
Well I found it recently, and it is a big one. I am equal parts daunted by how difficult it is going to be and encouraged, because I finally found the roadblock, and I can be absolutely certain that it is the only thing capable of stopping me due to how high it is.
I do not expect this challenge to be relevant to most small business owners, but perhaps my journey with it will be helpful.
Studious Solutions is an insurance company. Insurance is a highly regulated industry. Because of how Studious policies are set up, we will not have losses to pay out until we are in business for at least 7 years.
That said, there are Capital and Surplus requirements by law in every state, and we have to meet those requirements to be allowed to sell insurance whether or not we actually have losses.
In the state of Georgia, where Studious is starting, there are three possible requirements that might be relevant. First is the requirement for a Surplus Lines insurer (insuring a new or rarely heard of product) which is 15 million dollars. The commissioner of insurance can waive that requirement, but only to a minimum of 4.5 million dollars, making that the second possibility. Finally, the requirement for a Credit insurer is only 3 million dollars, which Studious may qualify as since we are insuring a loan.
That’s terrifying, but I have not given up. I believe Studious can be a great thing for this country, and that we can make a real difference in the student debt crisis.
So I am applying for loans. When I filled out a form requesting a 5 million dollar loan, I was surprised by how many lenders seemed interested. I got 11 hits! There are 11 banks willing hear me out and maybe give Studious 5 million dollars to get this idea rolling. That’s crazy, but amazing. So I am filling out loan applications as well as the forms required to sell insurance now, because they all need financial projections. The financial outlook is good too! I think there is a real chance we will get the loan.
But it is possible the commissioner will deny our application because the state wants Studious to have cash instead of a loan. In that case, I will switch to looking for venture capital firms to provide 15 million. I hope it won’t come to that, but with the reports and business plan I have made over the last 5 years, I really believe I can make it happen.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.studioussolutions.com
- Other: [email protected] This is my work email, and contacting me through the Studious website will send me an email here, so feel free to contact me directly.
