Kymone Hinds Is Asking Aspiring Entrepreneurs to Consider What They Already Know

The next business opportunity may not require learning an entirely new skill.

It may already be sitting inside the experience, knowledge and abilities you have developed over the years.

That is the message entrepreneurship strategist Kymone Hinds wants aspiring entrepreneurs to consider as he prepares for You’ve Got Oil and Monetize Your Ministry, taking place September 25 through 27 in Tampa.

The upcoming conference will bring together entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners for a conversation about creating income, developing businesses and recognizing the value of skills that people often overlook in themselves.

For Hinds, the idea is rooted in a simple observation.

Many people are already doing work that others value, but they have never considered turning that expertise into a business.

“I had an opportunity to build a business to give me an opportunity to build income and legacy,” Hinds said.

“What I’ve recognized is that a lot of people of faith have a lot of talent and capability. They’ve been doing work on the side for free, helping people, but no one has helped them develop a stream of income.”

That realization is at the center of Hinds' work and the upcoming conference.

The conversation comes at a time when earning additional income has become a priority for many households.

A second job may provide additional money, but it also requires additional time.

“At some point we have to explore the income side,” Hinds said. “The only option is to get a second job, but we are going to run out of days and hours.”

Hinds encourages people to think differently about the relationship between time and income by considering what they can build and own.

Rather than simply adding another job to an already busy schedule, entrepreneurship can provide an opportunity to develop a product, service or expertise that can grow over time.

But before someone can build a business, Hinds believes they have to recognize what they bring to the table.

That can be more difficult than it sounds.

People often dismiss skills because they have become second nature.

A person who has spent years explaining complicated information to coworkers may not recognize communication as a marketable skill.

Someone who is constantly asked to organize events may not realize there is a business opportunity in that ability.

A professional with decades of industry experience may not think of their knowledge as something others would pay to learn.

Hinds believes those assumptions need to change.

“The skill of sharing what you have learned can now be moved into the marketplace,” he said.

He points to his own career as an example. Before becoming an entrepreneurship strategist, Hinds served as a church pastor.

The communication skills and ability to provide clarity that he developed during that period became useful in his work outside the church.

“The skills that I’ve developed as a church pastor, communications, giving people clarity, is the same skills I use now,” he said.

His story also demonstrates that changing careers or entering entrepreneurship does not mean discarding everything learned along the way.

Education, professional experience, self-learning and even difficult personal experiences can contribute to a person's expertise.

The question is how to translate that expertise into something that provides value to others.

The conference will feature entrepreneurs who have taken very different paths to business ownership, including Mignon Francois, whose entrepreneurial story began with her last $5 before she built a multimillion-dollar cupcake business.

For Hinds, featuring entrepreneurs with stories like Francois' is intentional.

“It was important to have stories like Mignon and others,” he said, because they reinforce the idea that people can “start where you are.”

Myron Edmonds, founder of The Winning Circle for men, is also part of the conversation.

His transition from traditional pastoral work into building a business demonstrates another aspect of entrepreneurship: sometimes a person's life experiences can reveal a need they are uniquely positioned to address.

For someone considering entrepreneurship, Hinds believes the process should begin with the resources already available rather than focusing exclusively on what is missing.

“Many people have ideas of starting a business and they look at what they don’t have,” he said. “But they can start with what they have right now.”

That could mean identifying a skill, determining who needs it and testing whether people are willing to pay for the solution.

The first step might be smaller than launching a full business.

It could be offering a service to a first client, testing an idea with potential customers, creating a workshop or developing a simple product.

The important part, Hinds says, is moving from an idea to action.

That philosophy will be a central part of the Tampa gathering, where attendees will have an opportunity to hear from entrepreneurs and explore ways to develop their own ideas.

Hinds also has plans to take the conversation beyond the upcoming conference.

A book is scheduled to launch during the Tampa event, followed by plans to take the message to additional cities throughout Florida and eventually nationwide.

His goal is to encourage people to look at their experience differently and recognize that the things they have learned throughout their lives may have value in the marketplace.

“Whatever you think is your greatest negative is your greatest positive,” Hinds said.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, that perspective can prompt a different set of questions.

What do you know? What have you learned? What do people already come to you for help with? And what problem could you solve with that knowledge?

Those questions may be the beginning of a business idea.

As You’ve Got Oil and Monetize Your Ministry prepare to take place in Tampa September 25 through 27, Hinds is encouraging attendees to stop waiting for everything they think they need and start examining what they already have.

Sometimes the first business opportunity is not something you have to find.

It is something you have to recognize.

For more information about You’ve Got Oil and Monetize Your Ministry, visit mymconference.com and follow Kymone Hinds on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.