I saw this post online recently:
These can be inferred from various interviews of a great businessman:
- Never give up (his famous words: “I don’t ever give up. I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated”)
- Really like what you do
- Don’t listen to the little man (as in, seek advice from people you look up to, not the people you are trying to get away from)
- Take a risk
- Do something important (as in, affects a lot of people)
- Look for problem solvers
- Attract great people
- Have a great product (“It’s not enough to have a better product. It has to be A LOT better”)
- Work super hard
Now my words:
I love the business man in question actually. People like him are going to take our economy and our world to the next level. His story is absolutely incredible. The fact that he continues to risk it all to drive amazing change is fascinating and we need more of our wealthy people and big companies to adopt this mindset.
But let me play devils advocate here. I’m not saying I’m smarter than anyone. I just believe this is misinterpreted.
Our entrepreneurial culture idolizing this rhetoric is why so many young brilliant minds end up missing all together and getting jobs.
Once you have had massive success like this person you can adopt this kind of attitude. For the average beginner only one or two of these principles should be adopted.
- Giving up and pivoting to something else is 100% necessary in the early days. If I didn’t ever give up I’d still be trying to launch one of the 10 businesses that didn’t have the potential as my one that finally did. Never throw good money after bad money. The sunk cost fallacy sends so many business owners into total financial ruin.
- Doing something you really like to do is not at all correlated with what the market wants. Most people like art, music, sports, food, cocktails, beer, electric cars, cripto, video games. Those make up less than 5% of all jobs. This is why businesses fail. People start them for selfish reasons.
- I’ve learned a lot by taking advice from all people – especially the little man – and sifting through what advice I turn into action. Having an unbiased perspective is critical.
- Take a risk. Risk your time yes. Risk a little bit of money yes. But take a risk like a gamble? Like a long shot? Like a tech company with VC? But I have a family to feed… No. Minimize risk. Play the odds that are the best for you. Entrepreneurship is about reducing risk. Take as little risk as possible. INVEST when you are pretty sure your $1 investment will be worth $1+.
- Trying to affect millions right off the bat is a big mistake. Less than 1% of successful entrepreneurs get started this way. Even Zuck started with just harvard kids. The most successful people I know all had a very specific target customer who needed one thing and they did that one thing very well. They ignored everyone else. They started very small. Now that they have made it they give away a lot of money and devote energy to doing important things.
- Look for problem solvers? I guess this is a good one.
- How is an average joe going to attract great people? While they are waiting for saviors and unicorns to arrive I’ll be out grinding myself and working with average people doing manageable things. You can’t attract great people all the time. You have to build a business that can thrive with normal people.
- Your product doesn’t need to be “A LOT BETTER” if you pick the right growing market in an underserved area and base you decisions on data and market analysis. If you think you need to be A LOT BETTER you will never end up trying anything and you’ll sit idle waiting on the perfect idea to magically appear.
- Working smart and finding the 20% of your efforts that get you 80% of the way there is much more important than hard work. 99% of business owners work hard but still 95% of them fail. Working efficiently and taking a step back and deciding where to work is much more important.
Take this critique with a grain of salt.
I think this business man in particular points his rhetoric towards a lot of other business owners. Hes frustrated that people have made great money doing normal things and now they refuse to risk any of it to do something worth doing and for the betterment of all people.