The Best Entrepreneurial Advice You’ll Ever Get
“Be different and do something.”
You’re about to get the best take away from any entrepreneurial article you’ve ever read in your entire life. Ready?
Stop reading this and start doing something about it.
I thought being an entrepreneur was knowing every mistake, flaw and growth hack in the start up world. I’d wake up and browse HackerNews while brushing my teeth, I’d peruse GrowthHackers around lunch and finally I’d sift through ProductHunt by night. I knew everything there was about being an entrepreneur except how to do anything about it.
In college, I had a taste at success by winning business and engineering competitions for a piece of technology that both Apple and Google would eventually come to compete with. After some bad advice, I folded my cards, cashed my chips on the table and walked away from what would’ve been an early retirement. Am I bitter? Uh…yeah, duh.
Everyone will constantly tell you to do your homework before you jump in and try to start your own company. People will warn you about the failure rate, how it’s easier to cut your teeth on someone else’s nickel and how you’ll be more valuable after spending 5–10 years working for someone whose already been successful. Here’s where I want to impart the most valuable thing I learned:
“if you want to be an entrepreneur, the only way you’ll learn is to go out and do it yourself.”
You will never be prepared until you try it yourself.
Stop planning out a future company, and tackle little projects that you can spend a few hours on to learn from. You’ll immediately start to address your weaknesses. For example, one of the most common is, “Am I technical enough?” Rather than read up on how to find a technical co-founder, just shut up and get back to learning how to code again. I can’t begin to tell you what it’ll do for your confidence.
Instead of learning how to game the market or reading how Company X found their first 100 customers through some absurd growth hack, try it for your own ideas. Imagine if your product could experience the best thing that ever happened to it, what would that be and how would it get that way? Practice identifying the best sources of attracting customers, refine and simplify onboarding experiences and sharpen skills on how to build the strongest relationships with each alpha tester.
Will you make mistakes? Absolutely. Will you fail in your first, second, third and fourth idea? I’d bet on it. Stop thinking it’s safer to just keep planning and wait till you come up with the perfect idea? The perfect idea never comes along because products never get it right on the first try, and you only pivot after you’ve seen the market response to your original hypothesis. Don’t fear failure, it’s where you’ll learn the most.
You will never learn more about being an entrepreneur until you actually try it yourself. When you’re passionate about an idea, learning transforms into the need to itch your curiosity when you hit a barrier or explore a new phase of your product. It’s wise to spend time researching, growing and benefiting from the likes of others, but don’t fall into the paralysis of being a serial want-repreneur. The best advice I can give you is to stop reading posts like these and start taking chances.
Hit me up on Twitter (@hemal) or say hi, I’d love to hear what you’re going to start doing.
