Practical Business Advice

Salt Not Necessary

Some of you will agree, many probably won’t. These are my observations and the thoughts behind them. You’re welcome to take it or leave it.

Here are 3 things you should do now if you want to succeed in business.

1) Don’t listen to (most) people who want to sell you information via their course, book or whatever.

There is a big difference between selling pickaxes in a gold rush that will help you dig for gold and selling you a map that’s supposed to tell you where the gold is.

People who sell pickaxes (aka tools) are trying to help you achieve your goal faster/easier. They are giving you the tools to do so. They don’t claim to know where the gold is or how to get it. They simply are selling you a tool that lets you dig faster than you could with your bare hands.

People who want to sell you the map (aka advice) are claiming that they know where the gold is and that you should buy their advice. If they truly knew where the gold was, they wouldn't be telling anyone. They would be digging themselves. They are selling you maps because they know they can make more money selling than digging. So be extremely cautious.

The best things you can do is stop reading / listening and just go do it yourself. You’ll spend time/money and you will likely fail, but what you learn will be worth a ton more than any advice you can buy. Don’t know what to try? Make a list of your ideas, pick one that sounds most interesting to you and try that!

2) Don’t try and invent the next big thing. Find something that already exists, but sucks and make it better.

Inventing something new is hard. Almost everything that could be built (by you) is already built. Now if you are Google or at least have their budget and connections then ok. Otherwise no.

Problem with building the next big thing is that you need one hell of a marketing budget to educate your potential customer on the fact that they need your next best thing. If you don’t have it, it will nearly impossible.

The media skews our image with shows like Shark Tank (I love it by the way. Very entertaining, but not realistic). They show you some little unknown average Joe or Jane who comes up with the next big thing, who hits it big. What most people don’t think about is that those 5 minutes on tv in front of millions of people is worth millions of marketing dollars that you could never replicate. That’s why some people go on the show not to make a deal, but to get the air time. Even Cuban calls them out on it.

Look at these 2 scenarios:

1 - You invent the next big thing. You take on investors. After multiple rounds of dilution you’re lucky to be left with 20% - 25% of the company. Assuming you've caught lightning in a bottle and have a $100 million dollar liquidity event, 7+ years down the line (which would be considered a very good and somewhat rare outcome), you’ll be left with $20 - $25 million (likely much much less, depending on the term sheets you agreed to) as a best case scenario. Now take that and split it between the 7 years that you likely didn't get a dime and you’re talking about a $3 million dollar per year ceiling, assuming all best case scenarios, with odds, comparable to hitting the lottery.

2 - You find an already existing business model. Figure out what sucks about it and make it better. Within a couple of years, you are much more likely to be able to grow it into a “small business” generating a few million dollars in revenue and making a nice living. Except the odds of this happening are a million times more likely.

Think about it. Apple does not really make new products. They take existing ones and make them better. Seems to be working for them. Stop living in a dream. Get real and go make some real money.

3) Just do it, already!

Finally and this kind of goes back to the end of point #1. This is important so I will repeat it:

The best things you can do is stop reading / listening and just go do it yourself…

Don’t know what to try? Make a list of your ideas, (but ideas for making an existing service or product better) pick one that sounds most interesting to you and do that - TODAY!!!

Why are you still here, reading?