Ask and You Shall Find

Letters From Bear // Monday September 25th, 2017

For teenage entrepreneurs and startup founders that we work with worldwide, I often give two rather contradictory pieces of advice.

Firstly, I am known to religiously stick by the thought that there should be little of a founders startup that they don’t (a) understand themselves, and (b) aren’t or couldn’t do themselves.

Now for the first part of (b), this is especially true for those taking a stab at bringing their vision to life with little to no funding, — otherwise known as bootstrapping. With little to no capital behind the development of your vision, it is essential to cycle through iterations of your initial vision as many times as possible before running out of resources. No-one wants to burn through their reserves before they gain any traction. Understand and be one with your budget, and then design your MVP to accommodate it. Simple.

For what some find to be in complete contradiction of that first point, I also push what I have learnt to be one of the truly most distinctive and essential parts of both life and running your own startup that teenagers will never learn in school. — That is,

Ask and You Shall Find.

As a teenager with the passion and initiative to create something of your own, I can’t possibly begin to emphasize the number of people who will continuously reach a hand to pull you up and lend every single piece of advice they have to give. You must always remember the world and people you live amongst. We are all humans, born to love and forever working for change.

The one thing none of us are born with however, is the knowledge of how to engage that change. — Whether that be to institute a change in society or personal socioeconomic status. — So with that, know that at no point in your life have you or will you ever be expected to know how to do everything. As long as you can promise to forever stay true to yourself, passions and engagement of change, all you have to do is ask and someone will be there to help.

So with that, today’s teen entrepreneur advice hashtag is, #JustAsk.

I’ll also challenge all those happy to help teenage entrepreneurs to comment “#AskMe” at the bottom of whatever platform you originally found this article on to let those looking for help to bring their visions to life know you are here to help.

Especially if you are still a teenager like me!

// BearOctoberOrionMatthews