33 Things Every Aspiring Entrepreneur Should Know

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Entrepreneur Mark Manson about the rules that he himself would like to know when starting his first business.

In 2007, Mark Manson moved from the cohort of employees to entrepreneurs. Now he admits that if he had been asked then what his business would look like in five years, he would have been unable to answer. Like most aspiring entrepreneurs, he just wanted money quick and easy. And I certainly didn't expect to have to work so much. And that business will bring him so much pleasure.

Therefore, Mark put together this list for newcomers to the business, so that they have at least a little idea of what they will face.

1. Sell. Don't waste your money

Obvious advice for me now. My first business had a big start, so I decided to reward myself with an unnecessary trip to Buenos Aires with friends, where I squandered most of the money I made in the first six months.

Less than a year later, I went broke and begged my ex to let her stay with her so I wouldn't end up on the street. Don't repeat my mistake.

2. Earn on your free time

Most people who want to start their own business complain that they do not have enough free time. Between work, hobbies, and family commitments, they have a maximum of an hour or two a day to sit down and come up with a new business idea to get rich off.

No, no and NO. If you get the feeling that in your free time you are working on a second job, you have lost without even starting.

Take what you like - analyzing sports matches, gardening, or woodcarving - and try to make money from it. This is the most reasonable starting point. This way you will not give up your hobby, but expand it.

3. Connect with other entrepreneurs

You need to surround yourself with people you want to be like. If all your friends are boring office plankton, then you will unconsciously feel the social pressure on yourself and remain the same boring office plankton.

Such friends will not understand your ambitions or will even be offended and envious. Find people who are in the same state as you, nudge and motivate each other.

4. Quit your job as soon as the opportunity arises

Burn the bridges. Do not leave yourself any options for retreat.

5. Feel free

Striving to do something that no one else has done before you requires a certain degree of unfounded self-belief. You must be prepared to:

• become an object of ridicule;
• call dozens of potential clients and convince them that you can do the job better than anyone else;
• advertise your new product to people who are unaware of its existence;
• promise to provide your unique product or service, even if you still have little idea how to do it. But at the same time, then it is imperative to figure out how to do this.

You shouldn't be shy.

6. Fuck your business idea

Mark Cuban once said that for every good business idea, you have to imagine that 100 other people have the same idea who are already working on it. Business ideas are not important. Execution is important.

A lot of people are proud of themselves because they came up with a cool idea. But the most successful companies, if you look at history, have rarely been based on new ideas. Google is not a new idea. Facebook is not a new idea. Microsoft is not a new idea. It's just that these companies did a better job with the implementation than others.

7. Read Less, Do More

Try to read only when you need a specific solution to a problem you are experiencing at work. You don't need to read about marketing because you feel like you should be good at marketing. It's damn boring. Read about marketing when your new project needs a marketing strategy. All of a sudden, reading will be much more interesting.

Often people read about what they want to do instead of actually doing something. Reading is useless without doing it.

8. Check, check, check

You don't know anything until you've tested this. In every marketing seminar I attended, and every marketing book I read, it was said to raise prices. Nevertheless, the split test that I conducted on my books on the site showed that books with low prices do not lead to a decrease in income, but, on the contrary, attract new customers, get more positive reviews and bring more traffic to the site.

9. Be eccentric

You cannot stand out if you are no different from the rest. Use your weirdness to your advantage.

10. Always think about your brand

The reality of the modern economy is that any information, product or service that people need already exists in dozens of options. There is no longer a deficit. Differing from competitors only in price or quality is an almost unrealistic strategy for entering a new market.

Only the brand can dominate the market.

Your brand determines how the relationship with the customer or customer will turn out. It is for this reason that they come back to you, rather than go to your competitors, who offer exactly the same services.

11. Offer not a product, but a feeling

Steve Jobs said he always wanted Apple products to give consumers a feel, not just functionality. Apple is arguably the strongest brand on the planet today. This is what I mean when I talk about brand obsession: engage with the experience you can offer to customers, not just the information and the product.

12. Believe in what you are doing

Otherwise, even if you succeed, you will find yourself stuck in another boring job. But this time you created it yourself.

13. Your business will grow. Let him do it

No one gets it right the first time. Or from the second. Or from the twenty-third. Think of Thomas Edison or Michael Jordan.

The market is constantly changing, and what worked last year may not work this year. You cannot stay on top of success if you do not develop along with the market. Don't be tied to one idea or initial business plan.

14. Forget Tim Ferris

If you work 4 hours a week, your business will be ten years behind. As well as the likelihood that you will miss out on a bunch of opportunities and become as unbearably boring as your whole life.

15. A blog is not a business plan

Don't start blogging to make money. Blog because you enjoy writing. Blog to share what you love. Not a single blogger who makes millions from their content started writing for money or planned anything like that. It just happened. And it took years. Not months, but years.

16. You will need either a lot of time or a lot of money

Or both. There is no instant success.

17. Business is not about making money

Business is about benefits and values. If you can make money on what is of value to you personally, you will never get tired of working.

If you want to convey to people the value your business brings, money will come as a side effect.

There is a fine line between value and money. Sometimes you have to burn a ton of money to create long-term value. If money is more important to you, you will never dare to take such a step.

18. Benefit From Luck

Sometimes you will be lucky and sometimes not. So everyone. There is no point in complaining or claiming all the credit for yourself. Benefit from both.

19. Hire slowly, fire quickly

Cliché, but true. Especially when it comes to outsourcing. Almost every internet entrepreneur has his own scary story about outsourcing, including me. In short, you get exactly what you pay for.

20. Be prepared for existential stress

In a regular job, stress is often associated with external approval - deadlines, meetings, presentations - and usually with your boss. It is a feeling of irritation that manifests itself in short but violent bursts.

When you work for yourself, you no longer have to fight for external approval. You change the external stress for an almost imperceptible, gnawing feeling that everything is going to decline and will disappear in one day.

Yes, I can wake up every day at lunchtime. I can work at any time. But when you work for someone, you are not haunted by the fear that one day you will come to work and your building will not be there. The entrepreneur thinks about this every day.

21. If you don't piss anyone off, you are doing something wrong

Dan Kennedy once said that if you haven't driven anyone mad by noon, chances are you are not making money. My experience confirms that this is true.

22. Did I already say that you need to check everything?

Seriously, half of the things that will help grow your business are impossible without regularly testing your ideas in the marketplace. Heck, don't even start a business until you've tested your idea.

23. The 20/80 Rule: Never Forget It

Amazingly, it works in all areas.

24. Acquire 1,000 Real Fans

A few years ago, Kevin Kelly came up with a simple concept for writers and other creative people in the Internet age: You just have to convince 1,000 people to give you $ 100 a year to get you a six-figure income. So you can devote time to building, and not just earning your bread. A corollary to this is the 100 Real Clients Rule if you work in a consulting or service industry.

25. As in the corporate world, networking is everything

Yes, it's still a great way to get new clients or a job offer. But in the world of entrepreneurship, networking provides an opportunity to learn what things work for other businesses and borrow good ideas for your own.

26. Know yourself

I work best at night. I hate to structure and make lists, half of which I don't even look at later. I manage my time with playlists in iTunes. Most of the things that work great for me you will never find on the time management tips list. But this is how I work, I follow what works for me personally. And you do what suits you.

27. Rule of 1,000 days

The 1,000-day rule says: In the first 1,000 days after starting your own business, you will be worse off than at your regular job.

28. If you feel like you are at work, it is wrong

You can make money to do what you love. Or do what you love to make money. It's up to you to choose.

29. Don't Get Rich Fast

All of the existing ways to get value quickly will either kill your brand prospects and customer loyalty, or put you back in a position where you're working on something that doesn't burn your eyes and doesn't believe in.

If you love what you do (and you should love) and regularly invest in growing your business, then your priority list shouldn't be a ton of money for expensive, useless purchases. Boost your self-esteem in other ways if you need to.

30. Stop chatting, go and check

I have no answer for you. And you too. So check it out and find out!

31. If total failure doesn't scare you to death, you're doing something wrong

I have found that the more something scares me, the faster it needs to be done.

32. Treat clients like family members

They are the main reason why you do it at all. Treat them with respect. Respond to incoming requests as soon as possible. Answer their questions. Give them free trinkets.

33. Business will become part of your personality, so choose wisely

“I’ll do this for several years, make a lot of money and do what I really love,” it never works, it’s a myth. This is how I originally got into business and see dozens of people doing the same.

In the end, I had to come to terms and admit that I had built a career in internet marketing, whether I wanted to or not. And since I became attached to this career, I decided to turn my assets into something that I am passionate about and love to do.

When I created one of the first versions of my site, I gave up all my other business ventures. My monthly income was immediately cut in half. But I realized that if this is really what I want to do, it will be worth it in the long run.

And so it happened.