Throughout my journey to becoming a 9-figure entrepreneur, I’ve learned six key concepts that have contributed to my success. Since my 20s, I have started and failed at multiple businesses that taught me important lessons about business and entrepreneurship. Then, things began to change in my 30s when I created successful businesses. I learned even more valuable lessons about what it takes to be successful. So, I will impart these lessons to you so that you can learn from my mistakes and hopefully be better off than I was in your entrepreneurial journey.
#1 You Don’t Need to Find the Perfect Product or Service to Sell
In my 20s, I had many failed businesses because I was constantly searching for the perfect product or service to sell. Unfortunately, my failed businesses were constrained by time, geography, lack of capital, and inexperience. Eventually, I figured out the power of the internet and how you could sell products and services online with little experience or capital.
I realized that finding the perfect product or service is too time-consuming, and the market may not even want it. So, I started providing as much value as possible for FREE on the internet to build a loyal following and figure out what the market wanted. I used social media to get feedback from my audience to see what they wanted or needed from me.
The best part about using the internet to develop your next business idea is that you can use trial and error to see what works and what doesn’t without spending a dime. Then, once you determine your market’s needs and pain points, you can figure out how to create a product to sell.
For example, realized there was a lack of personal development in the business courses I had seen. Then, I drew from my audience’s pain points – the lack of personal development in business education – and founded ENTRE. ENTRE is an entrepreneurial life design platform that provides people with personal development and entrepreneurial resources to create an online business. That’s how you create a successful business from scratch with NO MONEY:
- Find a problem that frustrates you and your audience.
- Come up with a unique solution.
- Market the solution as your own business.
#2 Failure is Part of the Journey
I had 11 major business failures throughout my 20s. Through each failure, I learned valuable lessons that carried over into the next business venture until I finally found the one that stuck. The moral of the story is to embrace failure as part of the learning process. Don’t let it prevent you from trying something new. One lesson I learned early on in my success journey was to fail fast. Don’t let failure cripple you. Learn from it and move on.
#3 Personal Development is the Key to Success
Success is more than just making a lot of money. To truly transform yourself, you need to work on your personal development. Personal, professional, and physical development are the three pillars to becoming the best version of yourself. Personal development consists of things that benefit your personal life, such as strengthening your emotional intelligence, communication, and knowledge. Professional development includes things that help your professional life, such as sales, leadership, and problem-solving. Finally, physical development consists of developing yourself physically through diet and exercise.
#4 Everyone is an Entrepreneur
I genuinely believe that everyone is an entrepreneur in some shape or form. Everyone has a skill or passion that they can turn into a business without defaulting to a typical 9-to-5. For example, you may be good at writing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, coding, or advertising. You can use these profitable skills to start an online business and skip the corporate life altogether.
#5 Practical Optimism is the Secret to Finding Opportunities Along Your Journey
Practical optimism is when you look for the positives in an unfortunate situation in the hopes that the situation might benefit you in the long run. As an entrepreneur, practical optimism is critical for pushing through setbacks.
For example, when I was younger, I was in a musical for which I wrote the music and acted. Unfortunately, the festival where the musical was being held didn’t promote the musical, resulting in only four people showing up. Instead of sulking and having a bad attitude, I remained positive just in case something good came out of the situation. And as it happens, one of the audience members was a wealthy entrepreneur and ended up loaning me the money for my first business.
#6 Financial Literacy is Vital for Success
My last lesson to you is about the importance of learning financial literacy throughout your entrepreneurial journey. Financial literacy refers to how well versed you are in financial topics such as investing, the stock market, taxes, compound interest, assets, liabilities, etc.
Unfortunately, the education system doesn’t teach students about financial literacy and how to use it to their advantage. I had to learn it on my own through books, podcasts, and asking successful people themselves. My suggestion to you is to understand complex financial concepts as best you can before starting a business. Even if you’ve already started a business, becoming financially literate will help you manage your money to generate an unbelievable amount of wealth.
