Here’s What I Would Do If I had To Start Over and Rebuild My Business (It’s NOT What You Think)

I’ve been an entrepreneur for 17 years. But if I had to start over, it wouldn’t look the same. I’m going to share with you that if I had to start all over, here’s what I would do. And you know what? It’s not what you think.

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See, when I was starting out at 16 years old or 15-and-a-half, I wanted to make more money.

And I couldn’t get a high-paying job.

I didn’t even have a high school degree at that time, I was still in school.

And I wasn’t even graduated from college.

Because when I started off, that’s what almost all jobs required.

So it was really hard to make a six-figure income without being an entrepreneur.

Heck, my first job was cleaning toilets and picking up trash at a theme park for $5.75 an hour.

Now, here the thing.

If you want to do well, it’s not just about, hey, I want to be an entrepreneur and start a business.

Because if you do that, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes.

And that’s okay, that’s a journey and route that a lot of people take.

But I’ve learned that that’s not the ideal approach.

If I had to start over again, here’s what I would do.

For the first nine years, I would go and work for someone else.

I know that sounds crazy, but you learn so much working for other people.

Then when you’re ready to start your own career, as an entrepreneur, things will start taking off because you’ll know what not to do, plus, you’ll have some savings, as well, that you can use.

And it’s not just as simple as working for someone else for nine years.

Here’s how I’d break it down.

For a few years, for the first two years, I would go and work for a small startup.

I’m not talkin’ about Uber or a startup that’s just growing like a hockey stick.

I’m talking about a startup that’s not too well funded, that’s struggling, and they’re trying to do whatever to make it work.

This will teach you how to fight, how to be scrappy, how to save money, how to be creative, how to problem solve.

When companies don’t have enough capital and things aren’t growing as fast as they want, they got to think outside the box.

And that’s a very valuable skill for you to learn.

Then, for the next three years, I want you to go work at a really big company.

I’m talkin’ about like a Microsoft or a Dell or an IBM or a Costco or whatever the company may be, Amazon, you pick it.

Something that’s really big.

You’ll learn how big companies work.

You’ll learn that you don’t necessarily need rock stars to build a $100 billion business.

You’ll learn that you need to go after a really big total adjustable market to build a huge business.

You’ll learn how to play politics.

You’ll learn how to deal with other big corporations and close deals.

That’s why it’s very valuable to work at these big companies.

Whether you think this company is sexy or ugly, it doesn’t matter, you’ll learn a ton.

You’ll even learn how to manage employees.

You’ll even learn how to climb the ranks.

Then I want you to go and work for a company that does at least $100 million in revenue, but has $1 billion.

You’ll learn from that company when you work there, for two years, how to scale, how to continually grow, because it’s not easy.

But you’ll learn how to grow in that environment because it’s totally different than it is working for a Microsoft.

And then, last but not least, I want you to spend your last two years working at a startup that’s growing really fast.

One that’s raised at least $10 million, in the hockey stick growth, things are really chaotic, they’re really messy.

So now that you’ve worked for someone for nine years, and technically worked for four different people, you can take all that experience and then start your own company.

On top of that, you should’ve met some amazing people along the way, which will help you with recruiting.

Because there’s not enough time in the day for you alone to build a big company.

You need co-founders.

You’re strapped for capital.

You want to make sure you have other co-founders who are willing to put in the hard times, hours, whatever it takes to build a big company with you, that believe in that vision.

And of course, you’ve met along other great people who could be employees or team members of your company along the way.

You should recruit them, hire them.

You may not be able to pay them as much as they were getting before, but you can give them some equity in your company to be there along the way.

And by doing that, you’re going to start seeing your company grow much faster than if you decide to start one from day one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbPP_5htg-8

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