Three lessons from ten years of building businesses

There are many lessons I have learned going from a twenty-something wantrepreneur to someone in their thirties with several successful exits. Three of them stand out. One of them, if I had learned it earlier, could have saved me five years. The first lesson is to get paid while you learn. If you are interested in tech, use sites like Crunchbase or LinkedIn to find startups. Offer to do sales or software work for free. If you prefer a hands-on business, call local companies and offer the same deal. In both cases, there is often a shortage of workers, so many will end up paying you. I started this way, earning minimum wage. The second lesson is that successful businesses do not have to be unique. In fact, most are not. They are small changes on things that already exist: cheaper, faster, or higher quality. A truly unique business often needs a huge budget, and most of us do not have that. The third lesson, the one that could have saved me the most time, is to find someone who has already achieved what you want and follow their steps. When we are young, we tend to overestimate what we can do in a short time and underestimate what we can build over many years. I learned that thousands of people have already reached the goals I was chasing. I could use their journeys as a model and copy their small, steady wins. This took the pressure off me and helped me understand that success is usually slow. TNJ note: The lesson here is that patience and learning from good examples beat chasing something completely new overnight. If you have a story like this to share, tell it on the TNJ website.