20 Advice For Entrepreneurs

I want to share 20 important pieces of advice for all budding entrepreneurs out there. I hope this advice will save you time and help you succeed as you grow and further develop your crafts.

1. Fail fast

The beginning is always the hardest. Too many of us obsess over the beginning that we never start. Remember you don’t have to get it all right in the beginning. You can change the theme of your website, you can delete videos on your YouTube channel, you can lose money in your business.

With more experience, you’ll know how to do things better next time around. But you’ll never get the experience if you never start. Expect yourself to not do things successfully the first time around. Maybe even remind yourself that failure is a very real possibility.

You must fail fast if you want to grow fast. There’s no success without failure.

2. If you want to go far, go slow

Many of us are in the “go, go, go” mode all the time. There’s no time for anything else. Sure, you may be able to accomplish more by working fast and hustling throughout the entire day but it simply isn’t sustainable. You’ll burn out soon enough.

If you want to go far, go slow. Taking small slow consistent steps it’s better than rushing through 100 steps the first few days and then not taking any step for the next 10 days because you’re too tired and have no energy.

3. Allow yourself to be horrible at things in the beginning

You’ll be horrible at anything in the beginning. A great blogger isn’t born overnight. It’s with consistent practice, failure, and lessons that a beginner blogger becomes a pro blogger who is able to turn a blog into a money-making machine.

Be nicer to yourself in the beginning. It’s okay to do things terribly. You don’t have to be great at something to start practicing getting better.

4. Know when to give up and what is sunk-cost

You must know when to give up because there are certain things that just won’t work no matter how hard you try and how much you persist.

Sunk-cost is all the energy, time, and money you’ve spent that you can’t get back. Many people will continue doing something that isn’t working just because they’ve invested all that time, energy, and money already and they ended up losing even more precious resources and not getting the result they desired. 

Knowing when to give up is a key to success. You won’t be starting from scratch next time because you’ll be starting with experience.

5. Be confident and bold

You don’t have to be the best at something to be confident and bold. Being confident and bold will help you succeed in your journey. It pushes you outside of your comfort zone and helps you open up doors that wouldn’t have been opened for you had you not been confident and bold.

6. Be yourself

Many aspiring entrepreneurs fear that they aren’t good enough and so they look at what other people are doing. Many will also copy other people’s personalities, character, the way they talk, the way they walk, the way they dress, etc. 

You must preserve your individuality and uniqueness as it can be identified as you seamlessly without you putting in too much effort. If you act like someone else, the people you attract won’t be the people for you. 

Whether you’re a blogger, Youtuber, drop-shipper, freelancer, etc. You must be authentically yourself if you want to succeed in the long run. You’ll quit one day, maybe years into your business because you realized it’s too much work to present a false self to your fans/customers/readers/viewers, etc. 

7. You don’t have to chase every shiny opportunity

There’ll come a time when you’re working hard on your current goal and something else comes along that seems like a good thing to try. In fact, there may be endless shiny things to chase. You must pull yourself back and remind yourself to focus on the current project first otherwise, you may never get anything done. 

Let those shiny opportunities go. The real treasure is in persisting to the end not jumping from ship to ship.

8. Give it at least 1–2 years (persist)

Whatever you are trying to accomplish, you must give it time. I’ve seen countless examples of people starting from scratch on YouTube, blogging, vlogging, writing, selling, etc and within 2 years get to where they want to be.

A year isn’t that long and two years isn’t that far away yet many give up before they even make it to 6 months. Without giving it at least a year or two, you won’t be able to tell whether the seeds can sprout. 

Yes, there are times when you must stop and analyze whether it’s working and change tactic or abandon the idea entirely but if you’re in the right niche (other people are able to be successful at it), you’re producing high-quality content at high-quantity, and you’re slowly seeing results, you should give it a fair chance by giving it more time. 

9. EQ is more important than IQ

Doesn’t matter how high your IQ is, no one is going to want to work with you if you don’t present yourself in the right way. EQ, for this reason, is more important than IQ. 

You must learn to train your emotions. Say you see a horrible comment under your article as a blogger, and you’re deeply hurt. You’ve had a long day and you feel the urge to do something, it’d be unwise to engage and try and defend yourself. It takes years to build up a brand and it may take seconds to ruin it. 

10. Taking proper rest is part of being productive

A lot of people confuse productivity with working around the clock non-stop. If you want to be productive, you must learn to take proper rest. You can’t physically work 20 hours a day for 30 days straight. Your brain won’t be thinking clearly and your judgment would be clouded. The quality of your work will also suffer as a result. 

Many billionaires have the habit of winding down at 9 pm. They’d turn off all devices, take a bubble bath (with actual bubbles), read a book, and go to sleep. They’d then wake up early in the morning fully energized and ready to give 120%. 

You can’t buy health. Take proper care of your body. It’ll also reward you with higher efficiency and better result. 

11. You must be okay with awkward people

As an entrepreneur, there will be times when you’re working on your business and it piques the interest of some people who will behave very awkwardly around you because:

a. They don’t know why you’re doing this

b. They think you’re wasting your time

c. They’re trying to ridicule you

d. They are trying to make you uncomfortable

e. They’re trying to hinder your progress

f. They are interested in what you’re doing

There’ll be times when you’re filming for a video for YouTube, writing an article for your blog, talking about an investment idea, reaching out to potential partners and investors, etc and people will act like you’re crazy.

You must be okay with awkward people. Not everyone knows how to deal with an entrepreneur and their ambition and not everyone would like to see you work hard on your goals.

Ignore the judging eyes and keep going.

12. Have the ability to laugh at yourself

Having the ability to laugh at yourself is crucial. There’ll be times when you do something stupid and when you make a mistake. If you don’t know how to take things lightly and laugh at yourself, you can easily become over-stressed and perfectionistic. Both of which could lead you to quit too early.

Gaining the ability to laugh at yourself is also one way in which you can quickly develop respect from other people. Truthfully, no one likes a perfect human being who does everything perfectly. Mistakes make you seem more human and it’s a normal part of the learning process so embrace your flaws.

13. Prioritize your goal

You can’t be everywhere. You have to choose where to be and where to focus your attention. If you put your goal first, you have a higher chance of achieving your goal.

14. Don’t tell your full plan to anyone

Not everyone wants to see you succeed this is why you shouldn’t tell anyone everything. If they ask, tell them a partial plan or none at all. 

15. Failure is only failure if you stay down

A lot of people think failure is the end and be all but it’s far from the truth. Failure is only failure if you stay down. You can always start again and you’ll be starting with experience. 

16. Grow your network

Network is your networth. Grow your network if you want to grow your networth. You don’t have to be bestie, you just need to let the other person know that you exist. 

17. It’s okay to start late

It’s okay to start late. You don’t have to be the first batch of people to start YouTube or start blogging or start a business. You can still begin your journey later and still succeed. 

18. Not everything is a competition

Not everything is a competition so don’t take everything so seriously. If you think everything you do is a competition with another, you’ll soon burn out. Save yourself some energy and focus on your progress rather than where you are compared to someone else. 

19. Don’t be a perfectionist

Being a perfectionist is a waste of time. You can always do things better but you’ll waste a lot of time making improvements that won’t bring you more result. Just release that blog article, that YouTube video, that book, that email, or whatever else it is. 

20. Have fun in the process

You’ll give up very soon if you don’t have fun in the process. You must find the process enjoyable otherwise you’ll starve to death before the apple falls.