How Do I Just Start Something?
This post was inspired by this thread on reddit. We’ve got a young guy/girl who wants to do something but doesn’t know what to do. This is my general advice to people in that situation, based on my own experience. (I made most of these mistakes.)
Look, you’re a young guy/girl and you’ve got a dream…
Let me tell you what not to do.
Don’t flitter around with hundreds of projects.
Don’t focus on big ideas.
What do you do?
Firstly… erase your ego.
I’m not saying you’re an egomaniac or that you don’t have the next great idea that’s going to save the world. Unlikely as it is, people have dreams and people have great ideas. Sometimes those dreams come true and sometimes those ideas do change the world.
You can achieve great and fantastic things. Absolutely. Don’t think for a second that you can’t.
However – this isn’t a lifestyle/motivational blog, so I’m not going to sugar coat anything. That last paragraph made me feel a bit queasy as it is.
Look, nobody – I repeat nobody – is going to fuel your big idea. Your dream is nothing to anyone.
Nobody is going to say, “Oh my god that idea for a social network is going to make you a billionaire here’s all the support, advice and magic you need.”
It’s not going to happen.
There are going to be plenty of people that drag you down. Customers. Potential partners. Potential mentors.
There are going to be tough days and sleepless nights.
You might think you have a right to an ego… but you won’t do after six months of pulling your hair out. It’s best to be prepared now.
The Reality of Building A Business
Big ideas don’t make business.
Small ideas, filling a need and brilliant execution make a business.
If you need to “just start” then you need to stick to the above game-plan.
Start by helping people out with random little jobs that suit your skillset. Once you’ve got in the habit of doing this, then you can think about being a businessperson.
It’s impossible to describe – but if you’re at the “I wanna do something but I don’t know what to do” stage, you have to realise that you know nothing.
You might think you have everything you need, but you don’t.
I’m talking from bitter and well-won experience here. You might think you can conquer the world, and maybe you can. But the first time you get a massive problem, your world will shrink rapidly.
Even if you have willpower and the best idea in the world, what happens when:
- You get a phone-call from someone you do business with. They curse and swear at you – not because their problem can’t be fixed, but because they’ve got anger issues
- What happens when your website goes down because your hosting company had a major server fault? Oh, and you had high priority stuff to send out today?
- Some idiot threatens to take you to court without grounds – but they’re an idiot and don’t know that?
- You finally get some measure of success but you can’t afford to expand and you don’t have all the time in the world?
These aren’t even a handful of issues that you’ll come across. The young and brash will say, “Yeah… that won’t happen to me” or “I’ll be able to deal with it because I can deal with anything!”
I would have said that when I was 21. Those things aren’t an answer though.
You Know Nothing And You Can’t Have An Ego… That’s A Great Place To Start
Here’s the reason why I find lifestyle and motivational blogs cringe-worthy. At the start of any business – or arguably any endeavour – you’re starting from the bottom.
The status-quo is tough to get over; it’s the toughest challenge you’re going to face, in fact.
When you’re building a business, you are creating value out of thin air. If it’s a tiny website or the next great medical innovation – you start with nothing and end up with something.
This is difficult. It’s unavoidable. There are going to be difficult days and you’re going to have to work your way through them. That is the price of admission. To sound like one of those guys, there’s a reason the status-quo retort is, “If it were that easy, everyone would do it.”
Here’s the sad fact: It’s not easy.
Now… What about lifestyle bloggers and motivation gurus?
Their business model is (in almost every case) designed to convince you that you can avoid the hard bits and “hack” the process so you don’t have to go through it.
It’s a lie.
Take the average success coach or whatever. He lives the four hour workweek. He tells you through his e-books that you too can do the same.
On the surface, it’s nice and shiny; get an idea, get a Philippine worker to implement that idea and count your gold coins on a sunny beach somewhere.
In reality, one of two things is the case:
- The person sells you one thing whilst doing another. (They claim 4 hour workweeks but work eighty hour weeks, or they claim “no investment” while coming from money)
- They’re living a lie. (Hiring out that Lamborghini for the day for the Instagram shoot.)
Sometimes, it’s that obvious. A lot more times, it’s more subtle than that – but it’s always there.
Alright… I Know Nothing, Have No Ego, Know It’s Gonna Be Hard… What Do I Actually Do?
I strayed from the topic a little because these are all pitfalls a young entrepreneur will fall into.
The fact is, if you follow the above advice, you’ll miss nearly all of the pitfalls and have a pretty easy road. The actual fundamentals of building a business are quite straightforward and I’ve repeated them hundreds of times throughout the course of all these articles.
- Find a need
- Provide a service that fills a need
- Do it to a high standard
- Rinse and repeat with more problems
What to actually do is something you can’t get advice on. You’ve got a particular set of quirks, skills and mannerisms that’ll lend you to certain things. Understanding those is more valuable than any business template.
Here’s a small piece of advice; if you’re better at something than nearly everyone you meet, that’s what you should concentrate on. I don’t mean subjectively better than other people. “I like my voice better than Mariah Carey’s” doesn’t cut it.
But say you’re naturally gifted at something to an observable degree; start there. It doesn’t matter if you hate it. You’ll stop hating anything that brings you money. The key factor is your skill, not your enjoyment.
Also, if it’s hugely competitive, either niche down or skip to another talent unless you’re literally in the top .001%. There are plenty of guys trying to be fitness gurus who were probably physically gifted for their tiny school in their tiny town, but when the global competitors are NFL players, Olympians and Men’s Fitness cover-stars who are hopped up on God-knows-what chemical cocktail, those guys are only going to be really small time.
Find something you’re legitimately good at. Find problems that your talent can solve. Solve them to a high standard. Rinse and repeat.
Final Thoughts
Starting a business is simple. Knowing what to do with your life is tough. Don’t get the two things confused.
One more thing: the solution – the business solution – is probably a lot less complex than you think. It’s probably not getting venture funding and building a billion dollar business. It’s probably solving a simple problem and cornering that niche.
The richest guy I know digs holes in roads. The average twenty-something wantrepreneur would probably drive by the guy in a visi-vest and think, “I hope I’m not one of those guys who works for the man” and there’s the big flaw in lifestyle guru thinking. You’ll make more money and have a better lifestyle selling millions of door hinges than you will by trying to create the next Tony Robbins brand.
It all comes down to the basic business blueprint in addition to being one of the few who actually toughs it out through the inevitable rough patches.