10 Lessons from 10 Years of Entrepreneurship

12 Months ago I had no brand, no business, no cashflow.

Today? I hit $1M ARR across 2 businesses ??

(Doubled my ARR in the last month with brandbeam.ai ...)

But here’s the truth;

I’m not an “overnight success”

In fact??

I’ve been a solo/entrepreneur for 10+ years now...?

• Founding 12 businesses.?
• Scaling 7 profitably.
• Selling 3 of them.?

And I’m now on that 12th business as Founder & CEO of brandbeam.ai

Of course…

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.?

• I lost money.
• I was betrayed.?
• I failed multiple times.

But each new challenge I overcame??I unlocked a new level of success.?

So I want to help you do the same.?

By sharing these 10 lessons my hope is that you can get closer to that one year...

That completely changes your life.?

My 10 lessons are as follows:?

1. No one buys what they don’t know exists.
2. Nothing beats making your first $1 online.
3. Avoid going into business with friends.
4. Co-founders are like marriage partners.
5. Every business teaches you something.
6. Social proof is the #1 conversion tool.
7. You can’t go very far by yourself.
8. Act like you already have it.
9. Cash flow is always king.
10. Never just chase money.

Let’s dive in…

1) No one buys what they don’t know exists.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve invented the cure for cancer, or wrote a best-seller, if no one knows it exists?

It’s as good as never having existed in the first place.?

As the saying goes...

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound?"

I learnt this lesson in my 1st business where I designed t-shirts and tried to sell them online.?

I spent hours and hours creating designs, and putting them together and uploading them into the store and managing the SKUs and shipping.?

Launch day finally came, I hit “Publish” and my website was live.?

Crickets.?

And of course!

I didn’t do marketing, I didn't build hype, I didn’t do anything to get people to know about the brand.

My young naive self thought that all it took was having a website and designs and they would somehow sell themselves.?

That lesson taught me that brand marketing was EVERYTHING, and that crucial experience made me into the brand marketer you see today.?

2) Nothing beats making your first $1 online.

This past week we’ve onboarded 5 new clients into brandbeam.ai at a $45K MRR…

And while it felt incredible for the business??

Nothing will ever compare with that feeling of making my first $1 online.?

Why?

Because that first $1 shatters your self-limiting belief that it’s "not possible”.

In fact, my 2nd business (after the first one made $0) was an online resume business.

When our first client's $30 transfer hit our PayPal account??

I felt so happy I almost cried. It was pure ecstacy.

It was my first step towards freedom. I had the power in my own hands.

That night my business partner and I popped a bottle of cheap sparkling wine (we were still too poor for champagne) and on the cork we wrote “WOO 1ST SALE!!” to forever engrave that life-changing moment.

Because at the end of the day??

If you can make $1 online, you can make $1,000,000.?

So if you haven’t already made your first dollar? Do everything in your power to get it.

It will completely change your life.

3) Avoid going into business with friends.

When you don’t know anything about business, you think that doing business with friends is going to be fun and exciting and cool.?

Wrong.?

Why??

Creating a business is hard.?

And when sh*t hits the fan and you both have to face the pain, the struggle, the losses.?

Your friendship will be tested.?

Mine was.?

I started my 3rd business with my best friend.?

When the stakes were low and all we did was brainstorm ideas and possibilities, and make a few sales, it was the best feeling in the world.?

Having fun with your friends is always a good time right??

But when we were faced with reality, the setbacks and “no” “no” “no”, over and over again, our fragile egos took a hit.?

And in turn, so did our friendship.

Conversations turned into arguments, hatred and in the end, a bitter failure of both the business and the relationship.?

By the end of those two years, not only had I burnt out, I had also lost a best friend.?

Statistically speaking 90% of businesses fail within the first year, and 90% of the rest fail after that. That means that the chance of the business that you start with your friend actually succeeding is only 1%...

If you’re willing to put your friendship on the line for that 1% chance? Go ahead.?

But I’d never recommend it.

P.S Don't let that 1% figure scare you.

Just try 100 lean businesses and 1 of them will 100% take off ;)

4) Co-founders are like marriage partners.

Most successful marriages that I see aren’t based solely on love.?

It’s based on mutual respect, understanding, empathy, perseverance, economics and (often) children.?

Dating is fun and cool. But marriage takes guts. It takes true commitment to do whatever it takes to make it worth, through thick and thin. Especially with kids.

Your business? It's your baby.

And therefore...

Finding a co-founder is as hard as finding a partner to marry.?

Because...

They have to have the same vision for the future, the same desires, the same values, and at the same time, complementary skill sets that make it work.?

For example:

• You can’t have two aggressive founders because they’ll always butt heads.
• You can’t have two passive founders because they’ll never make a decision.?

But at the same time...

• You can't have one wanting to scale & exit, while the other wants a lifestyle business.

Most startups fail because they don’t look at their co-founders from this perspective.?

They only care about whether this person is cool or fun in the moment.?

So if you’re starting a business (or expanding it) and looking for a co-founder?

Remember to pick someone who will walk through hellfire with you.?

Not someone who’ll abandon you the moment it gets real.

5) Every business teaches you something.

I tried a lot of the “modern” businesses like:?

1. Clothing Business
2. Music Business?
3. Photography Business
4. Digital Marketing Agency?
5. Online Service Business
6. Dropshipping Business
7. E-commerce / Subscription Boxes
8. Personal Branding
9. Productized Agency

Succeeded in many, failed a few, but all of them taught me what I didn’t like about the model, in order to find the one that truly fit.

Here are the main lessons from each type:

• Clothing business: Fickle market - If you don’t have the eye for trends, you vanish.
• Music Business: Top 1% Only - If you’re not the best of the best you don’t make $.
• Photography Business: Labour intensive - Takes a toll on your physical health.?
• Digital Marketing Agency: Performance focus - Hit KPI’s or be gone tomorrow.?
• Online Service Business: Hiring teams - To scale you must hire more people.
• Dropshipping: Profit margins - Tiny margins, you only succeed if you sell $1M+.
• E-commerce: Warehousing - Too much upfront capital investment and risk to scale.

Which lead me to these two:?

• Personal Branding: Zero risk, anyone can play, niche markets still make money with small followings, infinite scalability using modern SaaS tools and AI, super fun to create content, huge profit margins for digital products sold, no physical labour and limited hiring/management.???????
• Productized Agency: You are the agency, you can do it as a solopreneur at huge margins, full control of your time with minimal labour or business costs, the more technology advances like AI the more you can do with less time increasing your output and thus ability to take on more clients, subscription model for steady monthly income, zero capital risk, just need a laptop and internet.?

And now I’ve combined these models to create an automated system with brandbeam.ai .

My recommendation??

Start one type of business, take action, see what you like, do it over and over and choose the model that fits your risk tolerances, lifestyle and goals, then go all in.

Because...?

It’s not about succeeding overnight.?

It’s about finding the model that fits your own definition of success.?

6) Social proof is the #1 conversion tool.

The best content creators, ad writers, and salespeople all know this truth:?

“Buyers want to maximise gains, whilst minimising risk, time & effort.”?

To show them that your product does exactly that?

You show them social proof like...?

1. “Sally lost 10 Kgs in 10 weeks. You can too!”
2. “Ben made $10K online after our 90-Day program. You can too!”?
3. “Jessica scaled her business to $10M in 2 mths with our agency. You can too!”?

Not…?

1. “This diet plan has 10 workouts and is nutritionally balanced. Please buy it”
2. “This 30 hour course has everything you need to start a business. Please buy it”
3. “This marketing program will boost your business with 7 steps. Please buy it”?

The more testimonials and proof you have, the less risk that they will feel.

The more successes you showcase, the more they will want the same.?

Don’t sell the product, sell the transformation.

7) You can’t go very far by yourself.

Being a solopreneur is great. You control your time, you control your life.?

But here’s the harsh truth.?

You aren’t always the best at everything.?

And why your business gets capped out.?

If you’re okay with making $100K/yr and calling it a day, go solo, you could even push that to $1M if you stick with it long enough.?

But if you want to build a real business? You need a team.?

A team that you can delegate to, so that you stop working IN the business, and start working ON the business.?

That’s when you can see the right next step to scale up, rather than being clouded by a fog of endless work.?

8) Act like you already have it.

Success is a strange thing.

It seems to come to those who truly believe they deserve it.?

For me?

When I started my first business, I didn’t think I deserved to succeed, and the result??

It matched up with how I viewed myself and the world and I failed.?

Today?

I always believe that the way you see yourself, and what you think about constantly creates your reality, and so I choose to only live in the mindset of success.?

And guess what?

Within 12 months of being on LinkedIn my businesses hit $1M ARR.?

If that doesn’t show you the power of mindset and faith, I don’t know what will.?

Here's how you do it.

Don't "wish" for things.

Embody the feeling of what it would be like if you already had it, then live inside of that feeling until your feeling meets reality.

Like calling an Uber.

You know it's on its way.

You just have to show up and be patient.

9) Cash flow is always king.

In business, money defines everything.?

That’s just the truth.

The more you have of it, the more options you have.?

So creating cash flow in your business is key.?

And not just revenue-based cash flow, but profitable cash flow.?

This is what I mean...?

You could have a dropshipping or e-com business that makes $1M in revenue.

Most will think this is cashflow. It isn’t.

Why?

Because 95% of it has to go into paying for ads, the cost of the goods sold, and admin, leaving this business with $50,000 in true profitable cash flow.?

If any of those ads fail, or if any of those products have to be recalled?

The business is dead.?

So instead?

Figure out how to generate consistent, predictable and profitable cash flow.?

Something like a personal brand or a productized agency that can generate 90%+ profit margins.

So that even if something catastrophic happens to you or the business, you can ride it out with ease until you can go hard once more. ???

10) Never just chase money.

This is perhaps the most important lesson in business and life.?

When you just chase the money, you ALWAYS burn out.?

And when your burn out, you quit.

Why?

Because chasing money alone rarely comes from a place of passion.

It comes from a place of pleasure.?

• “If I make $1M I will travel the world.”?
• “If I make $5M I will buy a lamborghini.”?
• “If I make $10M I will buy a big mansion.”?

But pleasure doesn’t last.

It’s another quick dopamine hit.?

All of these pleasure-based goals are not powerful enough when you’re faced with inevitable setbacks in your business...?

• When you’re not making money.
• When no one cares about you.?
• When the market is weak.?

Money will not motivate you enough.?

Instead?

Chase obsession.?

• Obsession never dies.?
• Obsession never sleeps.
• Obsession is forever.?

Find the thing you're obsessed about, and the money becomes automatic, I promise you.?

Why?

Because when you’re one of the best in the world at solving that one problem??

The demand for you will be so high that people will line up to pay you.?

So find your obsession, and let it fuel you.?

Your success is inevitable.?

In Summary

I know this week's newsletter wasn't about using AI, but I hope these lessons will help you on your own journey as both a solopreneur and beyond, as that is the path that I have taken multiple times to become the AI Founder I am today.?

And here's the thing...

These lessons were only learnt because I took massive action.

Without seeing, feeling and experiencing these things for myself?

I could have never validated these lessons as my empirical truths. ?

And so my final words of wisdom is this…

“There is no greater teacher than doing the thing.”?

So...

Do. The. Thing.?

Everything you want in life is on the other side of that first step.

See you next Friday ??