My 10 tips on starting a business before you're 25.
Steven Bartlett
Founder of Flight Group: Flight Fund. Flight Studio. Thirdweb. The Diary Of A CEO.
1) Make sure you love and enjoy it
Building a business is so hard that you better love it or you’ll quit when the going gets tough. If you don’t love it, you’ll also be unwilling to put in the long gr. Find something you would do for free because you love it that much.
2) Be nice
Being nice is free and being nice will increase the chances of people wanting to work with and for you. Anything that is free and has huge positive effects should be used frequently and abundantly.
3) Work hard and smart
Hard work is vital, but hard work alone doesn’t guarantee success; there are a lot of people out there working a lot harder than I am and if how hard you worked was the only deterministic factor of success, then there would be a lot of millionaire tea leaf pickers in Africa.
4) Focus & saying no
As your success increases and your business grows, there will be a lot of distractions and a lot of people offering you opportunities that will distract you from doing whatever it is that got you to where you are now. You need to learn to say no, and sometimes you have to say no to things you really want to do.
5) Never stop hunting
You have hunters and you have farmers. Farmers do whatever fed them last year, plant the same seeds on the same patch then harvest the same crops. Hunters understand that sometimes soil becomes infertile so they set off every day looking for new foods in new, unexplored areas. It’s important that you never stop hunting.
6) Believe you can
I’ve found that a belief that you can do something, is a required factor in actually being able to do it.
7) Progress wisely
Take direction from people who arrived at the destination you want to get to. Try not to take too much direction from people who aren’t where you want to go.
8) Don’t fear the bottom
If you lose everything it’s not actually that bad – you’ll still have happiness and life. I think it’s important to realise that losing it all isn’t fatal and that the ‘bottom’ is a place you can survive, live and be happy. It’s this understanding that gives you the confidence to take bigger risks and ultimately reap bigger rewards.
9) There’s never a perfect time to start
You will always be too busy and you will always have something else taking up your calendar. So no matter what you keep telling yourself, there will never be a perfect time, so you have no choice but to pick an imperfect one; how about now?
10) “It is never too late to be who you might have been”. -George Eliot
?? La Papesse de LinkedIn en Afrique Francophone dixit AMINA Magazine??LinkedIn Marketing&Personal Branding Coach|Créatrice du Top 100 LinkedinTopChoice Africa ?? |Ambassadrice Lyter ??
5 年Great sharing ????
#CEO / Founder @Skoutli #Entrepreneur in Residence @Plus Eight Pre-Accelerator program #Facilitator #Mentor #MC
5 年Camille Aguesse
Managing Director at Tink Recruitment | Director Of Experts In Outsourcing
6 年Zoe Tink
Dedicating Myself In Retirement To The Welfare Of Wildlife By Stopping The Killing Of Animals for Pleasure.
6 年I would say these tips are true whatever your age. Be Nice is a touch of genius Being nice is the art of effectively communicating your message, any other way and it falls on deaf ears. With a working history on the customer service frontline, being nice has to be sincere. Empathy step in their shoes. Sympathy you feel their pain. Gratitude for their feedback and a chance to make amends. All delivered with Civility show respect as if it is your mother you are serving/addressing, and never leave home without your smile, use it to greet, use it to conclude any interaction. How many time have you made a complaint or asked for help and you say she/he was so nice, helpful, efficient you leave uplifted and without hesitation will return as a loyal customer. The ‘’have a nice day’’ said as a ritual can spoil a company image. When a please and a thank you said because you mean it, you give the recipient a status no greater and no smaller than your own. Leaders that give orders to follow will fail. Whereas leaders who give the reason why they are leading, inspire so all feel they cannot fail. It is safe to say Steven Bartlett is the latter.
Managing Director at Search Seven
6 年Ian Hajyzamanali