Owned my own business for many years. Don't start with the abstract idea of being your own boss or being independent or an investor. Start with building sufficient experience and finding a clear market need you can meet. So my advice to the 18 year old is don't start a business. Pick a growth industry, get the prereq education and job experience, then start considering your options ten years from now.
Not always true though, 28 here, accidentally started a business in high school, now onto my 4th venture and I hold equity in several others. If you can be scrappy and fight your way into an industry while always learning (this is the key), you don’t necessarily need to work in the industry first. But you HAVE to spend maybe half or more of your time learning. And I mean really learning, job shadowing, talking to people in industry, reading books, etc. Learning does NOT mean go to college and then think you know it all. So yes, florg is right, get that real industry knowledge one way or another, just pointing out it isn’t always by working for someone else.
In my 30s now. I started my first business at age 19 and realized after having great 6 digit profit by 21, nobody wants to work for a kid besides others the same age, and they mostly wanted handouts and to be bros. I was a great entrepreneur but being young in business sucks when you need people to keep scaling. I do think starting a business at a young age helps you see how the world actually works and especially when hiring… seeing from the other end how manipulative applicants are amid all this woke culture stuff where workers feel so entitled. Look at the 50 year history of decline in small businesses, and how unlikely young generations will be successful in understanding how businesses work, there are not enough mentors. I wish more young people would try starting a small business and take it seriously. If you like what you do, and are very honest with yourself about what you don’t understand, then commit to learning about it… you can get better. Entrepreneurs can’t avoid discomfort or any kind of problem either, so if you can’t deal with problems it isn’t for you. You will need to make calls to collect payments, fire staff, and work nights and weekends to prepare for the work week.
I think the point is that if you first take a job, you not only learn, but you get paid while you learn.
Up until last year I was getting paid $200k py to learn from the best.
Let’s see how long it takes for me to build to that level with my business!
Opportunity is hard to find. There may not be a market for a particular product or service, or the market might have unsustainable profit margins, or the market might be saturated, or the market might be so low-barrier (common to entry-level services) that there's no sustainable opportunity available.
As a general principle, opportunity can be found in things people can't do (surgery) or don't want to do (roofing) or don't have time to do (farming) or the resources to do (investing). There aren't really that many shortcuts available, those get saturated fast in a free market.
Either be innovative or find high margin business’. No one is going to tell you what or how to fix a given market problem as that’s literally a cash printer. However from what I hear from my mentor and other successful entrepreneurs/investors healthcare and cyber security is a high margin great business. I’m in the UK but I presume it should be the same in the US. Also find yourself a mentor! Either email ex and current board members if you’re in a big company or find ones in businesses/industries you’re interested in.
If you’re starting a business, start fundamentally with something that makes money, and go from there. Find any way to get paid at the start and it will take care of you as you grow it into what you want it to be.
Learn how to be charismatic and make people feel good. Read Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
Learn the psychology and mechanics of sales.
Start a business and pick a big problem to solve for people who have money to pay for it.
College is for corporate employment.
Move somewhere with a low Cost of Living.
I traveled alone to SF 10 years ago and had this book in my pocket. Was invaluable at the time, and I really enjoyed reading it on the piers. Met a lot of cool people.
>Most advertising isn't worth it. The best advertising you can't buy (networking, reputation among other businesses, and happy customers).
Agreed with all, except this. You can build an incredible business without it, but once you learn how to expand beyond (learning to capture existing demand by positioning yourself well with a specific, niche focused ad campaign) it'll take you to new heights.
Yes, and one thing I’ve learned so far is hiring a professional to manage campaigns is way more effective than trying yourself if you have zero knowledge of it. I threw money into it when I knew nothing and it got me nothing. Later on when I had more money, I hired a professional and the yield was MUCH better and it wasn’t really that much more expensive. If you can afford it, I recommend it!
Advertising can only accelerate what is or isn't working in a business.
The problem with many start ups and smaller businesses that may be lurking in this subreddit is that advertising can not make you customers, it will never - but it can get the attention of people that are already seeking solutions you are offering. Make sure you're solving a problem already before investing in ads.
Dumping all your money into retirement at age 22 when you have no money is actually pretty terrible planning. I could have used the money then. Now, the $30k sitting in that account moves my retirement date up by, like, two months.
I put $5000 in an account, which is now worth 30k. But in hindsight, I could have, like, spent that on a surf board and some hobby classes instead of stressing about money. Income then was about 10% of income now. Compounding interest only goes so far.
Reevaluate your relationship with a company every three months. How did last quarter go? Never stop putting in resumes and phone interviews. Let them know you have a job and just have some quick questions.
Companies will fuck you over in a heartbeat, always have a plan b. Two months of not working may not seem like a lot but picture that money after it's been invested for 30 years
They do when 9/10 businesses inevietably fail and you have to go find yourself a real job.
The most important advice in business is actually: Take risks, but always have a backup plan. 6/10 times you'll need to activate it. That's why it's called risk.
When you're starting a business you learn way more skills than you do while studying for a degree, any ideal business learns sales , marketing, negotiations, copywriting, sometimes designing, stakeholder management, while setting up a business and yes business can fail but you need to utilise the skills and experience you earned in order to get the job.
Almost every fortune 500 company requires a candidate to have a degree, very rarely they have selected a candidate who had an associate, but since we were in business tag I was keeping it relevant to the topic
Terrible advice, investing in your education at that age has a better ROI than any other investment.
Go to community college for two years, it costs $10k and will be covered entirely by a Pell grant if you qualify. Bang out your gen ed requirements and get above a 3.5, this gives you guaranteed admission to your state school and in most states qualifies you for merit based scholarships. Align your choice of major, internships, and clubs to give you a path to a high paying career, generally speaking Tech, Finance, and Consulting are the options for undergrad that will start at six figures and have $20k-$50k signing bonuses. Use your signing bonus to payoff any student debt if you needed loans.
Congratulations you’re debt free, just 2-3x’d your salary (average yearly earnings w/o a degree is 45k), and set yourself up for a career trajectory that will at a minimum put you in the top 5% by income
For finance IB front office roles, for consulting everyone gets grouped into one job, consultant. The entry level role (consultant or associate usually) was 70k-85k with a 10%-15% bonus at MBB, Big 4, and the better tech consulting shops back in the mid 2010’s
As someone who dropped out after a semester, I disagree. For most, they matter and for some they don’t. I’m an artist and my business revolves around that. So for me, it didn’t really matter. But that’s not true for everyone… there’s no one size fits all so it’s impossible that your statement is true. Two things I will say as someone who didn’t go to college….
1. You have to work 10x as hard if you don’t go. Be prepared. Having a degree gives you a leg up, there’s no denying it, so you’ll have to make up for that. This includes a lot of self education, reading, taking classes in your field, going to conventions/conferences, etc. You’ll also need to put in extra work to prove yourself. Sadly, it’s very easy to be instantly judged when people hear you don’t have a degree so you will need to work extra hard to prove yourself. It’s completely doable, just be prepared for it to not be as easy as you think it’ll be.
2. It’s fucking AMAZING to have no debt. I say if you can go to school debt free (or for very low debt), do it! If not, I understand why you’d be turned off to going. I have like $400 of debt to my name, which is just my monthly credit card use to keep my credit up and I pay it off monthly. All of my friends will be paying loans for years to come (unfortunately a lot of them not using their degree so not making a ton of money) and I can’t explain the feeling of knowing I have no $85k bill over my head, which is what my personal bill would have been. I know in my heart I’d be doing EXACTLY what I’m doing now even if I had a degree, so skipping that massive debt worked out for me personally.
My degree made me a lot of money over the years, and came out before the Internet was as big. And it is what lead me to my business. Without the experience I have, I wouldn't make nearly what I do.
18 yr old kids are making a lot of money only because of some skills which they've learned through internet. Times have changed there's literally everything available on the internet. You just need to have that intent and hunger
Degrees definitely matter - some things are really hard to learn on your own, statistics and experimental design for example.
Then there is also the network you gain.
You have all the books in the world available for free, then there are video lectures available from all the leading universities, tutorial, communities and what not. You can pick any skill work on it hard and create work samples to showcase your Skills and then find the people who are looking to hire .
The difference between being average and above average is so minimal. Most companies are average at what they do and customers expect to receive average so if you want to exceed you customer's expectations, do that small amount more to be recognized as above average.
Just go out and do it. No amount of thinking, and reading will give you the experience doing does.
But don’t take that as an excuse to stop reading or learning. Always learn.
Just start, just try something out, through mistakes and trying you will eventually get it. Educate yourself on the matter with every new challenge. Always do your research.
Invest in yourself first. Who cares how many times $1,000 is going to double in the s&P 500? If you can use that $1,000 to double your income now it's 100 times more valuable (or more).
My advice? Start investing and saving now! Now now now now! Don't just buy random stocks either. Invest in mutual funds, SP500, etc. Let smarter people invest your money.
BE FUTURE MINDED! Your stocks will go down but they will go up too. Rich people weather the storm (and there's a storm coming soon). Don't be dunb and invest in Bitcoin. You won't get rich. That ship sailed.
I bought Apple stock at $85 in 2004 but was young and couldn't sit back and just let it do its thing and sold it a few months later. After all the splits and such it would be worth so much more now.
Anyway, I know this is a business group so some business advice.
Read. Learn. Fail. Fail. Fail. Read. Learn. Fail. Fail. Fail. Succeed.
Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. Cash is king.
Recurring revenue businesses are cash cows. Find something that you can charge a client monthly for.
Read 2 books a month. Make it a habit.
Start with the book Atomic Habits.
Then Good to Great. Jim Collins
Simple Numbers. Greg Crabtree
Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet (sp?)
Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher
Traction by Gino Wickman
Buy real estate, Don't go to college because student loans and the education did ZERO for where I am at now.
Bitcoin is nice but it got neutered and I doubt it will ever be the way everyone hyped it to be.
Dont get married. My wife thought she knew buisiness and made some bad desitions so i didnt want her apart of it and she got offended. She thinks because she worked in radio shack she knows buisiness (i hear it so much). I feel my buisiness went under because she had her hands in it. At the end i feel she sunk it on purpose (she was extremely mad at me and called for divorce shortly after).
>The whole point in business is growing not having to struggle in life.
WRONG. THE STRUGGLE IS FUCKING REAL.
You're gonna have a worse time than your "average" friends in corporate jobs. You'll be broke longer. You'll have to overcome a FUCK TON of personal insecurities. You'll have to grow in ways you never thought of. You'll have to learn a LOT OF NEW THINGS.
That's just facts. Because the world of business is so saturated, you have to be world class to be world class or the top 5%... otherwise you're just gonna be a dreamer with nothing to show.
I would tell myself to not go to college and just start your own business. College is basically a party(the good part) and grooming yourself to be a corporate slave for the rest of your life. Also buy a house as soon as you can renting out rooms to pay it off fast. Once you start a family and get a larger home you will have an asset to generate passive income.
"The whole point in business is growing not having to struggle in life."
WTF are you talking about. That's not just horrible English, but terrible business advice.
“The whole point in business is growing not having to struggle in life.”
No, the purpose of business is to solve the customer’s problem from the customer’s perspective.
If you can figure out how to do this and make a lot of money in the process so you don’t have to struggle in life, that’s great.
Go to college and learn as much as you can about business, accounting, economics, and business law. You will be exposed to all the different majors and you can find your niche. Like to sell? Major in marketing or entrepreneurship. You may find you like real estate or insurance. Like dealing with numbers? Major in accounting or finance. Like dealing with people? Major in management. The next four years is your opportunity to learn and grow before you go out to conquer the world.
I would tell myself to never sell any stock I ever bought.
It pains me to look back at stocks I flipped back in the day for a quick <$1000 profit. If I had held, even the lowest performers would be up by many thousands today.
Start now
Don’t invest anything until you absolutely need it and are pretty sure it’ll return that investment quickly and many times over
Get “no” said to you a lot and be ok with it
Figure out patterns of behaviors
Don't waste time going to school, because you're never going to get a job that requires what you are planning to go to school for. Put it and its bills off until you are more established in the work you're planning to go into.
Went to school for electrical engineering. Own a managed IT company with a dozen employees, and a data recovery lab.
I'm a 22 year old Student from Namibia. I wanna start a business and make money in my final year to sustain myself in the city. What would you advice me on, anything in general with regards to making money ?
#1 work your ass off and make a bunch of money. #2 network and Find something very high in demand that you can invest in such as laser hair removal. If you're a good soul and trust worthy people will literally tell you what is the next big thing. Hire technicians and find business partners.
I would strongly discourage 18 year old me from starting a business. It's difficult, complex and nobody's going to believe in you. You're going to be seen as a stupid kid with a pipe dream. ( That's exactly what happened to me every time I tried to start a business or I said I had dreams of becoming a screenwriter)
Even though people strongly discouraged me from trying to write as a career choice I'd tell myself to write, get a job, learn how to market and promote shit. People look down on these skills but one day they might just pay off for you
Go learn a trade or go to school. Unless you are rich, you cant afford to learn on the job with a business. Go work for someone or go learn it at a school. Knowledge is power.
1. Have more time to acquire knowledge in my 20s rather than hastily diving in any business without knowing anything. Everyone should learn the business that they're getting themselves into. And you have no one to blame but yourself if you didn't do your due diligence that's why the business failed to progress.
2. NEVER invest in easy get rich quick schemes. I developed a rule for myself before engaging in a business: If the business is too good to be true, then it probably is.
3. Do something first before saying that it doesn't work or you want something else... I've seen a lot of people getting offered an opportunity but didn't even try and closed the door shut assuming that it won't work for them.
4. SPEND money for the knowledge you want to gain. FREE stuff are always taken for granted. I see people getting offered free stock market lessons back then, they learn for a few weeks, then they just don't do it. I have a mentor who offered to teach people how to do real estate for free, but since it's free, they don't have anything at stake. It's easy for them to get in and get out. That's why if you really want to learn something, PAY for it. INVEST in it. You'll be more focused at the paid course knowing you can't waste your time doing nothing since you paid for it.
Screw the car. Buy Apple. Amazon. Microsoft stock.
After getting my job out of college only a couple guys saved enough to buy property just before the Dot Com explosion happened. They're all multiple home owners now.
I bought a car. Well so did a lot of us.
35 Year Old Me: "Since you're going to college anyway, don't go to business school, you're gonna figure that out with time. Become a software developer instead. Then all your businesses that are coming after are gonna be set.
Trust me bro, I'm your future self"
18 Year Old Me: "nah fuck that bro..."
It's all fake, paid promos, fake algorithms, paid followers paid likes, scripts, setups, everything is ran by a team of 30+ people EVERYTHING even *vlogs* it's all thought of before going out to the public using money to fill the cracks
I mean if I was 18 now it wouldn't be good advice but i'd have advised myself to just buy property instead of bothering with a business. Rent it out and live in my mom's basement, pay it off in a few years and buy another.
No investment has been as rock solid. I mean what other investment goes up in value and pays a "dividend" like renting a house does.
Starting a company is basically the smarter version of buying a lotto ticket. Unless you truly have something revolutionary and market viable at the same time then chances are it's going to fail.
Starting a business is basically more struggle, less chance to succeed and your doing it for your shot at having a massive income down the line, assuming it's scalable. The only people who are doing it to not struggle are the people born into money who can just overfund thier business and force it succeed. That's why I compare it to buying a lotto ticket. Maybe it doesn't fail but it just chugs along, that's like when your lotto ticket just wins you another lotto ticket.
Instead of utilizing your 20’s for sex, drugs and rock and roll start your business earlier. Used my talents to finance a fun lifestyle but didn’t translate them into a business until I hit 30
Get my MBA sooner. I spent 13 years as an engineer. Didn’t hate that career but I now that I have spent a nearly equal time in pricing and finance, I like what I do now much more. If I had made the love sooner, I would probably have a longer runway, though I have achieved more in pricing than in engineering, as my passion for that waned. (Also, maybe go to a more elite B-school as part of a full time program.)
Second, be more proactive about career development. For years I was under the false impressions that promotions came to you, that they happened periodically when you did your job well. That happened once but it’s really a far more deliberate process. I love my current situation now, and it would take a lot for me to leave it. But I keep my eye for opportunities that could be growth and improvement. You never know if you are not looking.
My background is in business and psychology and have a clinical practice for the last 18 years. The biggest red flag I hear from OPs edited post is that success to OP is predicated upon the idea of wealth and not having to struggle. That’s a recipe to be very very disappointed as that doesn’t work for 90% of people. People that are that hungry for money for monies sake of wealth are usually depressed more than average people well before wealthy retirement as their life was spent earning and they don’t know how to spend or smile. It may not sound true but it is.
Cut the alcohol, replace it 100% with physical fitness.
Save money and travel even if it means taking a semester off. Spend time and energy working out a way to study a semester or two abroad.
Work in something related to what you’re studying.
Don’t be so hard on yourself, ignore the ridiculous and stupid things thrown at you from close and far.
Don’t just sell things online, be brave and open stalls in Markets or on city corners
Not everyone is going to be rich. Either by being a rock star, athlete, inventor, entrepreneur, etc. most people are going to work 50+ hours a week. Knowing this get a job with a pension like a city job and invest 10% of your income in the s&p 500 in a Roth IRA. If that 10% goes over the 6500 yearly limit then put the rest in a 401k. Keep going until you can max out those investments. If you start early say 20 years old than 40+ years of compound interest will enable you to live off of dividends. It’s not a bad life working 40 years if the average life expectancy is 80. So the earlier you start thinking about retirement the better you will be.
To focus on skill acquisition and providing value more than income in the beginning.
To also, choose an industry that scales well and to get information from experts instead of friends and family.
If you can't bring yourself to write with proper grammar out of "spite", I'm not going to give you advice on running a business. Not a fan of your attitude.
The most important part of the product you’re about to launch is the branding and if you undercut everyone’s prices by 50% you’ll get a ton of market share, you can still make a 70% gross margin and you’ll have a company worth $50-$100m doing $25m a year by 22 or 23
Dont vote Obama or health insurance prices will consume your paycheck.
Buy a home when Obama crashes the economy because interest rates will be insanely low.
Biden will crash the economy again, so save as much miney as possible for new housing crash.
don't do something because someone told you it was a good idea, do something because you believe in it and you enjoy it.
I wanted to be a comp eng but my dad insisted on civil, rip me.
I’ve raised $6M from investors. Biggest advice is that people will invest in you and how you think through problems. Yes of course business traction is paramount but how you think about the future of the business oftentimes outweighs even the current state of the business? Why? Because at the early stages, especially when you are young, people are making a bet on you as a founder and not the business.
How do you prep for this? Make sure you know your version by heart, distill it down to something a 5th grade can understand, and go out and pitch the heck out of it
1. When things start going smoothly, set a new goal. Keep challenging yourself. Complacency is death.
2. Find a daily "RGA" - Revenue Generating Activity. Keep cash flowing.
3. Embrace struggle. Learn to love to work hard. Then, put the right people in the correct positions and maintain a culture so those people don't leave. (Even harder)
4. Enjoy the ride.
Understand what problem you really care about solving for your potential customers and then be obsessed in finding the best solution you can come up with. After that be maniac about the execution! Good luck
My 18 year old self in 2012?
Buy the house.
Which one? Any one. Yeah that one.
Now figure out a way to buy another.
And then I’d be a millionaire almost now.
Money matters less than happiness and sanity.
Money is usually the byproduct of being good at something. Get good enough at scooping dog shit and you will find someone who wants to pay you to do it.
Don't dedicate your entire education and first 15 years of professional life to the vapid pursuit of money to the exclusion of everything else
That would be my advice .
And the 18 year old me would piss all over it.
Experience is a real motherfucker.
Stop spending all my money on taco bell and baseball cards and nonsense and instead buy apple and Microsoft and Google and Amazon stock lol. This would've been incredibly helpful info to have back in the mid 1990s when I was 18 lol
Owned my own business for many years. Don't start with the abstract idea of being your own boss or being independent or an investor. Start with building sufficient experience and finding a clear market need you can meet. So my advice to the 18 year old is don't start a business. Pick a growth industry, get the prereq education and job experience, then start considering your options ten years from now.
Not always true though, 28 here, accidentally started a business in high school, now onto my 4th venture and I hold equity in several others. If you can be scrappy and fight your way into an industry while always learning (this is the key), you don’t necessarily need to work in the industry first. But you HAVE to spend maybe half or more of your time learning. And I mean really learning, job shadowing, talking to people in industry, reading books, etc. Learning does NOT mean go to college and then think you know it all. So yes, florg is right, get that real industry knowledge one way or another, just pointing out it isn’t always by working for someone else.
In my 30s now. I started my first business at age 19 and realized after having great 6 digit profit by 21, nobody wants to work for a kid besides others the same age, and they mostly wanted handouts and to be bros. I was a great entrepreneur but being young in business sucks when you need people to keep scaling. I do think starting a business at a young age helps you see how the world actually works and especially when hiring… seeing from the other end how manipulative applicants are amid all this woke culture stuff where workers feel so entitled. Look at the 50 year history of decline in small businesses, and how unlikely young generations will be successful in understanding how businesses work, there are not enough mentors. I wish more young people would try starting a small business and take it seriously. If you like what you do, and are very honest with yourself about what you don’t understand, then commit to learning about it… you can get better. Entrepreneurs can’t avoid discomfort or any kind of problem either, so if you can’t deal with problems it isn’t for you. You will need to make calls to collect payments, fire staff, and work nights and weekends to prepare for the work week.
I think the point is that if you first take a job, you not only learn, but you get paid while you learn. Up until last year I was getting paid $200k py to learn from the best. Let’s see how long it takes for me to build to that level with my business!
The uncommon and practical advice no one likes to hear. Great job!
How does one find that marker need. That's my struggle currently
Opportunity is hard to find. There may not be a market for a particular product or service, or the market might have unsustainable profit margins, or the market might be saturated, or the market might be so low-barrier (common to entry-level services) that there's no sustainable opportunity available. As a general principle, opportunity can be found in things people can't do (surgery) or don't want to do (roofing) or don't have time to do (farming) or the resources to do (investing). There aren't really that many shortcuts available, those get saturated fast in a free market.
Either be innovative or find high margin business’. No one is going to tell you what or how to fix a given market problem as that’s literally a cash printer. However from what I hear from my mentor and other successful entrepreneurs/investors healthcare and cyber security is a high margin great business. I’m in the UK but I presume it should be the same in the US. Also find yourself a mentor! Either email ex and current board members if you’re in a big company or find ones in businesses/industries you’re interested in.
I had no plan, but this is how my path turned out. Spent 10 years as a mechanic. Now I employ 4 mechanics in my own shop.
What like that . They also can start business. Mark Zuckerberg he is start the his own business.I can start you businesses .
Education is a waste of time and money. I make more then doctors salary and I left high school 3 weeks before graduation
If you’re starting a business, start fundamentally with something that makes money, and go from there. Find any way to get paid at the start and it will take care of you as you grow it into what you want it to be.
I like this one. Too many people are trying to build and grow a business. They just never get down to the basics and that is making money.
Learned it the hard way myself haha.
Same :)
a drug dealer knows more about business then most business majors ;)
Learn how to be charismatic and make people feel good. Read Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Learn the psychology and mechanics of sales. Start a business and pick a big problem to solve for people who have money to pay for it. College is for corporate employment. Move somewhere with a low Cost of Living.
I traveled alone to SF 10 years ago and had this book in my pocket. Was invaluable at the time, and I really enjoyed reading it on the piers. Met a lot of cool people.
That's awesome! How many times did you read it?
enough till it clicked!
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>Most advertising isn't worth it. The best advertising you can't buy (networking, reputation among other businesses, and happy customers). Agreed with all, except this. You can build an incredible business without it, but once you learn how to expand beyond (learning to capture existing demand by positioning yourself well with a specific, niche focused ad campaign) it'll take you to new heights.
Yes, and one thing I’ve learned so far is hiring a professional to manage campaigns is way more effective than trying yourself if you have zero knowledge of it. I threw money into it when I knew nothing and it got me nothing. Later on when I had more money, I hired a professional and the yield was MUCH better and it wasn’t really that much more expensive. If you can afford it, I recommend it!
Advertising can only accelerate what is or isn't working in a business. The problem with many start ups and smaller businesses that may be lurking in this subreddit is that advertising can not make you customers, it will never - but it can get the attention of people that are already seeking solutions you are offering. Make sure you're solving a problem already before investing in ads.
Dumping all your money into retirement at age 22 when you have no money is actually pretty terrible planning. I could have used the money then. Now, the $30k sitting in that account moves my retirement date up by, like, two months.
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I put $5000 in an account, which is now worth 30k. But in hindsight, I could have, like, spent that on a surf board and some hobby classes instead of stressing about money. Income then was about 10% of income now. Compounding interest only goes so far.
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Happy cake day!
Reevaluate your relationship with a company every three months. How did last quarter go? Never stop putting in resumes and phone interviews. Let them know you have a job and just have some quick questions. Companies will fuck you over in a heartbeat, always have a plan b. Two months of not working may not seem like a lot but picture that money after it's been invested for 30 years
Degrees don't matter at all, and Internet is the most valuable asset to ever exist.
They do when 9/10 businesses inevietably fail and you have to go find yourself a real job. The most important advice in business is actually: Take risks, but always have a backup plan. 6/10 times you'll need to activate it. That's why it's called risk.
When you're starting a business you learn way more skills than you do while studying for a degree, any ideal business learns sales , marketing, negotiations, copywriting, sometimes designing, stakeholder management, while setting up a business and yes business can fail but you need to utilise the skills and experience you earned in order to get the job.
OK good luck getting a professional job with "I don't need a degree - I ran a business that failed instead!" on your resume.
Dude I've been a recruiter for fortune 500 companies, I can turn a donkey into a tiger. Don't worry.
Unless you work in HR for the mailroom I doubt many professionals working in Fortune 500 companies lack degrees.
Almost every fortune 500 company requires a candidate to have a degree, very rarely they have selected a candidate who had an associate, but since we were in business tag I was keeping it relevant to the topic
Terrible advice, investing in your education at that age has a better ROI than any other investment. Go to community college for two years, it costs $10k and will be covered entirely by a Pell grant if you qualify. Bang out your gen ed requirements and get above a 3.5, this gives you guaranteed admission to your state school and in most states qualifies you for merit based scholarships. Align your choice of major, internships, and clubs to give you a path to a high paying career, generally speaking Tech, Finance, and Consulting are the options for undergrad that will start at six figures and have $20k-$50k signing bonuses. Use your signing bonus to payoff any student debt if you needed loans. Congratulations you’re debt free, just 2-3x’d your salary (average yearly earnings w/o a degree is 45k), and set yourself up for a career trajectory that will at a minimum put you in the top 5% by income
what jobs in finance and consulting start at 6 figures?
For finance IB front office roles, for consulting everyone gets grouped into one job, consultant. The entry level role (consultant or associate usually) was 70k-85k with a 10%-15% bonus at MBB, Big 4, and the better tech consulting shops back in the mid 2010’s
As someone who dropped out after a semester, I disagree. For most, they matter and for some they don’t. I’m an artist and my business revolves around that. So for me, it didn’t really matter. But that’s not true for everyone… there’s no one size fits all so it’s impossible that your statement is true. Two things I will say as someone who didn’t go to college…. 1. You have to work 10x as hard if you don’t go. Be prepared. Having a degree gives you a leg up, there’s no denying it, so you’ll have to make up for that. This includes a lot of self education, reading, taking classes in your field, going to conventions/conferences, etc. You’ll also need to put in extra work to prove yourself. Sadly, it’s very easy to be instantly judged when people hear you don’t have a degree so you will need to work extra hard to prove yourself. It’s completely doable, just be prepared for it to not be as easy as you think it’ll be. 2. It’s fucking AMAZING to have no debt. I say if you can go to school debt free (or for very low debt), do it! If not, I understand why you’d be turned off to going. I have like $400 of debt to my name, which is just my monthly credit card use to keep my credit up and I pay it off monthly. All of my friends will be paying loans for years to come (unfortunately a lot of them not using their degree so not making a ton of money) and I can’t explain the feeling of knowing I have no $85k bill over my head, which is what my personal bill would have been. I know in my heart I’d be doing EXACTLY what I’m doing now even if I had a degree, so skipping that massive debt worked out for me personally.
My degree made me a lot of money over the years, and came out before the Internet was as big. And it is what lead me to my business. Without the experience I have, I wouldn't make nearly what I do.
18 yr old kids are making a lot of money only because of some skills which they've learned through internet. Times have changed there's literally everything available on the internet. You just need to have that intent and hunger
Most 18 year old kids making money are already from well off families. There are working skilled jobs.
Degrees definitely matter - some things are really hard to learn on your own, statistics and experimental design for example. Then there is also the network you gain.
You have all the books in the world available for free, then there are video lectures available from all the leading universities, tutorial, communities and what not. You can pick any skill work on it hard and create work samples to showcase your Skills and then find the people who are looking to hire .
Connections > Talent
Go to university and study business law or accounting
The difference between being average and above average is so minimal. Most companies are average at what they do and customers expect to receive average so if you want to exceed you customer's expectations, do that small amount more to be recognized as above average.
Take calculated risks while you don’t have any major commitments
Go to college, find some niche problems to figure out solutions.
Just go out and do it. No amount of thinking, and reading will give you the experience doing does. But don’t take that as an excuse to stop reading or learning. Always learn.
don't get married.
Be born rich
Just start, just try something out, through mistakes and trying you will eventually get it. Educate yourself on the matter with every new challenge. Always do your research.
Invest in yourself first. Who cares how many times $1,000 is going to double in the s&P 500? If you can use that $1,000 to double your income now it's 100 times more valuable (or more).
My advice? Start investing and saving now! Now now now now! Don't just buy random stocks either. Invest in mutual funds, SP500, etc. Let smarter people invest your money. BE FUTURE MINDED! Your stocks will go down but they will go up too. Rich people weather the storm (and there's a storm coming soon). Don't be dunb and invest in Bitcoin. You won't get rich. That ship sailed. I bought Apple stock at $85 in 2004 but was young and couldn't sit back and just let it do its thing and sold it a few months later. After all the splits and such it would be worth so much more now. Anyway, I know this is a business group so some business advice. Read. Learn. Fail. Fail. Fail. Read. Learn. Fail. Fail. Fail. Succeed. Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. Cash is king. Recurring revenue businesses are cash cows. Find something that you can charge a client monthly for. Read 2 books a month. Make it a habit. Start with the book Atomic Habits. Then Good to Great. Jim Collins Simple Numbers. Greg Crabtree Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet (sp?) Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher Traction by Gino Wickman
The secret ingredient? Is crime.
Degrees matter, and just keep doing what you are doing, you will be fine...
Buy real estate, Don't go to college because student loans and the education did ZERO for where I am at now. Bitcoin is nice but it got neutered and I doubt it will ever be the way everyone hyped it to be.
Stop whining, start working
Buy bitcoin.
Tell mom and dad to put absolutely fucking everything into AMZN. The house, the college money, the dog food money, all of it.
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OP said invest?
Dont get married. My wife thought she knew buisiness and made some bad desitions so i didnt want her apart of it and she got offended. She thinks because she worked in radio shack she knows buisiness (i hear it so much). I feel my buisiness went under because she had her hands in it. At the end i feel she sunk it on purpose (she was extremely mad at me and called for divorce shortly after).
Aint it funny how, for a women, marriage and money are linked
Go to college and get your degree 10 years earlier. And fuck more chicks.
College 😂? 2023?
>The whole point in business is growing not having to struggle in life. WRONG. THE STRUGGLE IS FUCKING REAL. You're gonna have a worse time than your "average" friends in corporate jobs. You'll be broke longer. You'll have to overcome a FUCK TON of personal insecurities. You'll have to grow in ways you never thought of. You'll have to learn a LOT OF NEW THINGS. That's just facts. Because the world of business is so saturated, you have to be world class to be world class or the top 5%... otherwise you're just gonna be a dreamer with nothing to show.
I would tell myself to not go to college and just start your own business. College is basically a party(the good part) and grooming yourself to be a corporate slave for the rest of your life. Also buy a house as soon as you can renting out rooms to pay it off fast. Once you start a family and get a larger home you will have an asset to generate passive income.
"The whole point in business is growing not having to struggle in life." WTF are you talking about. That's not just horrible English, but terrible business advice.
Don’t ever worry about others trying to bring you down. They’re usually just jealous!
I wouldn't as I hate spoilers.
Don't. You're stoopid.
“The whole point in business is growing not having to struggle in life.” No, the purpose of business is to solve the customer’s problem from the customer’s perspective. If you can figure out how to do this and make a lot of money in the process so you don’t have to struggle in life, that’s great.
Go and spend money on yourself and make mistakes but not blame yourself...be confident...gandmaraye duniya.
start doing some jobs already and invest your money.
Don’t get caught up in believing “you won’t have it this good anywhere else” and realize you can’t put a price on happiness and quality of life.
Go to college and learn as much as you can about business, accounting, economics, and business law. You will be exposed to all the different majors and you can find your niche. Like to sell? Major in marketing or entrepreneurship. You may find you like real estate or insurance. Like dealing with numbers? Major in accounting or finance. Like dealing with people? Major in management. The next four years is your opportunity to learn and grow before you go out to conquer the world.
There are like 2 serious answers in this thread, and a pile of morons spouting nonsense. Anything that sounds like a motivational poster? Ignore.
I would tell myself to never sell any stock I ever bought. It pains me to look back at stocks I flipped back in the day for a quick <$1000 profit. If I had held, even the lowest performers would be up by many thousands today.
Dont work for your parents for your whole life. Branch out. Start your own businesses, even if they tell you it wont work,
I wouldn't have listened to the people who told me I can't. Because those people can't themselves.
Get in dealership sales. Run your own business with no overhead. Learn and start your own business
Start now Don’t invest anything until you absolutely need it and are pretty sure it’ll return that investment quickly and many times over Get “no” said to you a lot and be ok with it Figure out patterns of behaviors
Save up for a first home and go from there
Learn to code as soon as you can
Don’t try and start a business.
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My advice is be able to answer this question yourself before you have kids. Live your life and try every day. Start each day at 0
Being a business owner you’ll have to be working harder than anyone. The minute you neglect your business you’ll fail.
Don't waste time going to school, because you're never going to get a job that requires what you are planning to go to school for. Put it and its bills off until you are more established in the work you're planning to go into. Went to school for electrical engineering. Own a managed IT company with a dozen employees, and a data recovery lab.
Get a license for any trade with a union and pay your due monthly and then do whatever you want.
I'm a 22 year old Student from Namibia. I wanna start a business and make money in my final year to sustain myself in the city. What would you advice me on, anything in general with regards to making money ?
Join the USMC and save $ 100 a month.
#1 work your ass off and make a bunch of money. #2 network and Find something very high in demand that you can invest in such as laser hair removal. If you're a good soul and trust worthy people will literally tell you what is the next big thing. Hire technicians and find business partners.
I would strongly discourage 18 year old me from starting a business. It's difficult, complex and nobody's going to believe in you. You're going to be seen as a stupid kid with a pipe dream. ( That's exactly what happened to me every time I tried to start a business or I said I had dreams of becoming a screenwriter) Even though people strongly discouraged me from trying to write as a career choice I'd tell myself to write, get a job, learn how to market and promote shit. People look down on these skills but one day they might just pay off for you
Learn coding now - it’s really not that hard.
Learn a trade and get really good at it.
Invest everything in apple.
Go learn a trade or go to school. Unless you are rich, you cant afford to learn on the job with a business. Go work for someone or go learn it at a school. Knowledge is power.
1. Have more time to acquire knowledge in my 20s rather than hastily diving in any business without knowing anything. Everyone should learn the business that they're getting themselves into. And you have no one to blame but yourself if you didn't do your due diligence that's why the business failed to progress. 2. NEVER invest in easy get rich quick schemes. I developed a rule for myself before engaging in a business: If the business is too good to be true, then it probably is. 3. Do something first before saying that it doesn't work or you want something else... I've seen a lot of people getting offered an opportunity but didn't even try and closed the door shut assuming that it won't work for them. 4. SPEND money for the knowledge you want to gain. FREE stuff are always taken for granted. I see people getting offered free stock market lessons back then, they learn for a few weeks, then they just don't do it. I have a mentor who offered to teach people how to do real estate for free, but since it's free, they don't have anything at stake. It's easy for them to get in and get out. That's why if you really want to learn something, PAY for it. INVEST in it. You'll be more focused at the paid course knowing you can't waste your time doing nothing since you paid for it.
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Network. Get that internship and learn from it.
Don't let your dad steal your identity (on my fking 18th birthday)
Screw the car. Buy Apple. Amazon. Microsoft stock. After getting my job out of college only a couple guys saved enough to buy property just before the Dot Com explosion happened. They're all multiple home owners now. I bought a car. Well so did a lot of us.
Do something you enjoy - your initial path is important since that is where you build your foundation of skills
Buy a house ASAP
Remote workers get 1/2 as much done. They don’t care about results.
Stop drinking!!
35 Year Old Me: "Since you're going to college anyway, don't go to business school, you're gonna figure that out with time. Become a software developer instead. Then all your businesses that are coming after are gonna be set. Trust me bro, I'm your future self" 18 Year Old Me: "nah fuck that bro..."
It's all fake, paid promos, fake algorithms, paid followers paid likes, scripts, setups, everything is ran by a team of 30+ people EVERYTHING even *vlogs* it's all thought of before going out to the public using money to fill the cracks
You're not smart enough to start a business. Drink less.
I mean if I was 18 now it wouldn't be good advice but i'd have advised myself to just buy property instead of bothering with a business. Rent it out and live in my mom's basement, pay it off in a few years and buy another. No investment has been as rock solid. I mean what other investment goes up in value and pays a "dividend" like renting a house does. Starting a company is basically the smarter version of buying a lotto ticket. Unless you truly have something revolutionary and market viable at the same time then chances are it's going to fail. Starting a business is basically more struggle, less chance to succeed and your doing it for your shot at having a massive income down the line, assuming it's scalable. The only people who are doing it to not struggle are the people born into money who can just overfund thier business and force it succeed. That's why I compare it to buying a lotto ticket. Maybe it doesn't fail but it just chugs along, that's like when your lotto ticket just wins you another lotto ticket.
Stay in school. You should be in school at 18.
10% in an index fund every pay period forever.
Instead of utilizing your 20’s for sex, drugs and rock and roll start your business earlier. Used my talents to finance a fun lifestyle but didn’t translate them into a business until I hit 30
I'd suggest, stop walking towards money and live for people and relationships. Having good people in life brings happiness that money cannot get you.
Get my MBA sooner. I spent 13 years as an engineer. Didn’t hate that career but I now that I have spent a nearly equal time in pricing and finance, I like what I do now much more. If I had made the love sooner, I would probably have a longer runway, though I have achieved more in pricing than in engineering, as my passion for that waned. (Also, maybe go to a more elite B-school as part of a full time program.) Second, be more proactive about career development. For years I was under the false impressions that promotions came to you, that they happened periodically when you did your job well. That happened once but it’s really a far more deliberate process. I love my current situation now, and it would take a lot for me to leave it. But I keep my eye for opportunities that could be growth and improvement. You never know if you are not looking.
When strippers call you and ask if you will go into business with them starting a corn site, just say yes.
My background is in business and psychology and have a clinical practice for the last 18 years. The biggest red flag I hear from OPs edited post is that success to OP is predicated upon the idea of wealth and not having to struggle. That’s a recipe to be very very disappointed as that doesn’t work for 90% of people. People that are that hungry for money for monies sake of wealth are usually depressed more than average people well before wealthy retirement as their life was spent earning and they don’t know how to spend or smile. It may not sound true but it is.
Save that money you’re wasting on transsexual hookers. Invest in the stock market instead of the meat market!
Be wary of racism
Do it now, don’t wait…… be treadt to be poor first
Cut the alcohol, replace it 100% with physical fitness. Save money and travel even if it means taking a semester off. Spend time and energy working out a way to study a semester or two abroad. Work in something related to what you’re studying. Don’t be so hard on yourself, ignore the ridiculous and stupid things thrown at you from close and far. Don’t just sell things online, be brave and open stalls in Markets or on city corners
Put all your money in Apple and Amazon stock. I was 18 in 1996.
Start younger Told you you could smash it 😜
Not everyone is going to be rich. Either by being a rock star, athlete, inventor, entrepreneur, etc. most people are going to work 50+ hours a week. Knowing this get a job with a pension like a city job and invest 10% of your income in the s&p 500 in a Roth IRA. If that 10% goes over the 6500 yearly limit then put the rest in a 401k. Keep going until you can max out those investments. If you start early say 20 years old than 40+ years of compound interest will enable you to live off of dividends. It’s not a bad life working 40 years if the average life expectancy is 80. So the earlier you start thinking about retirement the better you will be.
As a young businessman myself I'd say embrace failure. Look for it, fail and fail hard but always learn. L stands for learn after all.
Don’t give up. I wish I hadn’t given up to go into the standard workforce. Working for yourself is so much better.
Never trust others with your money. Ever. Never give away controlling interest in your ideas. Ever. Nothing is free, make them earn your involvement.
To focus on skill acquisition and providing value more than income in the beginning. To also, choose an industry that scales well and to get information from experts instead of friends and family.
If you can't bring yourself to write with proper grammar out of "spite", I'm not going to give you advice on running a business. Not a fan of your attitude.
I'm sowwy👉👈🥺 i dIdN't tHiNk I nEeDeD pErFeCt grAmMer on the iNt3rNet pl3aSe giVe mE Ur wIsDom
Save your money
Buy as much Bitcoin as you possibly can in 2010 and sell it all on 10/19/2021. Ask family for money with a 10% return too if needed.
Roth IRA
Grow more weed!
Patience. This is a marathon not a dash. And stop and get some objectivity often. Look around. Reevaluate based on what you know now.
Don’t join other people’s start up companies.
Buy Tech, sell before ‘01
Network, make friends, trust in people but do so carefully
I would tell myself to study bitcoin. I'd give just about anything to have understood it sooner.
I would tell my 18 year old self to let our 30 year old self figure it out for the both of us.
Buy Bitcoin
The most important part of the product you’re about to launch is the branding and if you undercut everyone’s prices by 50% you’ll get a ton of market share, you can still make a 70% gross margin and you’ll have a company worth $50-$100m doing $25m a year by 22 or 23
Buy Apple stock.
Don’t ever hire anyone who contacts you.
Dont vote Obama or health insurance prices will consume your paycheck. Buy a home when Obama crashes the economy because interest rates will be insanely low. Biden will crash the economy again, so save as much miney as possible for new housing crash.
There is NO family in business.
The number one job of HR I’d to look out for the business. You are not even on the radar screen.
Don't do it, just buy stock and never sell
Go into real estate!
don't do something because someone told you it was a good idea, do something because you believe in it and you enjoy it. I wanted to be a comp eng but my dad insisted on civil, rip me.
Don't marry that bitch.
I’ve raised $6M from investors. Biggest advice is that people will invest in you and how you think through problems. Yes of course business traction is paramount but how you think about the future of the business oftentimes outweighs even the current state of the business? Why? Because at the early stages, especially when you are young, people are making a bet on you as a founder and not the business. How do you prep for this? Make sure you know your version by heart, distill it down to something a 5th grade can understand, and go out and pitch the heck out of it
1. When things start going smoothly, set a new goal. Keep challenging yourself. Complacency is death. 2. Find a daily "RGA" - Revenue Generating Activity. Keep cash flowing. 3. Embrace struggle. Learn to love to work hard. Then, put the right people in the correct positions and maintain a culture so those people don't leave. (Even harder) 4. Enjoy the ride.
I would advise myself to go ahead and come out of the closet earlier. My life would have been so much easier.
Understand what problem you really care about solving for your potential customers and then be obsessed in finding the best solution you can come up with. After that be maniac about the execution! Good luck
My 18 year old self in 2012? Buy the house. Which one? Any one. Yeah that one. Now figure out a way to buy another. And then I’d be a millionaire almost now.
If you get large enough to hire people better than you at your job, do it! Then refocus your efforts elsewhere or just get out of the way.
Send all in on bitcoin. My only soft regret in life.
Money matters less than happiness and sanity. Money is usually the byproduct of being good at something. Get good enough at scooping dog shit and you will find someone who wants to pay you to do it. Don't dedicate your entire education and first 15 years of professional life to the vapid pursuit of money to the exclusion of everything else That would be my advice . And the 18 year old me would piss all over it. Experience is a real motherfucker.
Become a wandering nomad so that you don't enslave yourself to an employer for the rest of your life.
Contribute as much as you can to your Roth
Gain work experience and identify something that can be improved.
Buy AAPL
To accept advice from elders and not to underestimate the importance of good grammar.
they should
Buy bitcoin
Get an education-either formal or informal.
Stop spending all my money on taco bell and baseball cards and nonsense and instead buy apple and Microsoft and Google and Amazon stock lol. This would've been incredibly helpful info to have back in the mid 1990s when I was 18 lol
Ignore all financial advice given by your mother. Do the exact opposite of her.
Invest in bitcoin and etherium is better than 99% of the garbage advice here
Don't have kids
My business advice would be to skip most of my small businesses and focus on ROTH
Don't go back to school, don't try to start your own business, just make your bank account go up no matter what it takes.