The Blog For Entrepreneurs

1. Youth is a bonus. I would have like to have known that youth was a bonus, not a drawback. I spent a lot of time looking for approval. It is funny in our current times when we think nothing of a teenager making tons of cash on the web, but I bet there are still quite a few young people that think their youth is a barrier. I invest in businesses and take it from me, it is not. If your pitch and your idea are great, I couldn’t care less if you are 17 or 70.

2. No, you don’t have all the answers. I would have liked to have realised that I didn’t have all the answers. I have screwed up some massive opportunities, which I will go into another time, because I was too stubborn to listen to others.

3. Sports cars can wait. I spent, and lost, a massive amount of money on flash cars… Those times when you are going to a big event, cruising with your friends or parking at the front of a hotel and getting the treatment, are great but infrequent, invest the money in your business instead. If you have to have one, hire it or join a club where you can have one for special events , you will save a FORTUNE …. oh… and chicks will dig you because you are a nice guy, not because you have a flash car…

4. Select the right business partner. Just because they are older guys with experience, doesn’t mean to say they are going to be any good for your business or your reputation. Your business partner should work has hard as you and bring something to the business that you don’t. If he refers to you at parties as ‘his young prodigy’ ditch the old git.

5. Don’t make it all about work. If you don’t want to drop dead from a heart attack or be 60 before you realise life has passed you by, make time for your friends and family. Business will take care of itself if you are balanced, not just focused on one thing ALL the time.

6. Just because it makes money, doesn’t make it right. Some of the mistakes I have made cost people money, and me my reputation, because I went after profits and for this I will be eternally guilty. Money like this is a temporary state. You will, eventually, lose out in some way shape or form. Make sure what you are doing gives a genuine and positive service or product to your clients. I am having a great life, it would be better if I had realised this earlier.

Trust me, if what you are doing is truly not beneficial to the people you are dealing with, Karma will get you…

7. Don’t do drugs. When you make some money and start to party, drugs, alcohol and nightclubs will screw your business up in about 6 months. Sure, it will be enormous fun, but in five years you will not remember it and wonder how you could spend $250,000 with nothing to show for it..

8. Start a blog. Even though this wasn’t around when I started it would have been fabulous if it was. If only to keep a record of your life, even just for yourself. I started a journal and never kept it up. I found it again a few days ago and was fascinated at the way my mind worked 20 years ago and how the ideas for my businesses were seeds even then. It would have been great to see the progression.

9. Enjoy the struggle. All the struggles you are going through when you start a business are some of the best times you will have, enjoy it.

10. Are you a ‘starter’ or a ‘finisher’? I wish I had known that I am great at starting a business but bad at ‘managing’. I should have known to hand over to a ‘manager’ sooner. Seriously, you will know if you are one of these people when a senior employee ‘tells’ you to go play golf and not ‘interfere’.

11. Start something, anything. Although I started my first business fairly young (I was 24) I had been doing stuff I hated for the previous 7 years. I wish I had known that this was the time in my life when bills really didn’t matter that much….

12. Network (and also see 2). Talk to everybody, listen to everybody. You don’t know it all, neither do they, but opportunity will come from the people who you talk to.

13. Learn about company formation. It is easy and there is nothing to it, but if you don’t learn there will be many accountants and lawyers lining up to rip you off.

14. Find a lawyer who is vicious and keep him close. Sadly we have to deal with them, I would prefer that we didn’t, but we do. If you have any measure of success, or failure in business you will end up on the wrong end of a law suite or some slander or copyright infringement or any number of other time wasting things.

What you do not need at these times is a big firm costing you $1000 per hour and $500 for a sandwich in their offices. What you need is a vicious, ambitious lawyer willing to charge you $100 an hour and who is prepared to keep the person suing you with $1000/hr lawyers in paperwork until they go broke. Sounds bad, but another thing I wish I knew too is that when the lawyers get involved all potential compromise between you and your foe has gone.

When selecting a lawyer forget the big boys, unless you have millions to waste, and remember ‘It is not the size of the dog in the fight, it is the size of fight in the dog’.

15. Accountants and lawyers do not own your business. Your advisers work for you, not the other way around. Don’t let them dictate meeting times, schedules or strategy.. if they start to do that remind them who is the boss. Think of it as rubbing a puppy’s nose in the poo on the carpet.

16. Know when to sell. The lyrics of a famous song were ‘You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em know when to walk away and know when to run’. Review your exit strategy all the time.

17. Stay fit. In my teens I was as fit as they come. In my twenties I was great until I started my own business. Smoking and alcohol entered the scene as the stress of running a business took over. I think I even thought that being stressed and smoking all the time was cool.

I am 41 now, don’t smoke and I am fitter than I was when I was 25. Here is what I have learned: Smoking, drinking and being unfit is not cool… running a business when your are fit is much easier and more fun.

18. Be wary of politicians. Have any success and they will ask to be on your board of directors for an appropriate fee. They bring no value and are a reputation burden. You wouldn’t let a parasite live off your dog, don’t let a politician live off your business.

19. Make your business stand for more than just business. I know, you are struggling to make any money, why would you want to give to charity? You promise, when you are a millionaire you will give generously.

Don’t think about giving money until you have it, but give something of what you do have; Time, resources or skill. Giving something back is an awesome PR tool, it will help you resolve any inner conflicts you have about running your business when you see the good and, later down the line when you might need help, someone will remember your input.

20. Your people are your best asset. It is an old saying but, believe me it is true. While trying to enrich myself I don’t think I was a bad boss, I think I was an inconsiderate one. Think of your people before anything else.

21. Share the shares. Nothing gives people an incentive to be the best they can be for your business than ownership in that business.

22. Yep, the guy who says that he ‘will sort you out’ when you introduce your contacts will not give you anything. Your money is in your contact base, charge for it or don’t give it away.

23. One day, someone will blackmail you. One day an ex- employee or someone will try to extort money from you because you have it. You are not a spy or a gangster, call the police. I tried to tough it out, it was a mistake. I also learned the police are very cool.

24. Learn to be a good public speaker. Seriously, think of number 25 and just do it. You will thank me.

25. Forget about what people think of you. You will not care, and even be slightly embarrassed about how much effort you put into wanting to be liked, in 10 years time. Most people are far too worried about what you think of them to start making an opinon of what they think of you.

26. Do not change your business for a partner unless you are going to marry them. Being delicate so as to not offend the guilty, it is fair to say I wasted a lot of time and missed valuable business opportunities because of women. It wasn’t their fault, they were all nice people, but I should have never made some of the decisions I did… Dream job in Singapore given up for a woman who I broke up with three months later… is a classic example. All that and I would not find the perfect woman until I was 36, we married when I was 37. Happy 5th anniversary for April honey, I love you.

27. You are not still at school, you need geeks. In an odd twist of fate geeks are now cool;-) Self confessed geek Shoemoney is a classic example. As much as you might have been a jock in school, life requires more than being able to play soccer and date the prom queen. Guys who excelled in school are valuable, fun and know some really cool stuff. If I had realised this I may have made a success of the first online commodity trading platform on the web… instead I tried to do it myself.. doh!

28. Learn about listing your company and IPO’s before you even have a chance of doing an IPO. The stock market is a well of cash dipped into by people who have done it before. If you can build a business at an early age and float it successfully, even to a junior market, you will never have to worry about capital again.

Even some of the guys who make millions on the web, have zero clue about this. Trust me, want to make millions and millions of dollars…? learn about how to do an IPO.

29. Flash offices do not make you more money. Unless you positively have to be in a city, don’t be, office rents are crippling to a small business. If you have to be in a city, learn about ‘tail-end leases’ ‘ I will say no more.

30. The second you see someone more clever and more capable than you in your business, give them your job. I have had some unbelievably talented people working with me and I never gave them the opportunity to shine. This was a huge FAIL.

31. Fake it until you make it. Never act like you are a small business unless to do so is appropriate. Big businesses were once small businesses, so hold your head up, people will notice you. I was paranoid at being a small business in the company of ‘big’ business… in retrospect I needn’t have been, some of those big businesses aren’t here any more….

32. Posh people are scared of you. I am from a small town in Yorkshire, my family are working class, my father worked harder, and sacrificed more, than any man I have ever known (or likely will ever know) and yet I started off in business worried about my accent, my background and my education. I am sure there are many people who feel the same.

Looking back I spent far to long worrying about this. Out of my small group of friends from school, one is a top theatre director, one a millionaire tech guru and another a senior diplomat with an OBE who fended off rebels in a coup in Africa. We decided, at a recent marriage of one of them, that our success was down to the fact that our working class roots gave us an advantage over better connected and better educated people. We had no expectations, just ambition.

It took me a while to realise this. If you are from a working class background and, perhaps, are not as educated as some others who you may compete against, don’t worry, you have less to lose and expectations of you are low, just go for it, you have such an advantage that really, they are scared of you.

33. Chill out. I used to have a huge temper, anything would set me off. I used it as a strategy to get what I wanted, people were fearful of me, it was a large mistake for a long time. Being in business is not about being Gordon Gecko and shouting at everyone who doesn’t do what you want, or live up to your expectations. Business is about negotiation.

You will get far more business by being cool, collected and firm, than being hot tempered, erratic and stubborn.

34. Have contracts for everything. The guy who wants £30,000 to get you a contract for the latest deal is ripping you off. Don’t part with any serious money – ever – without due diligence and a contract. (By the way if you know a Jamal Chami from Birmingham, England – let me know)

35. Yep, making your own mistakes is the best way to learn. I have made a lot of cock-ups in my life but I have a great life now and who knows whether it would be the same if I had known all these things before I started out.

One of the things that I urge you to do, and this is something I did know form a very young age, is that you should go for it and know that you will make mistakes as I have done, and will continue to do. But this is what life is about, learning, experiences, LIVING. Remember ‘One Life : No Fear’

The worst case scenario is that in 5, 10, or 20 years time you will have material for a cool blog post……

Regards
David
@OneLifeNoFear