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What are the THREE most IMPORTANT entrepreneurial lessons you can pass on?

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TreyAllDay

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Here are my THREE:

1) The NEED is the most important part of your business, and you will have a very hard time setting aside your ego to determine if the "NEED" really exists.

2)Invest as little time and money into things as possible: whether entire businesses, products, or features until you've determined they are viable opportunities. I've spent WEEKS on product features that customers never used.

3) Delegate tasks as soon as you can. I spent half a year without an accountant or lawyer and 1 year without an employee to help with day to day tasks. Don't forget that your time is the most valuable asset.
 

MJ DeMarco

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1) NEED is the table top of CE-N-TS.

2) NEED can be created by VALUE SKEW, sometimes just one attribute.

3) Your NEED must hit the right A) Audience with the right B) Messaging and C) with the right REACH. Failure of one of those might false-flag failure, when you did in fact, address a need.
 

TreyAllDay

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An interesting story: I started doing some self reflection on how much I've learned actually building a business, thinking "WOW- I wish I knew this back in the day!".

But here's the ODD thing: I reviewed some of the material I studied such as MFL and other resources and realized in my early days, I learned ALL of this from people like MJ but oddly didn't follow it or realize it's importance.

I think in our early days, we're inundated with SO much information about entrepreneurship, yet have a hard time picking out the most useful information.

So I'd love to know - for some of us who are still learning. What are the three things you learned and wish others would put more focus on?
 
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ZCP

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Cash flow, then growth, then profit
Dedicate the largest portion of your time to selling
Fire them the first time you think about firing them
 
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socaldude

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1. The most valuable resource/tool you have in your entrepreneurial career is your mind. Far more valuable than any connections or money you may have or not have or any other excuse you can come up with as to why you are not financially successful.

2. We have to develop and become experts in awareness. We have to be self-aware to remove any self-sabotaging behaviors and any mental roadblocks to understanding problems in our minds and in the real world. We are so unaware that we think we don't need to be aware, that's how unaware we are. Mankind is asleep. We also have to be aware of the external world, primarily its economic markets. Knowing the dynamics of buyers and sellers in whatever field you spotted an opportunity.

3. Number three you have to be an expert at identifying problems and finding solutions to those problems. This goes back to awareness and our mind. The solution to the problem is often hidden deeply from our own awareness and the general population awareness. Which is a good thing because we wanna get to the 1% of mental/awareness capacity so we can be competitive. Cognitive structures are held together by definitions, axioms and propositions, if we haven't found the solution something is wrong with these foundations.


These are all things I wish I knew when I was 20. Never taught this by college or my parents.
 

whiz

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Need was mentioned already but I'm gonna expand upon it with a story from Gary Halbert (one of the best copywriters of all time)

He was teaching a class about business and he asked the students, if you had to open up a burger shop tomorrow, what would be the one advantage you would want to have over every other burger spot?

The students said the usual answers:

"The best ingredients"
"The best atmosphere/ambience"
"The best menu"
"The best chef/recipes"

He told them that he would absolutely destroy all their business with his advantage.

Puzzled, they all were dying to know what advantage he would pick.

He turned to them and said "A STARVING CROWD!"

---

That's one of the many pieces of wisdom Gary dropped in his incredibly small yet insanely valuable body of work The Boron Letters.

So yeah, I'm gonna have to go with:

1. Need

2. Being super open and never assuming anything. You are never 100% right nor wrong; you're always somewhere in the middle.

3. Physical/mental health must be taken care of... if you're a wreck emotionally and physically and you don't know WHY you want to be an entrepreneur in the first place, you're gonna quit. You have to have your underlying mental structure in place.

I don't know if these are the most important 3 really.

It's like asking what my favorite movie or food is. I have dozens.

But I hope these 3 help.
 

no_tie_anymore

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1. real need - physicall or emotional

2. customer need - not yours

3. be productive instead of busy

Thats the three things I`v learned the hart way (near 7000 € and a couple of months) because my first idea to built an emotional value in the suplement industrie dosen`t work. And I realiced it dosen`t look like that I can change somthing about that because its no costomer need. So I have to go back to Unscripted chapter 35 to find Fastlane ideas.
#StartToday
 

Thomas Baptiste

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1) Opportunity/need is found in the problems.
2) Can't grow without taking risks.
3) What has value is worth paying for.
 
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socaldude

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and doubting myself.

I still struggle with this.

I always try to have insights into things that are not generally known. I try to make it my competitive advantage. But It is difficult to believe something or think in a certain way if 99% of people don't.

It's kind of like what Peter thiel talked about in zero to one. Success is based off secrets. It's the question he asks everyone: "What do you believe is true that 99% disagree?"
 

TreyAllDay

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1. The most valuable resource/tool you have in your entrepreneurial career is your mind. Far more valuable than any connections or money you may have or not have or any other excuse you can come up with as to why you are not financially successful.

Lots of good answers so far, but wanted to highlight this. The biggest failure I had in every early business was my own mind - doing it for the wrong reasons, underestimating the effort, and doubting myself.
 
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