What's the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs are making?
I was re-reading an amazing book by Eric Schmidt called How Google Works. He has a lot of interesting things to say about the internet, technology and business.
So let’s talk about the power of the internet. The internet has caused transaction costs to plunge.
So just think about it.
Years ago, any business that you wanted to launch, to even test it you might have to rent a building, lease an office, entail startup costs, furnish it, but now you can just put something up.
That's why entrepreneurs are shifting to a lean startup mentality, and this is where the real insight comes.
A lot of firms are using the internet and technology to shrink their costs. They're outsourcing things that they traditionally would have had to do in house.
The goal of using the internet and technology is not just to lower costs and make operation more efficient though. That’s a huge part, but the big picture goal is to create fundamentally better products.
You have to be careful if you're an entrepreneur (or thinking of becoming one) there are a lot of books out there that are going to lead you into a mindset where people think they can just use the internet and not do any work. There’s the misconception that you can just kick your heels up, lay back in the Bahamas and hardly do any work and just reap all this profit.
If you want to be someone who has impact, think of the Google guys. Think of what Google's done in terms of impacting information. We don't even have to spell things anymore. We have all these tools at our disposal. For good or bad, and there's always some good and some bad.
Google has changed the world and it's because those people, those minds behind Google, they didn't take the easy route. I don't want you to take the easy route. Don’t fall into the temptation to just outsource things and just use the internet to just lower costs so you can make more money. There’s nothing wrong with that but do it so that you can make a better product that benefits other’s. The money will come. That’s a true win-win.
You know, people ask me all the time, what's the quick shortcut to being wealthy?
Well, the quickest shortcut to being wealthy is to offer immense value. We live in a world of reciprocal altruism. That means in order to get money ethically you have to provide at least as much value as that person values the dollar bill or the pound or the euro that they're holding in hand and giving to you.
I always say, my first mentor Joel Salatin used to say, offer 10X value. To do that, you have to use every technological innovation you have available. A long time ago that was electricity, gas-powered engines. Now we've moved beyond that to the internet.
Don't just think completely selfishly, oh, this will make me more money. Think like the Google guys did. How can we make a search engine that's faster? How can we make it give better results so that we can serve mankind, so that we can serve humanity?
Even if you don't care about humanity. The upside of focusing on the value you are giving is huge. Depending on how you calculate net worth, the Google guys are certainly one of the wealthiest people in the world that can do anything they want financially and they have maybe arguably the most powerful and intertwined company of any company in the world. There's no company that I know of, maybe Facebook, that people are interacting with as much as Google.
The takeaway is use everything in your disposal to double down on yourself and to double down on improving the quality of business that you build and the products that you create.
As chief Tecumseh says in that poem I quote a lot, "Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people."
Find a way to serve the world and the world will pay you back a hundred-fold. The way to get Lamborghinis and mansions is not to seek out Lamborghini and mansions. It's to serve people so well that they give you back more abundantly than you could ever have asked for to start with.
Stay Strong,
Tai<a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/b?_encoding=UTF8&tag=elle828-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=4254fdafa562f33f223c57caa60e7d4b&camp=1789&creative=9325&node=2335752011">Cell Phones and Accessories</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=elle828-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
I was re-reading an amazing book by Eric Schmidt called How Google Works. He has a lot of interesting things to say about the internet, technology and business.
So let’s talk about the power of the internet. The internet has caused transaction costs to plunge.
So just think about it.
Years ago, any business that you wanted to launch, to even test it you might have to rent a building, lease an office, entail startup costs, furnish it, but now you can just put something up.
That's why entrepreneurs are shifting to a lean startup mentality, and this is where the real insight comes.
A lot of firms are using the internet and technology to shrink their costs. They're outsourcing things that they traditionally would have had to do in house.
The goal of using the internet and technology is not just to lower costs and make operation more efficient though. That’s a huge part, but the big picture goal is to create fundamentally better products.
You have to be careful if you're an entrepreneur (or thinking of becoming one) there are a lot of books out there that are going to lead you into a mindset where people think they can just use the internet and not do any work. There’s the misconception that you can just kick your heels up, lay back in the Bahamas and hardly do any work and just reap all this profit.
If you want to be someone who has impact, think of the Google guys. Think of what Google's done in terms of impacting information. We don't even have to spell things anymore. We have all these tools at our disposal. For good or bad, and there's always some good and some bad.
Google has changed the world and it's because those people, those minds behind Google, they didn't take the easy route. I don't want you to take the easy route. Don’t fall into the temptation to just outsource things and just use the internet to just lower costs so you can make more money. There’s nothing wrong with that but do it so that you can make a better product that benefits other’s. The money will come. That’s a true win-win.
You know, people ask me all the time, what's the quick shortcut to being wealthy?
Well, the quickest shortcut to being wealthy is to offer immense value. We live in a world of reciprocal altruism. That means in order to get money ethically you have to provide at least as much value as that person values the dollar bill or the pound or the euro that they're holding in hand and giving to you.
I always say, my first mentor Joel Salatin used to say, offer 10X value. To do that, you have to use every technological innovation you have available. A long time ago that was electricity, gas-powered engines. Now we've moved beyond that to the internet.
Don't just think completely selfishly, oh, this will make me more money. Think like the Google guys did. How can we make a search engine that's faster? How can we make it give better results so that we can serve mankind, so that we can serve humanity?
Even if you don't care about humanity. The upside of focusing on the value you are giving is huge. Depending on how you calculate net worth, the Google guys are certainly one of the wealthiest people in the world that can do anything they want financially and they have maybe arguably the most powerful and intertwined company of any company in the world. There's no company that I know of, maybe Facebook, that people are interacting with as much as Google.
The takeaway is use everything in your disposal to double down on yourself and to double down on improving the quality of business that you build and the products that you create.
As chief Tecumseh says in that poem I quote a lot, "Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people."
Find a way to serve the world and the world will pay you back a hundred-fold. The way to get Lamborghinis and mansions is not to seek out Lamborghini and mansions. It's to serve people so well that they give you back more abundantly than you could ever have asked for to start with.
Stay Strong,
Tai<a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/b?_encoding=UTF8&tag=elle828-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=4254fdafa562f33f223c57caa60e7d4b&camp=1789&creative=9325&node=2335752011">Cell Phones and Accessories</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=elle828-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
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