10 entrepreneurship lessons - Empowering MBA Day 44


To improve the survival odds of my startup I've read a bunch of books on real estate (biographies, investing, agency management).

Some highlights applicable to entrepreneurship in general:

1. To thrive, generate leads. To survive, be frugal.

2. Ask: (1) what must be done right and (2) what must be done now?

3. Ask: what are the opaque or distrustful segments/information in the buying and selling process?

How can we educate and provide creative solutions in those so more sellers can sell (down-market) or more buyers can buy (up-market)?

Become a trusted advisor/source of information.

4. In a down market look to upgrade your assets, including partners and team members. Arbitrage opportunities abound. Improve your leverage.

Counter-intuitive: prepare in an up-market, act in a down-market.
(Remember: survive to thrive.)

5. Understand about a buyer: (a) able? (b) ready? (c) willing?
Sell to those who meet all 3.
Educate others with leveraged content & tech.

6. If you want to work with a mentor or someone above your weight class, inform them regularly of your progress. Trust is built by focused action over time.

7. Always focus on protecting the downside. How bad can it get?

8. Startup idea prompt: as a consumer, what do you find hard to source?

9. Focus on what doesn't change: human nature.

Many assumptions are based on prejudice and misconceived notions.

Test: what do we share and history has proven to be perpetual?

Ask: which group of people are currently ignored as potential clients with flawed reasoning (about desires, fears, ability or motivation)?

10. "It pays to look at the real-estate business not as an end in itself but as a device for bridging gaps between the needs of disparate groups. The greater the number of separate groups (or their needs) that one could interconnect (or satisfy), the greater the profit to the innovator-entrepreneur." (Zeckendorf's autobiography)

-> Jim's interpretation:

a. Service becomes valuable in a highly complex and/or opaque market.
Service loses value in a straightforward and/or transparent market.

b. In a down market, needs increase and complicate. The market has yet to catch up to this change, i.e. it becomes opaque.

Fertile ground for (1) service and (2) creative financing (to educate others or to acquire assets yourself).

Hope these are useful.

Day 44 (almost) finished. 496 to go.

Love,

Jim

P.S. Halfway creating our free "masterclasses." Including audits that will be cut and sent directly to agents as "advice."

Called my co-founder today. "Your energy and excitement are contagious," he said. As said the past few days, I'm becoming more bullish. Stable, long-lasting market, little innovation, little competition, lots of opportunities.

Also met fellow "builder-in-public" Jakub Svoboda. On a similar journey but focuses on tech products/solutions with a CTO co-founder. Happy to have met a kindred spirit. Check his profile and journal entries if you're into entrepreneurship.

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