Wise words from Mr. Bourdain. RIP
It is not “too late”
According to data from the Census Bureau and IRS the average age of successful business founders is 42; so the 20 year old entrepreneur is a true rarity.
The team looked at data around the 2.7 million people who founded businesses between 2007-14 and went on to hire at least one employee. Along with average entrepreneur age, they also learned those new ventures with the highest growth had an average founder age of 45.
The researchers broke out the data into high-tech employment, VC-backed firms, and patenting firms. Across the entire United States, the average founder ages were 43, 42, and 45, respectively for those divisions.
Part of this reason is because experience, social capital, skill sets, etc. play a large factor in the success of a business. So even if you’re over 40, roughly 50% of successful entrepreneurs are above that age.
Read the complete article here.
On top of his normal busy schedule
https://twitter.com/juliaccarpenter/status/970504663488397312?s=21
On top of his normal busy schedule.
“Remember: Jordan Peele says he quit writing “Get Out” 20 different times.
And then he finished it.
And then he won the Oscar.”
– Julia Carpenter (@juliaccarpenter) March 5, 2018
Everyone is on their own path. Don’t compare.
“Just because you took longer than others, doesn’t mean you failed. Remember that.”
Wise words
Sometimes a good recharge is just what is needed. If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.
The importance of niche-ing
The importance of niche-ing cannot be emphasized in business. To clarify what niche-ing is, let’s start with a question: How should new products/services be created?
A) Make a novel, untested product/service, then find customers for the product/service
Or
B) Find a group of customers, find one of that group’s unmet needs, then create a product/service to address those unmet needs
Answer: B
Explanation: The development process of the product/service will take time regardless of choice A or B. However, with choice B, the likelihood of having to rework the product/service to make it more closely meet the needs of the target market is lower. Also, with choice B, you have a better idea of the size of the target market. Having a market large enough to grow your business is very important. More on that is below.
A great example of choice B is Girls Auto Clinic. Girls Auto Clinic is a brilliant combination of a female-focused auto repair shop and salon.
Founder Patrice Banks felt what many of us feel when car issues come up:
“I felt like an auto-airhead. I hated all my experiences going in for an oil change, being upsold all the time for an air filter,’ she said. “Any time a dashboard light came on, I panicked.” – Patrice Banks, Girls Auto Clinic Founder
Many people come up with business ideas like how Patrice did: through personal experience. However, what most people fail to consider is that their own experience might be too niche. In other words, the market might be too small. How do you know if your market is too niche? Market research. Market research is a process of analyzing factors such as demographics, purchasing habits, direct and indirect competitors, macro and microeconomics, and other elements. As much art as science, thorough market research is a critical step before moving forward with any concept.
Launch and Grow Your Business
Finding your niche through market research is one of the many services Your Startup Guru offers at the most competitive prices in the industry. Contact us, and let’s find your niche for your new business.
“We never give up.” – Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba.com
Amazing resilience and determination
The Hard Thing About Being The Boss
I was chatting with my buddy who is the VP of Product at MomentFeed, an online customer experience management platform for multi-location brands, and we talked about The Hard Thing About Hard Things a book by mega-investor and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz.
Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. There are many very tough decisions with no “right” answer. As such, I tell a lot of my clients that entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. To the many up-sides, there are many down-sides that unless entrepreneurship is a calling, can be too much.
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley’s most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, draws on his own story of founding, running, selling, buying, managing, and investing in technology companies to offer essential advice and practical wisdom for navigating the toughest problems business schools don’t cover.
His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise—from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet’s first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, including demoting (or firing) a loyal friend;
whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them;
if it’s OK to hire people from your friend’s company;
how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you;
what to do when smart people are bad employees;
why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one;
whether you should sell your company, and how to do it.
Filled with Horowitz’s trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.
An eye-opening, sobering, and inspiring read. Recommended for anyone interested in business.
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