5 Entrepreneurial Lessons I Wish I'd Figured Out Earlier

So far, 2018 has been a year of so much progress…along with a sizable dose of healthy frustration. Progress, in that we're pushing multiple new brands (including Idea Magnets) to market. Frustration, because it's 2018 and not 2011 or 2012, at the latest.

Here is the ultra-honest admission: I didn't have all the business model stuff and entrepreneurial lessons figured out when I started The Brainzooming Group.

While I'd spent TONS of time and effort on developing our methodology, I thought all the people who told me that they wanted to work with me when I left the corporate world would come running to work with Brainzooming. The rest would be history.

I was wrong.

It's taken until this year to feel like we’re putting important parts of the business model in place, and while that’s great and all, I wish it had happened years ago. Unfortunately, it turns out that it’s entirely possible you might start getting all your ducks (or even just a few important basics) in a row AFTER you’ve jumped into the entrepreneurial pool with both feet.

And, you know, if you keep surviving to do business another day, maybe it's okay if you don't have the entire business model solved immediately.

5 Entrepreneurial Lessons I Wish I'd Figured Out Earlier

While I usually save my entrepreneurial lessons for an annual-ish article, here's a head start on what I’ve learned during the last year about the best advice people have shared with me that I wish I'd fully grasped before starting Brainzooming :

1. The best advice? You have to find opportunities for leverage in your business. Without this type of opportunity, no one will want to invest in it. Without this type of opportunity, YOU should question your own investment in your own business.
2. The next-best advice? Figure out what you can sell to all the visitors to your website that fall outside the target for your main business. Someone pointed out this incredible truism in 2012 or 2013. We’re only now starting to capitalize on it.
3. The best advice after that? You need to have products to sell globally if you hope to generate revenue when you sleep (or even just sit on your ass and do nothing at some point in your life).
4. Then? If you're ultimately going to have something to sell to everyone that comes to your website, you need to engage and reach out to them along the way. It’s a mistake to overlook them until you have products ready for them. Find early opportunities to deliver value to them.
5. Finally? Build your database EARLY. Spend time with your database. Continually explore and learn new ways for your database to shape and grow your business.

Looking at this list, it seems to comprise mainly things that I, as a marketer, should have instinctively known.

Alas, it’s taken time. And there’s still more learning ahead.

I just wanted those of you who more recently made the jump to the entrepreneurial life (and those of you in corporate life who think it sounds great to be your own boss), to know that you don’t have to know everything at once.

Despite what all the gurus say: it takes time, my friend. It takes time to learn the entrepreneurial lessons. – Mike Brown

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