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Course: Careers > Unit 1
Lesson 6: Advice for entrepreneurs- What advice do you have for someone wanting to be an entrepreneur?
- How do you know if a business idea is worth pursuing?
- How do you prepare yourself mentally to be an entrepreneur?
- How to handle naysayers when starting a business?
- What to think about when taking over an existing business?
- Advice from young entrepreneurs
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What advice do you have for someone wanting to be an entrepreneur?
Sal answers the question "What advice do you have for someone wanting to be an entrepreneur?" as part of its partnership with Bank of America on career and personal finance education (Better Money Habits).
Want to join the conversation?
- Guys, is Sal an entreprnuer? I'm very confused.(5 votes)
- Yes Bro He is(1 vote)
- is sal an entrepreneur(4 votes)
- yes very much so(3 votes)
- Question
How do I finance(3 votes) - Is there anymore information I must know about?(3 votes)
- All Of People get go to colleges And that To get a Job.so when you want a job you have to be hierd and it is not cool(2 votes)
- All Of People get go to colleges And that To get a Job.so when you want a job you have to be hierd and it is not cool(2 votes)
- to start investing(2 votes)
- How can work in home and in school.(2 votes)
- start in vesting in your self(2 votes)
- All Of People get go to colleges And that To get a Job.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- So what advice would I have for someone who wants to be an entrepreneur? So everyone's path is different, so take anything I have to say with a grain of salt. But a lot of folks think
of entrepreneurship as, "Hey, I have a new idea for a business," whether it's a restaurant,
or a new technology company, a new social network,
whatever it might be, and they put a lot of
emphasis on the idea itself. And I think most
entrepreneurs would tell you that a lot more depends
not only on the idea but the execution of the idea, and really just how ready is the world, is the market, for your idea? And so my advice would be, especially if you're early in your career, try to build as many skills as you can, and to be an entrepreneur, you have to be a little bit
of a jack of all trades. So know your finance. Know your accounting. Know your marketing, And you don't have to know
it necessarily academically, but know it intuitively. Pay attention to how
other people are doing it. Think about your strategy. And wherever your area of interest is, if it's to start a restaurant, get to know that business
really, really, really well. Work at a restaurant at all levels. If your goal is to work in tech, work at some tech companies. Get to know that really, really well. Get to know not just the technology, not just the product management, not just the design, but
the sales aspect of it. Get to know the management aspect of it. And the whole time that
you're building yourself up, that you're working in
industry and learning these various skills,
make sure that you have some time to fiddle. The best entrepreneurial ideas
that I've seen are the ones where folks get to know a space well through their craft, and
then they have an idea, and then they're able to have a little bit of time to test out that idea, not only build it, not only prototype it, but put it out there somehow and see how it the market responds. And if the market is
responding very favorably, if people are saying,
"Wow, I want more of this. "How can I get it?" Then I think you're on to something. And all of those skills
that you would have built up over those many years,
not only will they help you execute on the idea, but they'll help you convince other people that you're ready to execute on the idea, which is maybe just as important, potential investors, people that you need to co-found your venture with, and also, my last point is
know what your weak points are. As you experience all of these dimensions of starting a business, if you know that, hey maybe the marketing
isn't my thing, know that. And then you could find
someone who's good at it, who can complement you, if you're like, "Hey, I like the entrepreneurial side, "but scaling up a business
isn't my cup of tea." Find great operators who
can help you scale it up. So that's my two cents. Take it all with a grain of salt.