Best products from r/Entrepreneur

We found 336 comments on r/Entrepreneur discussing the most recommended products. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 1,070 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

Top comments mentioning products on r/Entrepreneur:

u/shaun-m · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I'm trying to be more on the SEO/IM side of things for my own personal affiliate sites so in my opinion, the best way to learn is trial and error. I put a bunch of things online and see how they do and then test and adjust. That being said, I do use a fair few other things to try and boost my knowledge.

YouTube

Steven Bartlett
24 year old owner of a successful social media marketing company in the UK, vlogs his daily life and shares a few nuggets now and then.

Valuetainment
Based on an Iranian immigrant to the USA, not 100% on his back history but the way he talks about the immigrant fire to earn money I am pretty sure he went there with little to nothing in his pocket. Judging by his house, cars and life style he has did very well. He has kind of diluted the channel recently in my opinion though by letting other people make videos for him.

Gary Vaynerchuk
Pretty much owns the entrepreneur vlogging space right now. He seems the type of guy where you either love him or hate him. Personally, I like his no BS approach of giving people reality checks on what it really takes to be an entrepreneur rather than posting photos on Instagram of a nice life.

Podcasts

How I Built This
He basically interviews a bunch of CEO/MD types of massive successful businesses. It's not really a how to type of thing but I enjoy listening to how people got their projects off the ground and I have picked up a fair few things from it.

Indie Hackers
Only recently found thing one but so far so good.

Black Hearted
I'm a bit of a fan boy when it comes to these guys to be honest, they are US military vets who now own a number of successful businesses and they get other vets on the podcast who also own their own businesses and talk about them. Its not just focused on business though but I love the military humor and get it done attitude of them.

Reading

I update this post with all of the books I have read but here are my top picks.

Zero To One
The first book that I couldn't put down until I completed it. Picked a fair few things up from it as well as a bunch of things I hope to move forward with in the future with startups.

The 33 Strategies of War
Not a business book but definitely my style if you take the examples and strategies and turn them into business. This is the second book I have not been able to put down once picking it up.

The E-Myth Revisited
Although I had a decent understanding of how to allocate duties to people depending on their job role this helped me better understand it as well as the importance of doing it.

ReWork
Another book I loved, just introduced me to a bunch of new concepts with a fair few I hope to use in the future.

Black Box Thinking
Coming from and engineering background I was already used to being ok with my failures provided I was learning from them but this book is based around how different industries treat failure and how it is important to accept it and grow from it.

The 50th Law
Currently reading it but so far i'm loving it. Never realized how much crap 50 cent had to go through and I love Robert Greene's work so I can see my classing this as a tier one book.

u/nzadrozny · 27 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Bootstrapped 10 years ago, kept the team tiny until just about 3 years ago. So I know the feeling!

You don't need to do it all. You need to do enough.

You're already on to a good first step: you've got a list of the 'buckets' you're spending your time in. Researching gigs, prospecting leads, emailing with clients, website redesign, social media. Plus, you know, the actual work. (For you: videography; for me: software engineering and operations.)

One sanity check is to accept that you're not going to get everything done. This is not the same as giving up, or lowing the bar, or accepting less for yourself or your business. It's a legitimate forcing function that will help you get organized and working on the right things.

If you can't do it all, then what do you do? How do you decide on what it is the most important?

Start with your buckets. There may be an inherent order of priority to them. I might suggest you start with billing and accounting for work that's been done. You don't want to neglect that, otherwise you just invalidate your hard work. Then there's the actual doing of billable work, which everything else is meant to support. Last, the supporting activities, like marketing.

You have a fixed amount of time in the day. Give each of these buckets a fixed amount of time, and a position on your schedule, relative to their priority. You could spend the first hour sending invoices, receiving payments, doing general bookkeeping and planning. Then your project management, reviewing emails with clients, prioritizing tasks for the day. The rest of the morning, dive in to your billable work. If you don't have billable work at the moment, build a hobby project that you can use for marketing.

After lunch, spend an hour on promotion, then back into a couple hours of work. Closing out the day, another block of communication with clients, then research opportunities and prospect for leads, along with whatever other habit might help you unplug and unwind so you can get some rest and recovery.

So time management is important. You don't have to plan out your day in five-minute increments, but it's good to have some rhythms and rituals. The important part is that you apply some thought to the kinds of tasks you're doing, where they're coming from, and the relative value of those types of tasks and the tasks themselves. You can't control the volume of supporting tasks, so focus on controlling your blocks of time. Limit the unlimited, apply whatever sorting criteria you can, and focus on finishing what you start.

You may not be able to do it all, and you don't need to do it all in order to be successful. You need to do good valuable work for your clients, and enough supporting work to get paid for it, to keep more work coming, and to keep improving the business itself.

I'll wrap up with maybe slightly more prescriptive pieces of advice.

If you don't already have one, you definitely want a bookkeeper and an accountant. Clean books from day one is super valuable. You don't want tax season to be a major time sink. There are plenty of solo or small CPA shops in your area that work with small businesses on a retainer basis. I'd rather spend $500/mo on a bookkeeper+CPA combo than a virtual assistant.

Outsource to software tools as much as possible. This Twitter thread is probably overkill for what you need at your scale. But you may get some good ideas. Software scales really well, you can get a lot done with a $50/mo or (eventually) a $500/mo tool.

If you choose not to use software, and scale with people, make sure that everything is written down and inspected! You should be able to take someone's notes on how they're doing a task, and replicate it yourself. If I was doing one thing differently, this is something I'd do more of. Do a task the first time, document it the second, and by the 10th or 20th time you can think about delegating or designing a system.

Get really good at email. Gmail has a bunch of great tools, get to know them. Commit to inbox zero every day; multiple times a day. Snooze liberally. If it's in the inbox, it's an action item you're working on right now. If it's not actionable, get rid of it. You can skim quickly, but remember, you can't do it all.

If your email back and forth consists of scheduling calls or meetings, stop now and check out Calendly. You need it, or something like it, to take the guesswork out of scheduling.

Your personal productivity is important. Getting Things Done is worth studying, if you haven't already. Check out GTD in 15 minutes for an overview of the book's content.

And last but not least, remember to take time for yourself! You need time away from work to rest and recharge and be a person. That's the wellspring of your creativity and drive to be an entrepreneur and a creator. Nurture it. And have fun!

u/zipadyduda · 14 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Some version of this question gets posted at least once a week. Heres a repost of my normal response.

Recommended reading

Here is my suggested reading list for anyone who ever wants to be a small business owner. I like audiobooks but you can get some of these in print also.

Entrepreneur Mindset

There are several books that talk about the entrepreneur mindset. “Rich Dad Poor Dad” was one of the first that I had encountered. “Four Hour Work Week” is a popular one among young adults and lazy millennials now. But I think this one below sums it up in a relatively fast and easy way. To me there is nothing wrong in this book, but in my opinion it’s a little incomplete and inaccurate and won’t work for some people. It doesn’t say how to switch lanes, or say that you can be in two lanes at the same time. Still, it should be required reading for anyone remotely interested in business. It’s at the top of my list because the correct mindset is required before anyone can think about actually doing business.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-the-Code-to-Wealth-and-Live-Rich-for-a-Lifetime-Audiobook/B0143BEDUO


Business and Marketing

These two combined are basically an MBA in a box and then some. High level practical information. They are long audiobooks that go over the lessons of an MBA program, and the first one also covers a lot of life hacking and mind hacking theories such as how to stay motivated etc. Some of this stuff is very interesting, some if it is boring to slog through. But knowing what is in here will have you well versed to communicate about business at a high level. I have listened to both several times, I keep coming back because it’s a lot and I can’t learn it all at once.

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Critical-Business-Skills-for-Success-Audiobook/B00UY842O8


The E Myth series basically describes how many entrepreneurs fail to implement systems in their business. It has a couple other important business concepts and is geared mainly for beginning entrepreneurs or those who have not yet studied a lot about business at a high level.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Audiobook/B002V1LGZE

Mike Michalowicz, Solid principles, Some are regurgitations of Seth Godin and E-Myth, but some are original and insightful. Not very efficient in delivery of material, seems like he stretches it out. But one of the few business authors who gets into nuts and bolts and not just rah rah. I would highly recommend.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Toilet-Paper-Entrepreneur-Audiobook/B00FKCI3I4

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Pumpkin-Plan-Audiobook/B008CHN41K

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Profit-First-Audiobook/B06X15WX5B

In the world of marketing, Seth Godin is well known as a forward thinker. He has a new perspective of thinking about marketing in the internet age.
Seth Godin Startup School. This is a series of 15 short podcasts, maybe 15 to 20 minutes long each. It’s a good cliff notes version of a lot of his other books.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/seth-godins-startup-school/id566985370

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Purple-Cow-Audiobook/B002V0QOJS

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/All-Marketers-Are-Liars-Audiobook/B002V1NIMI

Gary Vaynerchuk is well known in online entrepreneur forums, especially with a younger audience. He is interesting to listen to and talks at a basic level mostly about social media marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FC0AoARnMLvgFgESJe4_Ngs

This is a link about fashion, but it could just as easily be about any other business. As you read it, substitute the product for your product or widgets and it makes sense.

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

It’s probably not necessary to read this whole book, but it’s widely referenced and it’s important to understand the theory. This guy basically coined the phrase “Lean Startup” to describe businesses that start small and apply the scientific method to determine which direction to grow. Inspired by LEAN Manufacturing methodology made famous by Toyota, but follows similar principles.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898


There are a lot of great posts in reddit. There are a lot of crappy ones too. But worth trolling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/

https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/ (yes it’s spelled wrong)

For example, this post basically has a step by step guide to start a small business.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/5lfy6n/4_years_ago_i_wrote_a_case_study_on_reddit_on_my/

Other links
21 Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters To Shareholders

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/bezos-amazon-shareholder-letters/#2000


E Commerce, Design, Online Marketing
This guy has a very interesting perspective on display tactics.

https://www.nickkolenda.com/

A good source for tactics. Also offers one of the better wordpress themes

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

These guys offer great information and insight in their podcast.

https://ecomcrew.com/episode-1-welcome-to-the-ecom-crew-podcast/

Landing Page Optimization
Important for all businesses even offline, for example with restaurants these principles could help for menu design or digital signage, for other businesses this knowledge can help with advertising layouts etc.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-brand-strategies-uniquely-position-your-ecommerce-above-bhardwaj

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/7-landing-page-design-tips

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

This book discusses platform or marketplace apps, especially networking apps like Uber for x or dating apps. A must read for anyone thinking about attempting any kind of similar online platform.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Platform-Revolution-Audiobook/B01DDX7MJ2

Also

http://andrewchen.co/marketplace-startups-best-essays/

A good page of links

http://www.themissionmarketer.com/digital-marketing-resources/


For Restaurants

http://www.restaurantowner.com

Very valuable stuff here. Business plan templates, etc. $30 a month for a subscription but well worth it if you are starting or running a restaurant.

https://www.restaurantmastering.com

http://www.typsy.com

Not worth the paid membership yet, but it's growing. And you can get a free trial for like a week and binge watch everything.

Dealing with delivery aggregators

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/comments/76sd1i/uber_eats_what_percentage_you_paying_em_anyone/

u/organizedfellow · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

u/IvicaMil · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Been there done that! :D To a certain point. I was always writing a lot, mainly fiction in my native Serbian, but thanks to great illegal cable TV, I did learn English as a kid (I was raised basically bilingual so a bigger switch to a third language wasn't a problem). About six years ago I made a pivot to writing only in English. I started doing content mill freelance stuff, $3 articles and stuff like that - I loved it! It also made me super-fast and allow me to focus on certain topics - mainly tech and gaming. However, being that I'm also a practicing psychologist and counselor, I started thinking about merging these into one product - behold, short books I sell on Amazon.

Now, I'm not exactly rich thanks to it, but it has been growing constantly. I'm also at book no. 4 (which is performing better than expected, which is really great news for otherwise not-that-optimistic-me) but I hope to boost that to five soon enough.

So, my advice would be this: find a topic that you're interested in and start writing - freelance, blogging, whatever you can. Get more knowledgable about it, but also hone the practical skills that will make you a better communicator in your text. Then, figure out how you can turn your insight and skill into a product. I went with Amazon, but plenty of people create their stand-alone book funnel websites, add courses and podcasts to it or speaking engagements, etc. But, you need to start and don't delay if you want to see where it will take you. Good luck!

u/parastat · 13 pointsr/Entrepreneur

You inspire me.

Fellow Vancouverite here (19). I see a lot of myself in you (which is why I'm replying) but in the opposite situation: we always lived comfortably. Either way, that drove me to the same motivation and has since I was little; I've always been an entrepreneur, and I bet you will be too.

Here are a few principles I've compiled over the past 10-ish years of my passion for business:

  • Be great to do great. Put an emphasis on developing yourself and your skills (especially communication and leadership, drive and productivity, and the ability to learn quickly). You can consult all the resources you can, but there's nothing like:
  • Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. By that, I mean sign up for and attend things you wouldn't expect yourself to attend; start a project, invest 100% of your time in it, and think big; do the unconventional.
  • Be fucking audacious. Identify goals, make them visible, and break them. Don't let friends, family, relationships get in the way of what you want and when.
  • Surround yourself with people that push you and reframe your perspective every month. I review often and ask: "who is the one person in my social circle that lights a fire under my butt?" Then I spend more time with that person and seek similar people, and re-evaluate. you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
  • A specific one: don't take a bachelor of commerce. That was my mistake. Technically-skilled people are way more valuable because that teaches you how to create; I did 1.5 years in BComm at UBC and discovered that they only teach you how to take instructions.

    You asked for actual resources:

  • Know yourself: Take a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test and read up on your type, strengths and weaknesses.
  • Also, find a mentor. A 1-to-1 connection with someone you can go to and ask these awesome questions without hesitation is so much more valuable than a Reddit thread.
  • Entrepreneurship: Though I've never had my own startup, Lean Startup changed the way I think about every one of my life endeavours.
  • Economics: I'm studying Economics @ UBC, and the Economist is one of the best publications - period - regardless of discipline. It gets you thinking about problems. And problems are where entrepreneurs thrive.
  • Creating, building, and seizing opportunities: Do a little "design thinking." By that I mean go to Chinatown and walk around the homeless population -- even ask them questions ("I'd love to hear your life story"). When you immerse yourself in the real world with real problems, you start to find solutions you can't think of in your bedroom. Then, scale up. If you have an industry you want to hit, do the same thing. Immerse yourself, learn stories, and find problems.

    I'm missing so much but I have to go. Hit me up if you ever want to chat and I'd love to help you however I can. People like young, ambitious, driven people. So go start talking to people!
u/scarysaturday · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Not to be too pessimistic, but this is the classic end-scenario for most startups that fail -- we've all done it, it's really just a learning experience.

Product built in a vacuum, followed by a "big bang" launch approach to the roaring sound of crickets everywhere.

Ideally, you would have baked your distribution/growth strategy into the app (viral growth strategies work well for social apps), but since that's not the case, check out the book Traction.

In a nutshell, this book states that you should be getting more users as you build the product so you can test with real users as you go (and shows you 19 different traction channels that you can test in parallel).

This book is exactly what you needed 2 months ago!

You're going to need quite a bit of time to build this into a legitimately successful product at this point, hopefully you have some capital to hold you over while you do this.

Best of luck out there!

*
Edit: Tried responding to your reply but something went wrong, so here it is.

> Submitting apps don't work like that.

I've launched mobile apps before - you can definitely test them without submitting them to the store, but that's not the issue here.

> I had to have a fully use-able app on the app store, it can't be half of a product.

Sure, but again the issue isn't that you've submitted to the store it's that you needed to be thinking about how to get users months ago. You can still do it of course, but you'll have to coast for a while hopefully sustaining yourself off capital from somewhere.

> In addition, I had a 30 person beta for the last 4 months, so it's not like I haven't had users using it already.

That's fantastic! I may have jumped the gun on my assumptions there -- sorry. Where did you get these early adopters? Is it more than friends/family?

> Not every app can have distribution/growth strategies baked in, this isn't that kind of application.

That's true, but apps that succeed often do. I took a look at your app (it's very well-designed, did you use Ionic?), just add a simple "Share..." option in the menu in the upper right.

> I appreciate the sentiment but I'm not looking for 19 steps to success.

You absolutely
must** to be willing to learn - nobody is going to hold your hand through this. I know the whole "19 steps to success" thing sounds a bit cheesy, but that book has some of the most incredibly-valuable information for startups I've ever read. It's on par with the lean startup IMO.

> Just some marketing advice for someone with a small budget.

That's covered in the book, and it's more comprehensive than anything anyone can tell you here. To give you a quick primer, just test all the cheaper streams like viral social campaigns, low-cost unconventional PR with flyers, etc. Find one that works, then focus on it exclusively.

u/chance-- · 15 pointsr/Entrepreneur

^(This reply got kinda long, sorry)

> in an ideal world, yeah 50-50 is best, but I thought about it.

50/50 has it's own host of issues. What happens when you need cash? What if one of you wants to make a critical decision but the other objects?

Assuming your bootstrapping the startup, you're going to need money and that likely means one or both of you will need to invest. Do you do it at even levels? Let's say you launch and there's enough interest that you need the dev to start pulling more hours. Does he still need to contribute the same as you?

When it comes to decisions, it's natural to assume that you and your partner could work your way through any disagreement. While that may be true, you'll never really know until it matters. It's easy for a person's priorities to shift after going through the grueling process of launching a startup.

> Where I would come in the picture is at the very end when we launch our project and I would deal with sales/marketing, as these our my strengths and not my friends'.

No. Go read (or re-read) The Lean Startup. If you're wearing the hat as the business guy, then there is so much that you will need to do even before you should consider bothering your friend with this.

Before you approach anyone, you should have already verified your idea through surveys, conversations with potential customers, and any other relevant market research. You should have all of that in an easily digestible document or presentation.

While you're doing the research, you should have, at minimum, a splash page that gives a brief overview of the idea, perhaps an explainer video, and most importantly, a way to capture user interest. Those future leads should be considered metrics on your past tests.

Basically, you want to have everything ready as if you're pitching to a n angel or VC investor. The reason for this is simple: you are pitching to an investor. The only difference is that instead of trading money for capital they're trading sweat, blood, tears, a healthy social life, and a lot of sleep. A fringe benefit of pitching to your potential partners this way is that you'll get great experience pitching in a lot less stressful situation.

Once you get someone to partner up, there's still a lot that you will need to do while your co-founder is coding away. You'll need to continue on with the market research. If you're using the "minimal viable product" approach, you should be the one ultimately responsible for navigating pivots and releases.

You should also be cultivating a pre-release userbase. This means kicking out regular newsletters to anyone that subscribes to your landing page, building rapport with relevant bloggers and reports, and chasing potential leads.

If you're bootstrapped (self-funded) and you wait until you release to do any legwork then you've already put yourself in a situation where you're underwater. You'll have bills, your partner will have spent a fair to insane amount of time building the app/SaaS, and absolutely zero positive cashflow. What's more is you won't know that a market really exists or what price you should charge.

u/smcguinness · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I'm 31 and just started my own company. When I turned 16, I had a profound epiphany about what I wanted to do "when I grew up". That epiphany was I wanted to own my own business. The why, came from the experiences I had since I was 14.


I worked as a delivery guy for two guys who owned a bounce house company. At 15, I was employee 1 at an advertising company. I started in the mailroom stuffing envelopes and I continued to work for that company through college and even a few months after graduating college. I didn't stay in the mailroom though. As I taught myself programming and a little design, I was growing within the company, as they themselves grew in revenue and size. I was getting a front row seat to what it was like to be an entrepreneur and I loved every minute of it; the long hours, the struggles, the doing whatever it takes, carving your own path, etc.


Even though I knew being an entrepreneur was part of my path in life, it has taken me 16 yrs to make that a reality. I have no regrets as I've been able to gain knowledge and experience the entire time. Everything you experience in life can help you in some way on your path to becoming an entrepreneur.


Remember, you can do a lot of good by being an employee too. You have not failed if you don't start a company.

  1. Get a job right now if you don't already have one. Work and understand what work is and build a work ethic. Even better, find a job at a small company, no matter what it is. At most small companies, no matter your role, you get exposed to the entire business.

  2. Meet and speak with entrepreneurs. Check out Meetup.com for events which are going on. You might be limited to not attending the events that are bars, but I've seen plenty of kids your age attending events.

  3. Find a skill and learn it. You might not think it now, but as /u/douglasjdarroch stated, you have a ton more free time to devote to that skill than when you get a full time job. I'm partial to it, but any amount of technology skills will help you with your pursuit.

  4. Culture is huge when it comes to creating a successful company it can be a differentiator.

    Suggested Reading

u/asalib · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

The Four-Hour Workweek seems to spark up a lot of controversy when mentioned, I was even skeptical when reading it, but it honestly changed my life. It inspired me to become an entrepreneur, it's packed with case studies that inspire you to escape 9 to 5, and has plenty of great resources for someone starting their first online business, or for anyone looking to improve their work efficiency and spend less time at the office.

I'm also currently reading:

u/tazzy531 · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

As a senior engineer living in Silicon Valley, I get pitched to all the time by people with "an amazing idea" that nobody has thought of that will change the world. Any engineer worth their weight has heard the same thing left and right.

The fundamental problem is that these "idea guys" think a good idea is all that is needed and the only thing getting in their way of a multibillion dollar valuation is some engineer that won't build this one little thing for them.

The problem is this: successful startup are not just about the idea but also the execution. You've probably heard this all the time how idea is worthless, execution is everything. But what I'm talking about is executing on the business and customer development side. Executing on technology is easy, building a successful business is more than just building the app, it's also about building the business side of the company.

If you follow any of the Lean Startup methodologies, the last step of building a startup is building the product. You don't start building anything until you have paying customers. Prior to that, it's all about Minimally Viable Product to prove a concept. A MVP does not need to be an app; there have been very successful startups that started out with paper mocks as MVP and manual processes as MVP. Even Uber's MVP is a fraction of what it ended up being.

So, I won't laugh you out of the room; I am extremely patient with every pitch that I hear. However, if you want me to take you seriously, bring something to the table. Find me 10 customers that have paid or are willing to buy this product that you are going to release. If you cannot find 10 paying customers* to validate your idea, it tells me a number of things:

  1. You don't have what it takes to do customer and product development
  2. You aren't serious about your idea and are just hoping someone does the work and you can gain
  3. You can't sell
  4. Your idea sucks

    So, my advice if you want to be taken seriously, bring something to the table:

  • money (seed money to pay for the work)
  • network (large number of people in the target market that can be leveraged to succeed)
  • product development - the skill of knowing how to validate an idea, customer development, feature prioritization, vision
  • leadership / experience: proven experience in building and leading a cross functional team tech, sales, product, etc
  • sales: ability to sell anything to anyone

    Honestly, as an engineer, the two groups that are hard to find are good product managers and UX designers. As an engineer, I'm looking for someone to complement my skills. I am looking for someone that can hustle, do customer interviews and market analysis of the target market. Tech is easy, finding the product market fit is hard.

    Anyway, I recommend two books if you are serious about building your concept:

  • Lean Startup - the goal of a startup is to identify customers
  • Founders Dilemma - deep dive into decisions that you should think about in building a startup

  • 10 is arbitrary number, use whatever metric you want. Find me xx users that have this problem that you're trying to solve.
u/-node- · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I would read a handful of books first - I'd highly recommend reading The E-Myth Revisited
and Business Model Generation

As for courses, I wouldn't just stick to one resource to learn these things, but take advantage of free trials like lynda.com, they have super good courses on SEO and Marketing.

There are also thousands of great YouTube videos, articles and blogs which you can follow too. Stanford Business School have many lectures online also.

Trust me, you don't want to rely on one resource for this stuff, build your knowledge from many different places.

Good luck.

u/wes321 · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

The two books I'd recommend are Founders at Work
and Don't Make Me Think . even though this is more on the technical side it's an amazing book about user experience which most entrepreneurs should try to master :)

"Behind the scenes" meaning stories that aren't fabricated to make good TV but to give the viewer a better understanding of what goes on behind a product / website. TED talks are great with that so I'd highly recommend watching these https://www.ted.com/talks?sort=newest&topics%5B%5D=entrepreneur

The more dramatic but easy to keep in the background type shows are

u/drtrave · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Your question is very important. Especially for early stage or even first-time founders, who don't have the right support network yet. There are many more resources like Facebook groups, and youtube channels that you can leverage to learn more about entrepreneurship, specific skills, and industries. Let me know if you're looking for something more specific. I'd be more than happy to give you additional pointers.

 

Here is a list of resources that I found very helpful on my journey:

 

Forums
 

Reddit: I was impressed with the quality and depth that you can get by asking meaningful and targeted questions in the right channels such as r/entrepreneur and r/startups.

 

Podcasts
 

All of the podcasts provide a great learning experience through case studies, founder interviews, and startup pitches. Believe me when I say that whatever challenge you're having someone more experience can very likely help you.

 

  1. Jason Calacanis: this week in startups
     

  2. Tim Ferriss: The Tim Ferriss Show
     

  3. James Altucher: The James Altucher Show

     

    Newsletter
     

    Launch Ticker News: One of the best newsletters out there that captures the latest tech and business news sent to your inbox several times per day.

     

    Blogs
     

  4. Andrew Chen
     

  5. Entrepreneurship Unplugged

     

    Books
     

  6. Roger Fisher: Getting to Yes
     

  7. Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
     

  8. Dan Ariely: Predictably Irrational

  9. Eric Ries: [The Lean Startup] (https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522354359&sr=8-2&keywords=the+lean+startup)

  10. Noam Wasserman: The Founder's Dilemmas
u/Vagabond_B · 12 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I've got a few different unrelated comments.

  1. I am surprised people from Austin have not mentioned this... If you have any passion for food, you could join the ranks of the gourmet food trucks that are downtown. If you've not already tried them, you need to go to the gourmet donut truck downtown. I think it was called "Gourdo's Doughnuts".

  2. As others have mentioned though, successful entrepreneurs do not normally start as people who have money to burn and no ideas. Successful entrepreneurs come from people with no shortage of ideas bootstrapping themselves to success. This is what I am trying to do right now..

  3. A good place to start may be to read or listen to "The $100 Startup", by Chris Guillebeau. Here. This book uses lots of examples to explain how a lot different people started different types of businesses. It also points you toward a lot of good resources.

  4. It sounds like you have just enough money to file a patent.... Yes a full patent can cost about that much depending on lawyer fees. If you were working overseas, my first guess is that you were doing something engineering related... perhaps in manufacturing. Rather than trying to start a business, try to solve a problem. Have you ever wanted something that didn't exist? I found a good approach to generate products is to develop simple solutions to problems that you have. Other people have likely had the same problem and would kindly pay you for an elegant solution. File a provisional patent application (PPA), and then go look for investors. Well, build a prototype, file the PPA, and then go look for investors to get it off the ground. Your $20,000.00 should be more than enough to get through a few design-build phases, especially with resources like protomold, and protolabs

  5. "The $100 Startup" denounces franchises. The short version of their explanation is that they take a lot of your $, make you work for them, and only give you a modest return on your investment.

  6. Join meetup.com and go to a entrepreneur event in Austin, TX. Occasionally,they will have weekend long events where people come together with ideas and money and try to put a business plan and product together. I am yet to attend an event, but I just signed up for Orlando and look forward to my first meet up. Success as an entrepreneur is not required to attend. I think you just have to go ready to work through the night and pitch your business in the morning.

  7. List at things you are remarkable at, and then look at how you can use your skills to help others.

    Hope this helps.

    FSMspeed on your journey.
u/shaansha · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I love the crap out of books. One of life's greatest joys is learning and books are such an excellent way to do it.

Business books you should read:

  • Zero To One by Peter Thiel - Short, awesome ideas and well written.

  • My Startup Life by Ben Casnocha. Ben's a super sharp guy. Learn from him. He started a company in his teens. He was most recently the personal 'body man' for Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn)

  • The Lean Startup by Eric Reis - Fail fast and fail early. Build something, test, get feedback, and refine.

    Non Business Books (That Are Essential To Business

  • Money Master The Game by Tony Robbins - I am a personal finance Nerd Extraordinaire and I thought Tony Robbins was a joke. Boy was I wrong. Hands down the best personal finance book I've ever read. Period.

  • Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Ever seen Gladiator? This is the REAL Roman Emperor behind Russel Crowe's character. This book was his private diary.

  • Man's Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl - Hands down one of the most profound and moving books ever written. Victor was a psychologist and survived the Nazi training camps

    As a way of background I have newsletter where I share proven case studies of successful entrepreneurs. I outline step by step how they made money and got freedom from their day job. If you’re interested let me know and I can PM you the link to the newsletter or if you have any questions.
u/beley · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

First, congratulations! Exciting to be going out on your own.

Getting your contracting license is just the first step to running your own business. There is SO much to know. You may know the contracting field backwards and forwards, but as a business owner you also have to know accounting, bookkeeping, marketing, legal (business formation), management, and more.

While I can't give you any advice about contracting, I've owned a company for more than 17 years. I'd like to suggest a few books I think will really help you on the business/marketing aspects.

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

How to work ON your business, not IN it. Great book on building systems and processes in your business.

Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs

What the numbers really mean. How to read the financial statements and know what they mean to your business.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

The best productivity book out there.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Not as much a book on productivity as it is on priorities, leadership, and purpose. Probably the most impactful book I've ever read... it was given to me at my first job (almost 20 years ago) and I reread it every couple of years.

If you aren't into reading books, at least take some online courses in business, marketing, management, etc. Watch some TED talks. Go to a conference or two.

And be sure to post here and ask questions when you're stumped... lots of really helpful people here in /r/Entrepreneur!

u/freelandshaw · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Hey! Not necessarily a rubric out there but there are certainly best practices to follow. I would recommend the following resources:

"Lean Startup" Eric Ries

"Will it Fly" Pat Flynn

I'd be happy to offer some more details and insights but I believe those are excellent resources starting out. Good luck!

u/tatehenry · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Read this book

The E-Myth teaches that in order to run a successful business you need to fill three roles:

  1. Technician- who does the work
  2. Manager - who sets up systems and focuses on the day to day...at the same time, not losing sight of the overall vision
  3. Visionary - the entrepreneur, the big picture person...the person on top of the tree.

    In order to be successful, you need to be good at all three areas but the problem is that most people are only good at 2/3. Let's say, I can do the work (technician) and have the vision of where I want to be (visionary) BUT I can't focus enough on the plan to see it through...can't break it down to small manageable chunks. That's when I hire or partner with a manager. Someone that sees where you are going and helps you focus on taking care of the small things, so the big things can take care of themselves. I hope this helps because it helped me.

    Source: first generation American with no idea how to start a business in this country. The E Myth definitely made me see things differently. I now own 2 businesses, one has been going for 6 years grossing 15k per month and the other we just launched back in January. The key was to figure out my strengths very early on and delegate the rest either by hiring or establishing a strategic partnership.
u/RedneckBob · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

When I find myself in this position (which I'm currently in after burning 18 months and a big chunk of cash on my last startup only to have it fail), I usually slink off, lick my wounds, do a lot fo reading and then approach my next project feeling a little more educated, refreshed, and ready.

Some suggestions if I may:

u/elsewhereorbust · 15 pointsr/Entrepreneur

OP,
Calm down. Like you say, it was a learning experience and it seems a good one at that.
To everyone else's defence, when you can drop terms like "profit margin," "overhead" and "markup," it doesn't grant you business expertise. Or at the least, it doesn't impress this subreddit.
Instead it makes it sounds like you took a Business 101 class.
More telling was the new phone and business cards. These are, at best, things you need after a first client (proof you have a "business").
But when you started in on Class A shares and Class B non-voting shares, it made me re-read the first paragraph. I'm thinking "Is this guy doing landscaping, or is prep'ing a visit to a VC?"

You've got drive. That's great. And now you have experience -- from one try. Try again. You'll fail again, and that's cool. Especially cool if you try again.
Best to you and whoever you pair up with next. In the meantime, fill in time with a few books like Lean Startup and Rework.

u/gtgug8 · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

If you are really interested in learning to code, go checkout onemonth.com or codeschool.org.

That said, the key to becoming a successful entrepreneur in any new market is finding a problem/or pain point that customers are willing to pay you for. Focus on trying to solve a really big pain point!

Once you find a compelling pain point and have customers who are willing to pre-order, sign a letter of intent, or a purchase order. Take your company vision and start selling that vision and your early traction to people who can build your product.

So much of being successful in this game is being able to 1. solve a real problem, 2. inspire others (sell) to join you.

With regards to your major etc. I'd suggest going to work for a startup for a little while. Even for free as an intern. Find a company that you think has great leadership that you can learn from.

Go work there and hustle your face off. Create as much value as you can. This experience will help you learn what you really want to do and you'll find out what skills you need to build your own company and what skills you need in others.

It will also help you find other oportunities outside of the tech field. There are TONS of opportunities outside of "tech".

My favorite example of this is a company in Santa Barbara that came out of UCSB's life science lab called Apeel Sciences. It is science-based and technical but it's not a software company or app and it is going to literally change world.

There are some pretty big problems out there that need to be solved. Find an area you are passionate about, and go solve something really hard.

Books for you to checkout:

Traction By Justin Mares Great book on marketing

The Entrepreneurs Guide To Customer Development This will give you the low down on market validation, how to search for a problem to solve.


Hope this helps:)

u/BionicSwan · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Read this https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 to see if it´s still a good idea for you. Do your research for your target market before jumping all in.

Start marketing asap: A website and building your online presence is a must. This one is a good one for one on one service: https://microbusinessapp.com or if you plan on selling a bunch of stuff online then https://www.shopify.com/ is good for selling a lot of stuff for shipping.

Use social media to start getting your brand name out there and just letting family and friends know you´re serious about starting your business they will help you get your name out there.

Use services that will help you automate your business where you may lack the skills: Some people use https://www.fiverr.com/ and the like to help when money is tight.

Have patience, be adaptable, roll with the punches and have fun!

Best of wishes on your new adventure!!

u/Weaponry · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Hello everyone, and happy Thank you Thursday for May 23 of 2019

I don't have much to offer, but what I do have, I will happily share with you:

Wrote a book, and just made the digital version free for everyone on Amazon if anyone is interest in reading it, it's called The Marine Memoirs: https://www.amazon.com/Marine-Memoirs-Hundred-Eighty-Afghanistan-ebook/dp/B003QHZ496

Oh, and I have $0.01 starter auctions each week for different items that my companies sells in case you're interested in checking those out as well: https://secondamendmentuniversity.com/echo-shopping-link/

u/ProdPicks · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Tim Ferris has a lot of good information in The 4-hour Work Week on exactly this subject. I am re-listening to it right now on audio book, it is a good one.

To paraphrase, he says something along these lines:

On email: keep it brief and to the point, let the person know who you are and what you are trying to do. Ask one or two questions that would help you the most at the time, and then ask if they would be willing to keep dialogue open for the occasional 1-2 questions. Never mention mentoring or anything along those lines.

Phone: Very similar to above, have questions prepared and ask permission to ask them. Then after, ask if he/she would be willing to answer the occasional question over email.

Your best bet is to find many (10-20) people that you look up to and ask all of them. This increases your odds of finding someone to help you out. Never be dishonest or misrepresent your intent, they are helping you after all.

Good luck, and check out that book, I know a lot of people on /r/entrepreneur have enjoyed it.

u/mescalito2 · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I love this part "My principle market are people who don't like the idea of drinking energy drinks, but may feel low on energy on occasion" as I felt identify with you product.
I can see the market is crowded so you need to a differentiation to make your product more attractive.
What ideas do you have to show your product in front of consumers eyes balls?
My advice is to build your marketing strategy before spending time in technology. I'm also a CS with management/strategy skills and after many years on this business I came to realized that marketing is key.
I advice you to read The Lean StartUp: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898
Good luck! let me know if u want/need advice, I'll be happy to help ;)

u/techsin101 · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I'm in same position as you, and would love to know if you're open to partnering up but to answer the question I've found the following very useful so far.

  • Learning to launch

  • Getting Real

  • 90 days to profit

  • 7 day startup

  • lean startup

    there are more but these are what i've read so far and liked.

    Main points I've learned...

  • Build nothing, or as little as possible. Think of vision, say craigslist, don't build it. Build stairs to it, dig a path to it. Start weekly email letter with website as complementary to save emails. Grow from there.

  • If it's b2b, do selling first, nail down how to approach, who to approach, what to sell, for how much, get 5 people signed up before writing a line of code. Free or not, get people on board.

  • prioritize speed and delivery over all coding standards, security standards, and over everything else.

u/rehehe · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

As someone who has done this over the past few years, my two pieces of advice for your next steps are (skipping accounting as I assume you have that covered!) ...

  1. Don't write native iPad/iPhone apps. Write a web application that works on iPad, iPhone, Android, PC. Sell it to businesses on a subscription basis. Businesses make rational buying decisions, you'll ideally displace something they are already paying for, they are easier to market to and you can build up relationships. By writing a web app you aren't dealing with the app store, free apps, publication woes, limiting your supported devices and the expectations consumers have around stupidly low app pricing.
  2. As it sounds like you may have some assets worth protecting, setup an entity with liability protect from the start. This includes a bank account, etc. I picked an LLC as it is easy to create, easy to manage, I wasn't going to be taking on investors in the short term and could still elect to be taxed as an S-Corp. I didn't use my lawyer - we talked about it over lunch, but with a single member LLCs it was so simple to setup it wasn't worth getting him to do it (I know there are lots of Reddit lawyers who disagree and feel only they can fill in the few bits of paperwork correctly!)

    As for books to read. I found Founders at Work the most motivating as you realize how many different paths to success there are.

    Good luck!
u/more_lemons · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Start With Why [Simon Sinek]

48 Laws of Power [Robert Greene] (33 Strategies of War, Art of Seduction)

The 50th Law [Curtis James Jackson]

Tipping Point:How Little Things Can Make a Difference and Outliers: The story of Succes [Malcolm Gladwell]

The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy [Ryan Holiday] (stoicism)

[Tim Ferris] (actually haven't read any of his books, but seems to know a way to use social media, podcast, youtube)

Get an understanding to finance, economics, marketing, investing [Graham, Buffet], philosophy [Jordan Peterson]

I like to think us/you/business is about personal development, consciousness, observing recognizable patterns in human behavior and historical significance. It's an understanding of vast areas of subjects that connect and intertwine then returns back to the first book you’ve read (Start with Why) and learn what you've read past to present. Business is spectacular, so is golf.



To Add:

Irrationally Predictable:The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions - [Dan Ariely] (marketing)

The Hard Things About Hard Things - [Ben Horowitz] (business management)

Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It - [Charlamagne Tha God] (motivation)

The Lean Startup: Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - [Eric Ries]

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, How to Build the Future - [Peter Theil]

u/itsorange · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I think the trick is to read the book and allow the book to inspire you to create ideas for yourself. For example, I read "The E-Myth" which is somewhat crap if taken too seriously. But, it gets the ball rolling in my head and then I think of good ideas for making my own business better. I've also gain inspiration from "Influence, the science of persuasion."

As with any self help book, the value is in the inspiration. You have to come up with the idea then execute it. Ideas are easy, putting them into action is a pain.

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Revised-Edition/dp/006124189X

http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

u/shupack · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

make sure everyone knows that you are the first and the best (politely)

"the original jonwondering adjustable bench!"

imitation is flattery, even if it does cut into your profits. just be better than the copy-cat. Be careful to build a business, not a job ( one of my failings). I highly recommend The E Myth, I read it too late to save my first business, next will be better.

u/analogdude · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Some would say I read too much, but I really enjoyed:

founders at work: Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company. (This is one of my favorite books ever!)

the art of the start:Kawasaki provides readers with GIST-Great Ideas for Starting Things-including his field-tested insider's techniques for bootstrapping, branding, networking, recruiting, pitching, rainmaking, and, most important in this fickle consumer climate, building buzz.

the innovator's dilemma: Focusing on “disruptive technology,” Christensen shows why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, The Innovator’s Dilemma presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.



And in terms of getting your life together to the point where you are responsible enough to lead others, I would highly suggest Getting Things Done by David Allen

u/msupr · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Had this list together from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but these are my favorite books and I'd recommend everybody read them all. There are other great books out there, but this is a pretty well rounded list that touches everything a company needs.

The Lean Startup https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

Business Model Generation https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788

Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-customers-ebook/dp/B00NSUEUL4

Predictable Revenue https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

To Sell is Human https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905

Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

Delivering Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

u/zeltrine · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

This is amazing and fascinating! If you enjoyed Habits, you def enjoy this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Business-Essentials/dp/006124189X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382039584&sr=8-1&keywords=influence

Just a tiny note, I recommend using the color blue for "FOR" in Miracles For Mommy, only because I read it first as "Miracles Mommy" because the green letters blended in with the circle vine.

Maybe one day we'll see you on Shark Tank? That would be really cool.

u/wildpixelmarketing · 17 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Former virtual assistant here wanting to put in my two cents from the internal side.

>Think of a task you need to do for your business, but you don’t have the time, or the knowledge on how to properly execute it.

Yes and no. You should have a general idea of how the task should be done.

For example, if you have no idea how to write a blog post, you should make an attempt to learn the basics of how to write a blog post before hiring someone to do it for you.

That way, you know the type of voice you're going for, what type of content your business puts out (authority/expert type? gathering info and presenting it? opinion piece?), the format, and relay that information to your contractor.

You can't delegate it if you don't know what you're looking for. You also won't know if the end product will be effective.

You don't need to know how to do it exactly or even how to execute it, but you should know the basics of what you're asking for.

> I have seen many freelancers in the Philippines charging up to US$50 per hour to manage an Instagram account. That’s a lot of money for such a task. Try to figure out what is the hourly rate in the country where you are hiring... This will help you to estimate the budget you can allocate on a task.

I don't get out of bed for less than $45/hour as a virtual assistant and a lot of people will balk at that price.

Here's what my former clients got at $45/hour:

  • Text me. I'll respond within 15 minutes during my office hours.
  • Keeping up with industry trends, obsessively go through your analytics, refine your strategies, and reinvest what you're paying me into courses/books/knowledge to expand how I can help you (for example, instead of just scheduling your posts, I may pick up graphic design, photography, copywriting, ads, etc. to expand my skill sets).
  • Minimal management. You don't even need to ask me to update you monthly on your social media progress. I'll have a small powerpoint presentation with analytics, charts, and screenshots, detailing where you are, where you're projected to go, and how it aligns with your marketing goals. I'll also explain it in plain English instead of industry jargon. This will be pre-recorded so you can watch it at your leisure.
  • Note - this isn't specific to me. I speak for a lot of USA based VA's I've known who charge a similar rate.

    Or, you can pay someone in India $10/hour to schedule your Instagram account, but good luck getting that VA to go above and beyond at that rate.


    >Use a "hidden word"

    On my end, when applications have these "hidden word" things, it screams inefficiency to me. You are REALLY going to base my ability to perform my tasks on whether I can I spy with my little eye a single word in your wall of text?

    Here's a more accurate way to do it:

  • List the task and ask the VA for their process.
  • Tell the VA a problem that you've faced (and solved) in your business and ask them to solve the problem in their cover letter.

    Here's an example: I recently hired a project manager/assistant to keep me on task with my clients. My clients text/email/call/etc. and I needed someone to organize and schedule my tasks out through Asana (a project management type of app) in an organized fashion because it's so tedious to do it myself.

    I asked the following two questions:

  1. When would you use "Boards" in Asana and when would you use "Lists" in Asana? (Their response shows me their ability to think on their own, without needing me to hold their hand through how to do everything. People who are intimidated by the need for self-thinking will not answer this question and just not bother applying).
  2. I need you to export my Toggl timesheet in PDF format so I know how much time I'm spending on each client. You log in, try to export the PDF file, but every time you try to open it, it says the file is corrupted. What do you do? (At this point, MOST entry-level virtual assistants give up and just say "hey the file is corrupted, what do I do?" which I do NOT want. I want someone who has the ability to GOOGLE and problem solve).

    That being said, this advice will not work for everyone.

    Your ability to teach, delegate, or pay, will impact your relationship with your virtual assistant. If you have money but no time, go high-end and hire an expert VA at $35/hour or higher.

    If you have time but no money, hire an entry-level/foreign assistant and take the time to train them.

    I'm currently transitioning out of being a VA to start a digital marketing agency. I am now hiring my own team of virtual assistants to help me. Here's what I've learned from the hiring end:

  • Be prepared to train if you're not prepared to pay. Read The E-Myth (not an affiliate link).
    A lot of businesses fail in hiring because they want to hire someone to solve a problem they can't solve themselves. $10/hour virtual assistants are ENTRY LEVEL and will need a lot of hand-holding and training. You can absolutely go this route if your budget is low or you have a lot of time to train (or have processes at the ready) but in my experience, few business owners have been organized or patient enough to train someone entry-level.
    Within 6 months, they usually fire the entry-level assistant in favor of a more high-end one.
    The other thing is... if you got a "good one" who can handle their own at the lower rate, get ready to have people try to snatch your assistant for $12/hour or $15/hour or be forced to match a competitor's rate.
  • Hire for culture over ability.
    However, what isn't replaceable and what is difficult to teach is culture and work ethic.
    I personally work with entry-level VA's due to lack of budget (I have more time than money) - but I hire VA's whose visions and lifestyles align with mine.
    For example, I am starting a digital marketing agency. I DO NOT want to hire entry-level virtual assistants who are digital marketer wannabes because they'll just work for me for a few months, gut me for all my knowledge, and take what they learned from me to compete with me.
    Fuck that.
    Instead, I hire people who have a full-time job, or children, or family obligations, and are seeking "side income" NOT full-time hours. They are happy with entry-level $15-$25/hour pay and they have no intentions to eventually compete. I've noticed they're usually easier to work with because they're not constantly looking for more/higher-paying clients and they aren't burnt out from the industry.
    Ultimately, I am working with a niche group of people (spiritualists, cannabis entrepreneurs, sexual empowerment coaches, zero waste/environmental coaches, etc.) so the people I hire MUST have a current interest in those subjects. I can freakin pay for a $29 Instagram course in Udemy or give them my Skillshare login to teach them Instagram but I can't teach them to care about our clients.

    (Note: I'm not saying hire people who are absolute newbies with no experience. You can hire a mom who has a huge Instagram following to manage your Instagram account for $15/hour and then send her to take a Udemy course to refine her marketing skills in Instagram. You can hire a college student who wants to be a scientist but codes websites on the side, to help you manage your clients' Wordpress websites).

    I know this was super long-winded... Just wanted to give a perspective from a former virtual assistant who now works with virtual assistants.
u/ninjaboarder · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Jordan Belfort's straight line persuasion is on point if you can get your hands on it. If not read up on persuasion. Persuasion is viewed in a negative light but it really can be a GOOD thing. By you persuading a business to buy a website from you, you are essentially helping them STAY in business :) Just don't use the techniques to sell things to people that don't need things or genuinely can't afford them. This will be an objection you receive a lot of times (i've heard it many times) but it is your job as a salesman to paint the picture for them. Create a vision by explaining how they can't afford not to update their website if they want to survive in our competitive market. http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1420640816&sr=8-5&keywords=persuasion this is a great book i'm starting to dig into and it's cheap!

u/alucardus · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

My advice is just start by making a prototype. Do as much as you can by yourself. Then learn what you don't know. You can go to sites like odesk and elance and hire people to do what you can't learn. With 3d printing and other new technology its surprisingly cheap to create a fairly advanced prototype without the aid of a large factory, engineers, or thousands of dollars. Even if it takes you a year to get a prototype assembled your chance of finding investors will go way up having something to show them beyond sketches and ideas.

While your doing this take some time and learn how entrepreneurship works. There are tons of amazing free information out there in the form of blogs, podcasts and ebooks.

Some books that really helped me out when I started learning were $100 startup and The lean Startup. $100 Startup really helped me see what is possible and expand my view of how you can make money. Lean Startup taught me how to test those ideas.

u/crooning · 10 pointsr/Entrepreneur
  1. You don't need a co-founder. Your age doesn't matter for many markets.

  2. Identify a pain point that a group of people have, and think of a way to solve that problem.

  3. Read this: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

  4. From the article above, it mentions to do things manually. Throw up a free landing page on Squarespace or Wordpress or any other free page hoster. Use Google Docs and Zaiper and WooForms, free tools, to glue your service together. Use free tools from here: https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-a-saas-with-0-fed2341078c8 Make it so your idea just barely works, and it delivers value to your target customer. This is your MVP.

  5. Validate your idea. Hit the pavement. Grind. Look for your customers. Tell them about your solution. Ask if it fixes their problem. Will they pay for it? Why? Why not?

  6. Rinse and repeat until you start getting users, making money and are growing. Don't fall in love with an idea. Start delivering value.

    You don't need a VC. You don't need co-founders. Just get started and do something. Anything. Bootstrap from the ground up. Failure is the best teacher. Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.

    Oh yeah, and read books and blogs on digital marketing while doing all this. Once you get the ball rolling, marketing is what you will want to spend the most time on. This is a classic book on how many startups first successfully marketed their services and got their users: https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369
u/dcosta_chris · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I love "How they did it" stories. They are so inspiring and as an entrepreneur myself, they remind me to keep pushing even when times are hard.

A couple of resources you could use (and I recommend that every current and future entrepreneur takes a look at)

  1. The book Founders at Work --- The stories of how the Paypal co-founder foound himself passed out on the floor on the day of the big launch and so many others like these were SUPER INSPIRING

  2. A YouTube channel called This Week in Startups --- Jason Calacanis has interviewed almost every founder of every tech startup in the last 10 years. I watch this show a couple of times a week and I have always learned something that I could use in my own startup
u/dutkas · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Couple Suggestions:

  1. Shopify https://www.shopify.com/blog/15153597-5-strategies-to-validate-your-product-ideas

    I love shopify regardless if you do e-commerce or not. Really great content and tons of value highly recommend. The article i linked is but one of many good ones.

  2. Lean Startup by Eric Ries. http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898

    He talks a lot about Product Market Fit (PMF) and how to get there asap for entrepreneurs. I'd recommend at least checking out some youtube videos about PMF and other variations of the idea as far as validating your idea/approach.

u/luciddreamr · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I would suggest finding a technical co-founder to partner with. Start with your local community and search for high-tech entrepreneurial events. http://www.meetup.com is a great place to find events.

I would also suggest implementing the lean, minimal viable product (MVP) approach created by Eric Ries. The process is an experimentation in order to test your hypothesis with an MVP.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898

Alternatively, you could rent the book from your local library or check out his lean methodology in this interview:

http://www.entrepreneuronfire.com/podcast/eric-ries-interview-of-the-lean-start-up-with-john-lee-dumas-of-entrepreneur-on-fire/

If your idea is as great as you think, it should not be difficult finding a technical co-founder who can envision it! Good luck to you!

u/StartupStorey · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Expand the amount of sales from your website - make that 10% an even bigger amount.
10% is already a good start to gain sales from online sources!

3) Getting into business with a builder/real estate developer is also another brilliant idea. Make sure you have the capability to handle a large amount of doors (includes inventory, shipping and transportation costs which may dilute your profit margin, not to mention the additional labour costs needed for installation).

(Learn how to build a business: The Strawberry Startup)

u/zipiddydooda · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

48 Laws of Power would be a great starting point.

You may also find some value in the likes of The Game for learning charisma and attractiveness. There's also a [pretty incredible TV series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pickup_Artist_(TV_series) about the same topic. This scene is/was full of douchebags of course, but there are lessons here to be learned.

What Every Body is Saying for mastery of body language. This WILL change the way you interact with others, as you start to read what they are doing as they do it and respond accordingly.

The granddaddy of persuasion is Influence. I am reading this for the third time right now and it is just packed with powerful tools you can use in business and in life.

Oh it should go without saying that How To Win Friends and Influence People is essential reading for any entrepreneur. I use lessons I learned from this book every time I deal with an unhappy client or contractor.

u/kristapsmors · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I agree about the book - http://www.amazon.com/The-Hard-Thing-About-Things/dp/0062273205 - best one I've read about startups.

This one is good as well to improve sales: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/006124189X?pc_redir=1408025460&robot_redir=1

For fun stuff check out http://www.startupvitamins.com - you can get posters, mugs, etc., their "Get Shit Done" mug is the most popular item.

u/treysmith · 6 pointsr/Entrepreneur

No problem, glad you enjoyed it.

If you are interested in game design, read The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schnell. At least skim it. It's great and gets deep into the emotion and psychology of game design.

For business stuff, I got a lot of input from the classic E-Myth Revisited. I won't say it didn't get boring, but the actual point of it (systematize EVERYTHING) is a really important concept to learn. That changed the way I do things and now we have systems for everything in the company.

Read Crossing the Chasm when you start getting traction. It's a very important book that answered a lot of questions for me.

Right now I'm reading Behind the Cloud by Benioff, and man, this book is also great. I had no clue they used a lot of fairly controversial tactics to get press and traction. It's a good read.

u/tonyf007 · 0 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Try reading The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime Really good book. There's more to wealth creation than most conventional financial advice will tell you.

u/htylim · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Glad you like it. I have one more comment that I feel I need to do.

If you'll end up reconsidering this idea try something else but try something.

There is nothing more valuable than one's own experience. And you never really fail if you learn and evolve from each experience.

The best recommendation that I feel I can give you is to try things and learn as fast as you can. And as we are on that subject check The Lean Startup:.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/

Cheers!

u/Bewtstraps · 4 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Steve Blank's The Startup Owner's Manual is pretty darn good in my opinion.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-By-Step/dp/0984999302

Soon though I hope you'll be able to use our product at http://bootstra.ps

If you want to sign up to get a notification when we go live we would love to hear how your experience is trying to make this happen. Our primary goal is to try to help lower the barriers to entry for others into entrepreneurship.

u/cronofdoom · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Willpower Doesn't Work

Just burned through this newly released really helping me gain a different perspective on how to make real effective change in my life. It is working too!

The Four Hour Workweek

This book honestly changed my life. I read it at a real personal tipping point and it helped me drastically change my life. It helped me get the courage to start my own business, define my real worst case scenarios, define what I really want with my life, and how to help myself remove myself from the equation of making money. I also learned about the pareto principle 80/20, and how to make it work for you like firing the customers that take up 80% of your time but give you 10% of your revenue type of people, and focusing on the 20% of customers that provide 80% of your revenue. Applying this all throughout my life has been amazing.

Getting Things Done

Really freaking good productivity processes book.

Think and Grow Rich

$0.49 on kindle? just go buy it if you haven't already. This book is a gem.

u/juneaumetoo · 9 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Read like your life depends on it. All topics. Grow yourself.

Also, a couple that I found useful around the concept of building a business (rather than being self employed):

u/nozipp · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

For books: I always recommend the E-Myth Revisited. It's from a guy who studied thousands of businesses and shares what makes businesses fail or thrive. Very good short read.

For Courses: I try to keep up with the Stanford University Business online lectures. The eCorner has some great lectures from successful entrepreneurs.

For Podcasts: I listen to This Week in Startups Podcast. It's more aimed at Silicon Valley, but there are some good guests like Chris Sacca or Gil Penchina.

u/acamu5 · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

The Millionaire Fastlane. I'm sure most people will agree that this is the best book available as entry into the world of Online Marketing. Anything by Gary V is also fantastic.

u/lanylover · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

This post is spot on. I feel like this kind of behavior is often overlooked in the community. Headlining these kind of excuses is a very common "anxiety of finishing things" (there is probably a psychological term for this that I don't know) that goes along with perfectionism.

What also comes into play is a theory from "The E-Myth Revisited" (big recommendation btw), where it says that many entrepreneurs are in fact technicians who love the work they do instead the act of running a business. As a technician from the graphics department you will love reading for hours about the perfect logo for your company and how to create it. What you need to do instead is think like a manager and pick any good logo real quick and launch.
So if you ever get lost in reading to much about stuff instead of doing it, ask yourself: "Is this technician in me? What would the manger do?". Do this over and over and eventually you will learn to act like the manager more than like the technician.

Now I'm asking myself if there are any reports of failed businesses because any of those excuses were actually true? Does anybody know any business that failed, because the owner wasn't passionate about it or because the market was already saturated but the owner didn't notice beforehand?

u/Squagem · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

First, break it down into the 2 different problems:

  1. Making people like your brand.
  2. Making people aware of your brand.

    You can have a customer base of 1 and still have that person like your brand.

    Then, you're left with solving them independently, which is of course not trivial.

    For solving Problem #1...I'd look at others in your industry and try to translate the principles they're using in their messaging into your own brand, test it, learn, and iterate.

    For solving Problem #2...Well, you have to get better at marketing frankly. Such a broad topic, it'd be hard to tackle here, but the best book I've found for this so far is Traction. It's a start!
u/ryosua · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

My recommendation is to start by reading The Lean Startup. Then try to validate the idea with preorders. Getting people to pay you before you start developing it is the safest way to validate your idea. The next best thing is to build a list of emails.

u/GLIDRPilotJim · 11 pointsr/Entrepreneur

you don't need a business school to experience the core of this class ...

Here's a link to Steve Blank's HBR article on The Lean Startup. Also a series of free lectures that Steve Blank put up on  Udacity, called "How to Build a Startup" a course that over 500,000 people have viewed.    These lectures are supported by a book that Steve Blank wrote with Bob Dorf called The Startup Owners Manual, as well as a best selling business book by Alexander Osterwalder called  Business Model Generation. You may also want to see Alexander's other book, Value Proposition Design for more input/insight.

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I highly suggest "The Millionaire Fastlane" by MJ Demarco.

Amazon link here: http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-Wealth-Lifetime/dp/0984358102/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303851365&sr=1-1

He made his money in entrepreneurship and wrote this book because he is passionate about helping others achieve the success he worked so hard for. This is NOT a fluff book. Check out the amount of 5 star reviews it has received.

If you want to know a little more about the author, you can check out his mixergy.com interview here...http://mixergy.com/mj-demarco-limos-interview/

u/matters123456 · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

This question is so hard to answer because you could write whole books on the subject.

My first recommendation would be something that pays you more than unemployment. Second, spend some time reading books about shoestring entrepreneurism: A really popular book is the The $100 Startup. A lot of people don't actually like the book, but it will answer your questions fully and the author is a smart guy (and a great marketer).

u/Franks2000inchTV · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Founders at Work is a great read. It's first-person stories from people who founded great companies.

http://www.foundersatwork.com/

Edit to add amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Problem-Solution/dp/1430210788

u/mikeyouse · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur
u/trobrock · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Upwork is a great place to start to sell your CAD skills as a freelancer, either to get cash flow to support your future plans or to be your primary source of income.

As far as resources goes on the how to start something. I found "The Startup Owner's Manual" (https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Step-Step-Building-Company/dp/0984999302/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1518503563&sr=8-2&keywords=startup+handbook) and "Business Model Generation" (https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417) both have very boring titles, but great content and guided both myself and my co-founder down the road of finding our business idea and launching it. We are now a $5M a year business.

u/MetaCanvas · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Besides Lean startup, I would go for:

Business Model Generation - to layout your ideas first and have a feeling of your to be business model (on their site you can get a sneak peek for free https://strategyzer.com/books/business-model-generation)

The startup owner's manual, from Steve Blank (https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Step-Step-Building-Company/dp/0984999302)

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: (https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284)


good luck

u/mruck05 · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

You don't need to have a lot of money to start your business. What you need as was already mentioned is the right mindset and a solution to a problem that people are willing to pay for. I love some of these websites and books and recommend giving them a look.

Smart Passive Income

Tropical MBA

The Lean Startup

Tim Ferriss' 4-hour Work Week

The Suitcase Entrepreneur

$100 Startup

u/emojibator · 85 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Boooom. I sell eggplant emoji vibrators: emojibator.com.

I built this in my spare time in about 30 hours and now run the business part time.

Read books. Have a idea, plan a budget, and run with it. You can figure out things along the way. Google is your friend. Be a sponge and learn everything you can.

I don't believe there's something as truly passive income, but you can get maximum output from tiny input. Lots of great books out there, one of my favs is Tim Ferriss' 4-hour work week, you can listen to his podcast to start.

u/rawrhisspurr · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Recently finished a book called Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth, and each chapter is dedicated to the marketing channels in your chart. Your chart is a nice summation of the book's overall goal outline, highly recommend checking Traction out!

u/sunilshenoy · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Hi, Do check out brightpod for managing your projects. It's a new project management software and is really easy to use. We have been using it since 2 months now and really like how simple it is to use.

Two good book to read would be The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It and The E-Myth Manager: Why Management Doesn't Work - and What to Do About It