A few years ago, I was like so many other young men, experimenting with different ways of making money and working independently. I tried a lot of different things such as buying and selling cars, internet businesses, stocks, franchises, buying stuff in bulk and selling at my local flea market, real estate, service companies, and various other things. The fun thing about the whole process was that every business opportunity seemed to have endless possibilities, and I never worked on fewer than 5 or 10 ideas at any given time.
This is very common for entrepreneurs. We enjoy creating something new so much that we can’t stop wanting to start new projects. But what you realize after you have been in business for a long time is that you actually achieve more when you just focus on one idea. Do one thing and do it well, instead of having dozens of projects that are all executed in a half-hearted way.
There is a scene from a movie with Billy Crystal called City Slickers from 1991 that sums this up very well, where the old cowboy has found the meaning of life, and it is simple: find that one thing that matters to you and focus on that. The same can be applied to young entrepreneurs: find a business idea that you are truly passionate about and focus entirely on that idea until you have achieved success. My experience tells me that, in most cases, you will have to spend between 2-3 years on each idea until it starts becoming successful.
I know it is more fun to always be starting new business ideas, but if you really want to achieve success, then you have to pick one idea and follow it the whole way through.
Frumkvöðull í meira en 20 ár. Stofnandi 7 fyrirtækja og Frumkvöðlar-samfélagsins. Skrifar um ferðalagið — gott og illt.
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