Hey everyone!
It’s Good Friday! Starting today, every Friday I want to do something DIFFERENT with this letter.
Just something totally random, not a traditional letter, traditional is boring.
I think “New Format Friday” will help people learn, and teach in a way that sticks with people.
The idea I had for today is this….
—> Here’s everything I know about business and making money, typed out “flow of consciousness” style.
*for those wondering why you should care, my businesses have generated nearly $50,000,000 in revenue in the past 36 months*
Most of your “daily grind” doesn’t matter
You can make one investment that will outperform your entire company if you research it hard enough
Autopilot is real, and attainable (paradoxically, through many 15 hour days)
There’s a reason there are “venture capitalists” (starting a business is hard)
Within the first 18 months of your business the company will either fail or outrun 99.99999% of your competition.
A good product IS NOT everything. It helps.
Advertising and SALES are the engine of your business.
If it doesn’t seem like a business is advertising much, it’s because they are really good at it.
A great salesman won’t even be labeled “salesman” (cough cough Elon Musk)
Income is 100% NOT RELATED to time OR effort (after the first 18 months)
One great hire can replace 40 average workers
You should never, ever, hire friends
Getting a great business partner is a 1/1,000 chance.
99.9% of people should NOT get a business partner.
50% of a million dollar company is better than 100% of a thousand dollar company.
Zero interest credit cards are the quickest way for most people to get “start-up capital”. (plus it motivates you to scale before the 12 months are up)
“I have an idea” is literally worthless and if you say it to an entrepreneur they will instantly tune out.
“I just want to pick your brain” is equally bad.
No one has it all figured out.
Billionaires are still just pretending to know what the heck is going on.
The bigger your company, the more people are slacking off.
“Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the results”
Keeping cash on your balance sheet is a liability not an asset.
Everything is saturated.
Everything has fierce competition.
New, innovative ideas are more unique than unicorns. Most success is playing off an existing idea and executing better.
Execution is all that matters. Talk is cheap.
It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have. Gear is a distraction.
You’re better off playing to your strengths and finding a way to be profitable doing things that don’t make you hate your life (after the first 18 months, everything will suck during the first 18 months)
Your friends probably give crappy advice.
So do your parents.
If you hang around with people who make less money than you too much, you won’t make as much money (this one sucks but it’s true)
One conversation with the right person can literally be worth $1,000,000.
Most conversations, 99.999% of them, are a waste of your time business wise.
Stop doing group meetings. Just stop.
Real intelligence is demonstrated by your ability to clearly articulate your thoughts through text.
You should be able to hire and vet people solely through email.
Hire fast and fire faster.
Give people a one month trial, and then boot them if they don’t blow your mind.
The first $1,000 is indeed the hardest.
You can take billions of dollars off this planet and no one will even notice.
Money is a mindset.
“Opposite day” is a Seinfeld Episode, but probably how you should live your whole life.
If you care what people think about you you should do everything in your power to expunge that feeling. It’s one of the costliest emotions and hurts your ability to generate wealth.
Business is a marathon with no ending. Eventually every racer gets tired. If you just keep running you will win, period.
Pick a race you can run for the long term.
But that’s really hard, so better yet, just start running a race.
If it doesn’t work out, you can change directions and start running another one.
“Pivot” should be one of your favorite words.
“Asymmetric” IS my favorite word.
Asymmetric as in, DISPROPORTIONAL, not UNIFORM, not EQUAL.
Your decisions are not PROPORTIONAL in WEIGHT or MEANING. Some are VASTLY more important than others.
Your RESULTS are not the result of a proportional amount of effort. They are the result of an ASYMMETRIC FEW CONCENTRATED PIECES OF EFFORT.
1% of EVERYTHING controls 99% of EVERYTHING ELSE.
Once you truly understand this, your ability to generate wealth may become that of the “1%” which seems absolutely beautiful when you think about it.
Hope you enjoyed this, subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s “New Format Friday”.
Also going to be writing some incredible stuff on Monday and Tuesday of next week, so you won’t want to miss that.
See you soon.
Kale
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