Entrepreneurs – Build, Thrive/Fail, Learn

Dear entrepreneurs,

I’m sorry to break your heart this time but you really need to hear the truth. If you have been following me well, you’d realize that I don’t do motivations. I have gone beyond that stage so if you’re new to this space, you might as well not need this piece of advice. I wrote a piece sometimes that there are three stages in entrepreneurship.

1. Motivation
2. Process
3. Scaling

So, if you’re just starting as an entrepreneur, I’d recommend you listen to a lot of motivation and you can go learn from motivational speakers. However, this is for those in the next phase and I believe I already have a lot of students here which is fine. Besides, this does not only apply to entrepreneurs but employees and other professions. However, it is more specific to entrepreneurs because those are who I have chosen to lead.

I want to make your heart ready with reality about what you need to know in order not to burn out, get frustrated and probably quit. You know, burn out is like a common language in the entrepreneurial circle and people burn out for many reasons one of which is because they feel they are not getting the results they put all their efforts into. While that is true in the literal sense, it might not be true if we inspect the level of growth from the inside, and this is why this piece is to let you know that for whatever you hope to achieve within a month, have your mind ready that you will achieve it in ten months.

Before I explain my story to cement that fact, I will quickly chip in one very popular instance which is very common on social media. It’s the fact that there are any coaches all over the net claiming you can make a certain amount of money in a short time if you follow the steps they will give to you. Most times, the bait is that you will see results if you follow such actions  within weeks. While some people get lucky following those steps, I really want to lay the emphasis that an important ingredient is missing in such information which is simply the fact that the knowledge to achieve such result was not acquired overnight. Well, this is Africa, anything that sounds like getting results in a shorter time always excites us. We however neglect the fact that the mentor actually spent some reasonable amount of time to amass such knowledge that produced such results.

Here’s my point; once you subscribe for such, chances are you will fail than succeed because what you paid for was the knowledge to get the result. You actually didn’t pay for the knowledge to know what led to the knowledge that produced the result. To make it simpler, those mentors got to a point that they realized what really worked – the best knowledge to pay for. But we don’t because it is not part of the bait knowing that people wouldn’t come for it since it takes a longer time of self experiment.

Now back to my story and how it concerns you entrepreneurs. It is very wise to read books as an entrepreneur. Matter of fact, if you do not read books, chances are you will likely not succeed. What books do to you is that it gives you an eye opening of what you do not know and what you need to know. As much as books give you informative knowledge, it is entirely different from experiential knowledge.

Experiential knowledge lies in the fact that you understand what leads to the knowledge that was the right one. It’s more like you understand the whole structure of the knowledge of application which is quite good. However, it doesn’t just happen in a day. It happens overtime which is why you should not get overly excited when your idea has been put down into paper and a business model. It is different from applying. Which is why I recommend the 1 time 10 rule of business. Here’s how it simply works;

You have an idea, you have put it into paper, you have drawn all the strategies and you’re excited that in two months, you will get it done since all is set. Personally, from experience, I will set a 20 month time to achieve it and this is because despite the fact that I now have the strategies, I will still go through three core phases which are;

1. Build
2. Thrive/Fail
3. Learn

You will never skip any of them and this is not me being pessimistic. You will need to repeat this over and over again till you get it right. Hopefully, within twenty months from idea documentation, you can achieve this.

If you stick with this model, you might understand what patience is as an entrepreneur, and also not pressure yourself as well as giving yourself a burn out.