Do this instead of starting a new business

A few years ago I started an e-commerce business (that I still operate on the side). After the 1st year of making a loss of €10.000 (story for another time), it started to become somewhat profitable.

Although it made me a bit of money over the years, it was hard as fuck. I needed to learn so many things at once:

• Product research to see what products to actually sell

• Graphic design to design listings and packaging

• Supply chain management to not run out of stock every time

• Accounting to calculate if I would actually be profitable

• And more… (customer service, marketing, branding etc.)

When you think about it, every business model is a bunch of skills stacked upon each other.

That’s also why it’s so hard for complete newbies to start a business from scratch. Learning all the skills at once to get a business running takes effort and time for learning. This is also a reason why so many people fail and give up.

Don't start 'the new perfect business model opportunity'. Work on a skill and improve it. Over time you become better at that skill and start to stack more skills upon it.

To take myself as an example:

Right now I’m learning the skill of writing and audience building. That’s what I’m doing with this email list and my twitter account.

I want to take this writing course to write even betters newsletters to you guys.

Next year I want to apply for a job and learn the skill of sales.

I’m also looking for this design course to learn the basics of graphic design.

All these skills stack up on each other:

• Copywriting + Sales + Design + Audience building = Lethal entrepreneur

It’s a longer game we can use the skills we learn for the rest of our careers.

Keep improving 👊

Ivan