Grit and determination

Startups are hard.

The most important factor in determining success is determination and not giving up.

It takes at least 7 years to get a PhD. 12 years to become a doctor and at least 8 years to become a lawyer.

Yet people think with startups that if you try and you fail after 2 years, 3 years, then you give up and it’s too hard.

That’s not the case. It takes 10 years to become an expert in anything,

and that includes startups.

In fact, I don’t know anyone who has been doing a startup for 10 years and is not making at least a million dollars.

When I started my business eight years ago, I’d think to myself,

even if I tried for the rest of my life and at the end of my days I still didn’t succeed.

It still would have been worth it to me because at least I tried.

I would have the freedom to choose my own path.

I get to build my own products and it’s better than being a corporate slave.

One of my biggest regrets is starting ContactOut motivated mainly by the money.

B2B contact data is fine but,

it’s probably not the biggest problem that I could be solving in the world.

So I’m trying to share the learnings from building ContactOut in videos like this.

Because I think if we can spread the knowledge of business building and entrepreneurship more widely,

and we can also back people financially, then we can create Silicon Valley ecosystems all around the world,

and we’ll be able to create trillions in value.

Eventually I want to start a startup accelerator that funds hundreds of thousands of people and replaces MBA programs.

Leaving you some words Steve Jobs once said:

Everything around you that you call life,

was made up by people no smarter than you,

and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people will use,

and once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.