Discuss: Entrepreneurs, stop trying to start a business young

This is honestly the best advice I can give you.

I get a lot of emails and messages from teenage entrepreneurs—the young prodigy types. In some regards, it’s awesome and inspiring to have the drive to found a company at a young age, and it should definitely be applauded.

But when they ask me for my advice—when they ask what they should be doing as a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old entrepreneur—I always feel like a tool.

I feel this way because the advice I want to give them is to stop worrying about being founders and start learning. Stop trying to start a business young and use those years to learn as much as you can, way before you kick off your startup.

Sounds harsh, right? I believe that being an entrepreneur is like being anything else. You have to learn the right skills and how to apply them. Then, you can strike out on your own. You can learn a lot of these skills through trial and error while you build a company, but you’ll make fewer mistakes if you can learn them while working professionally.

When I was a teenager, I didn’t have what it took to start and grow a company. That I was able to build a successful music management business back then was more a case of sheer dumb luck than anything else. Looking at the failure it became, I know that choosing to sell at the right time was dumb luck too.

If I could do all of it again, I wouldn’t have started that company. Sure, it paid some bills and gave me some cash, but I know I would’ve been more successful if I had stopped rushing to be a founder and spent more time learning from the experienced and incredible people who had gone before me.

To me, the best founders are people who have learned how to be employees.

The founders I like working with are the ones who have spent enough time working a job they love, a job they hate, and a job they’ve realized can be done better. They have the knowledge and the boots-on-the-ground experience to make a difference. They’ve watched other people and learned what to do and what not to do.

Since 2016, I’ve challenged myself to invest US$2,000 every year in small business entrepreneurs—the people who are founding niche software development startups and getting into innovative web design. It’s not a huge investment, but it’s my chance to give some cash to people I believe in and receive a little equity back from a business that I can help to grow and foster.

When I do this, I’m not looking for starry-eyed dreamers. I’m not looking for people who are slick and smooth and excited about being millionaires. I’m looking for people who know what the fuck they’re doing. And these people are those who’ve spent enough time learning, re-learning, studying, gathering experience, and following the right road. They’ve worked in their industry before. They’ve had a boss who’s given them instructions. Their bosses have encouraged them when they’ve done well and come down hard on them when they messed up.

There are always going to be young entrepreneurs you can hold up as shining examples, people who started companies as teenagers and went on to be billionaires. That’s great. Good for them. But they’re the exception and not the rule. Remember, Steve Jobs worked for Atari before he founded Apple.

Experience is important. When you’re a teenager or a young founder with no real-world, real job knowledge, you can start a company. It’s not too hard. Where you’re going to stumble into some tough shit is when you try to run that company.

Let’s discuss: