What I learned as a startup founder who went back to school

Photo credit: Paseidon.

As a serial entrepreneur, I’ve had many ventures. A lot of them failed and only a couple succeeded, but after almost 10 startups, I’m still alive in the game.

After working on startups as a side hustle, I switched to become a full-time entrepreneur five years ago.

Out of my graduating class in both high school and college, I estimate that less than 1 percent went on to become startup founders. Everybody else pursued cushy corporate jobs to climb the corporate ladder or became highly paid pharmacists, lawyers, or doctors.

And you know what I’ve learned eight years later? I don’t regret my decision one bit.

So for all lonely startup founders out there, don’t worry. You are living the dream.

After walking down this path for such a long time—my first startup being a video game company at age 16 with about 50,000 active users—I’ve learned a thing or two. And here, I’d like to impart some wisdom from an old-timer to the next generation of talented, dedicated, and passionate founders who would want to go at it alone—no co-founders, no nothing. Just one person with one idea.

1. It will take years to learn all the skills you need, but you will be far ahead of your peers

Before I founded my first real company (not counting my game server from high school), I had worked for about four years as an employee at two successful tech startups. I count these years as my training years or the equivalent of getting my “degree” in startups.

This is a different experience than what you’d get from a regular corporate job. You go in, receive training, whether it’s for weeks or a couple of months, then you do that same set of tasks you were trained for over and over every single day. You get to be really good at doing your job. However, there’s no way you can do your financial statements faster than an accountant or draft a legal document faster and better than an attorney.

But what I learned was everything—literally everything. I learned how to pick out the right domain, get its appraised value, register it, host it, and build a website on it. I learned how to create revenue, do sales, set up CRMs, and generate leads. I learned how to manage people and fill out their HR forms and other paperwork. I learned how to do marketing, from budgets of zero dollars up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

My company paid US$10,000 for just my pay-per-click (PPC) marketing training alone. I worked hard and was ambitious. Every week, I learned something new, then applied it. Then, I learn something new again the next week and so on. Today, I even write my own contracts having been trained by an attorney. I’ve probably had on-the-job trainers in the double digits at this point.

2. Don’t believe in the myth “jack of all trades and master of none”

Bruce Lee demonstrated that learning many different martial arts and combining the best parts together is more effective than knowing only a single style.

After four years in startups, I decided to go back and get an MBA part-time while I worked on my startups full-time. This was where I discovered that we who have been in the startup trenches were miles ahead of our peers when it comes down to doing business.

When school first started, the MBA student association appointed me vice president of technology the very first week of classes. I literally entered school as the vice president. That first month, I was elected to four different positions simultaneously: VP of technology, VP of marketing, VP of partnerships, and inter-club council representative. By the end of my first semester, the standing president nominated me for president. I declined because I didn’t want to do all the work.

3. Your ambitions are so high as a solo founder that you will get used to being called crazy

4. You move so fast you’re like lightning compared to everyone else

5. Nothing you learn in school will prepare you for the startup world, but the startup world will prepare you for school