Learn to be ambitious!
One of the things I always tell first-time entrepreneurs is to launch something short-term that can earn a lot of money as quickly as possible. Why? Because it’s an incredible way to start understanding how to build a company that actually works, and you can then keep pushing your ambitions up as your career as an entrepreneur advances.
And the first steps in life don't need to be giant steps: some people do a startup right away, others do more modest business ventures; but in both cases, what matters most is the ability to constantly learn.
Because yes, you can learn to be a great entrepreneur; all of the great ones have.
In our years at The Family, we’ve seen that the real things that separate good entrepreneurs from bad ones isn’t a question of skills or knowledge or talent—they’re psychological, it’s about your mindset.
That doesn’t mean everyone can learn it. You can have a step-by-step guide to building a company and follow it perfectly and yet… you still might not really become an entrepreneur, let alone a great one.
No one can really teach you how to succeed as an entrepreneur. At The Family, we try to show you how to avoid failing for stupid reasons, whether they’re obvious or not. Everything’s in that word “stupid,”, by the way: there are things that will always lead to failure and there are things that are obvious problems once you’ve had a bit of experience. But there are also reasons for failure that you can only find out on your own, because they’re unique to the story of a certain startup.
All of this doesn’t mean there aren’t some people who are pretty much born genius entrepreneurs, or who become so very quickly because something inside of them gives that spark. Genius happens in all kinds of fields: Mozart writing his first symphony at 8 years old, Usain Bolt being just plain fast, that kind of thing.
Nonetheless, at the base of entrepreneurship, there’s a certain mindset, and a certain number of characteristics within that mindset, that’ll have long-term impacts on what you do.
A startup is a living organism. It has its own DNA, which comes from its founders. It’s like having a child—some things are innate, coming from the parents, and some things are learned. A startup does the same, taking fundamental characteristics from its founders (however many there are) and then learning and developing from there.
Focus on the learning part, including going step-by-step into your ambition. Everything else will follow :)
If your ambition is to learn fast and move forward until you’ve built a world-champion company, it’s good to have a family around you—apply for our next batch in September right here 🦁