Be patient with results but impatient with action.
30 Brutal Business Truths for Founders
When I was in my 20s, I thought building a business was about working harder than everyone else. I was wrong.
The truth is success comes down to how you think, how you act, and what you prioritize every single day. If I could rewind 20 years, these are the 30 business truths I wish someone had drilled into me.
1. Spend Money to Save Time
Time is your scarcest asset.
Outsource, delegate, and automate wherever possible.
If a task costs less than your hourly rate, buy it back.
Most people are always trying to save money but they don't realize that you have to invest money to save time.
2. Solve Problems for Rich People
Broke customers drain energy and delay payments.
Wealthy clients value results and pay on time.
Who you serve determines how hard your business feels.
If you want your life to be easier, go solve problems for people that have money.
3. Sell Before You Build
Pre-sell every new offer before creating it.
Customer validation ensures you don’t waste months on a bad idea.
Cash upfront helps fund development.
When launching, study how to start a SaaS business with the right steps.
Always sell first then figure out how to build it.
4. Manage Energy, Not Time
Structure your day around natural energy levels.
Creative work in the morning, admin work later in the day.
Time blocking without energy alignment wastes productivity.
I would have structured my life based on energy, not just time.
5. Simplicity Scales, Complexity Fails
Growth collapses under too much complexity.
Stick to one product, one funnel, one target market.
Simplicity is not easy but it is essential.
If scaling feels heavy, use proven growth strategies to simplify.
Complexity is the ceiling of growth.
6. Cash Flow Is King
Never act as a bank for your customers.
Charge upfront so their money funds operations.
If you rely on debt to cover customer delays, you are financing their business.
If you got to finance it through a line of credit, that means you're supporting their growth through your bank account.
7. Model, Then Modify
Follow advice exactly before customizing it.
Most failures come from tweaking too early.
Once you get traction, then add your style.
When you learn something new, do it exactly as they say. Once you get traction, then you can modify.
8. Use the $50 Rule
Give your team permission to fix any problem under $50.
Empowering quick decisions reduces bottlenecks.
Small autonomy creates massive leverage.
Fifty to fix it is huge leverage in your business.
9. Be Patient With Results, Impatient With Action
Move fast daily but accept that results take time.
Consistency beats intensity.
The right rhythm is urgency in action with patience in payoff.
It's not a sprint, it's a sprint within a marathon.
10. Seek Knowledge Outside the Room
Do not rely only on your current team’s knowledge.
Bring in outside expertise and study best practices.
Growth comes from learning what you don’t yet know.
To accelerate, explore how to get ahead using AI and outside tools.
If you think the answers are in this room, we’re in trouble.
11. Don’t Solve Hypothetical Problems
Stop wasting time on “what if” scenarios.
Focus on the challenges that exist today.
Hypotheticals are distractions that look like preparation.
Hypotheticals are hypocritical.
12. Measure Everything and Make It Visible
Metrics drive accountability.
Public dashboards create alignment.
Transparency forces progress.
If you measure it, you can manage it.
13. Focus Until Successful
FOCUS means Follow One Course Until Successful.
Side projects dilute energy and momentum.
Wealth comes from mastery, not scattered efforts.
Follow one course until successful.
14. Be the Smallest Person in the Biggest Room
Surround yourself with people who are ahead of you.
If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.
Growth requires discomfort.
If you're the top person in the room, go find a bigger room.
15. Play to Win, Not Not to Lose
Playing defense stalls growth.
Wake up asking how to win, not how to protect.
What you focus on expands, so focus on winning.
You don't even want to talk about considering the option of losing.
16. It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You
Build a brand that opens doors.
Reputation precedes you and makes opportunities easier.
The right people need to know your name.
A strong brand also helps when exploring the best businesses to start in 2025.
Now I make sure that I have a personal brand and a reputation that precedes me.
17. Rich People Avoid Tasks, Broke People Chase Them
Just because you can do something does not mean you should.
Delegate tasks to others and focus on vision.
Protect your time like it is currency.
If you want to be rich, be lazy.
18. Hard Work Means Doing What Scares You
Busy work is not hard work.
Real hard work is doing uncomfortable, high-value tasks.
Growth happens outside your comfort zone.
What scares you, that you don’t want to do, that’s what working hard means.
19. Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure
Doubt stops you before you even start.
Failure at least teaches lessons.
Action despite fear creates breakthroughs.
Courage is not absence of doubt, it’s taking action in spite of doubt.
20. Build the People and They Build the Business
Your people are your biggest multiplier.
Invest in leadership, culture, and vision.
Build people first, then watch your company grow.
Build the people and the people build the business.
21. Your Team Should Work on Themselves First
Encourage personal development above everything.
When your team grows individually, your company grows too.
Self-growth fuels performance.
Work harder on yourself than you do on your role.
22. Train, Don’t Tell
Telling makes you the bottleneck.
Training creates independence.
Leaders build systems, not corrections.
If you train them they'll scale, if you tell them you'll fail.
23. Lead Like a 5-Year-Old
Do not take responsibility for everything.
Assign ownership clearly.
If it is their role, let them own it fully.
He runs the studio, not me. It's his responsibility.
24. Results Over Effort
Effort does not pay the bills, results do.
Reward outcomes, not activity.
Teams that create results move companies forward.
I don’t care how hard somebody works, I care about the results.
25. Business Problems Are Personal Problems in Disguise
Personal struggles spill into business.
Fix yourself to fix your company.
Your business is a mirror of who you are.
All business problems are just personal problems that manifest in your business.
26. Process Problem Before People Problem
Blame processes first, not people.
If there is no system, it is your fault as the leader.
Fix the process before pointing fingers.
If there's not a process, and you're the leader, guess whose fault that is? Yours.
27. Know What Your Time Is Worth
Calculate your hourly worth.
Say no to tasks that are beneath that value.
Protect your time like investors protect money.
Rich people value their time, poor people don't.
28. Work With Someone Before Hiring Them
Never hire without testing first.
Collaborate on small projects before committing.
Avoid costly mistakes by validating fit early.
I have to work with you before I work with you.
29. Use the 10-80-10 Rule for Delegation
10 percent ideation upfront.
80 percent execution by the team.
10 percent integration by you at the end.
That last 10 percent is integration where you get to add your fingerprint to the magic.
30. Dreams Big Enough for Your Team
Your vision must include your team’s ambitions.
If not, they will leave to chase their own.
Big dreams are the best talent magnet.
Have dreams big enough for your team’s dreams to fit inside of.
Take Action on These Truths
These lessons are not theory. They are hard-earned truths from decades of building and scaling companies. Apply them now, not 20 years from now. Your future success depends on how quickly you embrace these realities.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you scale a business faster in your 20s?
To scale a business faster in your 20s you need to focus on buying back your time instead of wasting energy on low value tasks. Spending money on tools services or virtual assistants can save hours each week. The key is to invest in productivity rather than trying to save pennies at the expense of progress.
Why is selling before building important in business?
Selling before building validates whether there is real customer demand for your product or service. By securing paying customers first you reduce risk avoid wasted development and confirm that people are willing to pay for the solution before investing time and money into creating it.
What is the difference between solving problems for rich people versus broke people?
Solving problems for rich people creates more sustainable and profitable businesses because wealthy clients can pay on time value expertise and are easier to work with. Serving broke clients often leads to low margins late payments and higher stress which makes business growth harder.
Why is cash flow more important than profits?
Cash flow is the lifeline of a business because it ensures you have money to cover expenses payroll and growth initiatives. Without positive cash flow even profitable businesses can collapse since they cannot sustain daily operations or finance future opportunities.
What does it mean to manage energy instead of time?
Managing energy instead of time means structuring your day around your peak mental and physical states. High focus tasks should be scheduled when your energy is at its highest while lower effort tasks can be done later. This approach maximizes productivity and prevents burnout.
How does building people help build a stronger business?
When you invest in developing your team’s skills and aligning their personal goals with the company vision they become more engaged productive and loyal. Strong teams compound business growth because motivated employees drive results innovation and long term stability.
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Full Transcript
30 Brutal Business Truths I Wish I Knew in My 20s – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwrw05MLVSY
Transcript:
(00:00) at the time of this recording I’ve been in business for 27 years but if I had to go back and give my 20-year-old self some advice on how to build a business a lot faster here’s what I would say number one spend money to save time not time to save money see most people are always trying to save money but they don’t realize that you have to invest money to save time in today’s world where you can spend dollars to buy back hours with the apps and the delivery and having things come to you and be able to have people all over the world support
(00:31) you in your dreams for a few dollars an hour do that number two solve problems for rich people not broke people if you want your life to be easier you want to have a business that thrives you want to have a great job go solve problems for people that have money broke people they’ll be a pain in your butt you’ll deal with them not paying you you deal with the drama that they’re going to come along with it because they expect everything for very little rich people way easier to work with number three sell before you build anything my
(00:58) default as soon as I have an idea is to run to find a customer I sell before I’ve ever built anything all my software companies all my coaching programs all my media stuff always sell first then figure out how to build it number four you don’t manage time you manage energy if I could go back and talk to myself about the way I structured my life instead of just responding to whoever needed my time instead put those projects tasks together throughout the day based on the energy I would have in the morning versus the afternoon I would
(01:28) have got so much more done number five simp scales complex fails the best way to build a life that’s awesome is keep it simple don’t have a lot of options don’t have a lot of things to manage don’t allow people to keep adding things to make it better fight for Simplicity cuz complexity is the ceiling of growth number six cash flow is critical don’t Finance your customers if people want to buy from you and you have fixed cost have them pay you enough to cover those costs if you got to go and finance that through a line of credit or through
(01:58) investors that means that you’re essentially supporting their growth in their business through your bank account I want them to pay me upfront I want to finance my growth through my customer financing number seven model and modify so many times I’ve had people that coach with me try to modify my instructions and I know when I worked with a coach I learned this the hard way where I would take what they said and say Well mine’s a little different I’ll do it this way and it turns out it didn’t work why cuz I modified too much when you learn
(02:25) something new do it exactly as they say and then once you get traction and results then you can modify now before we dive in we’ve added 200,000 new subscribers over the last 2 months and we’re looking to hit a million so if you haven’t already hit subscribe number eight 50 to fix it the number one way you move faster to allow people to make decisions on your behalf when you’re not around I give everybody in my life the power to solve a problem if it’s less than $50 without asking they’re just got to tell me they did it afterwards cuz
(02:54) they got to expense it but 50 to fix it huge leverage in your business number nine be patient with results but impatient with action see some people stress themselves out and they get overwhelmed because they have this big vision for their life and they don’t see that materialize yet when you have an idea do it and be consistent over long periods of time don’t do a lot and then slow down it’s not a Sprint it’s a Sprint within a marathon number 10 if you think you have the answers to your problems already you’re in trouble it’s
(03:21) impossible for you to actually know how you’re about to do the thing you need to do without going and studying it without going to learn it from somebody else I tell this to my team all the time if you think that we’re going to win by the knowledge and the experience we have in this room we’re all in trouble we all have to go outside this room to go learn so we can bring those best practices back here so we can execute faster number 11 don’t waste time on hypothetical problems so often when I’m coaching people they ask me about a
(03:46) scenario that hasn’t happened hypotheticals or hypocritical don’t ask you make up situations that haven’t happened so you solve problems that aren’t problems yet instead of the ones you actually have focus on the things that are real not made up number 12 measure everything and make it visible My Philosophy is that sunlight sanitizes all problems meaning that first off I got to measure if I’m doing it right step two is make it public to everybody so in my studio I have two dashboards for the different engines of my business
(04:16) that every person can see with names next to every metric that we monitor so that there’s accountability if you measure it you can manage it number 13 Focus stands for follow one course until successful I can’t tell you how how much wealth has been destroyed by being distracted instead of saying I’m going to do one thing and follow One customer in one market in one area and make $1 million people think well I’m going to do this and this and this and I have 17 side businesses that’s not focused that’s a distraction and you’re not that
(04:46) good yet number 14 be the smallest person in the biggest room when I look around my peer group I want to feel like I’m trying to keep up to everybody else like they’re so far ahead of me if I’m the big dog in my little city I got to go find a new City if you’re the smartest person on your street you got to move if you’re the top person in the room you’re in go find a bigger room where you got a fight to get into and these are not things you can easily get access to many of them at the highest level it’s invite only which means you
(05:15) got to figure out who’s got the room who created it and how do you create enough value to even be considered to be invited but that transformed my life number 15 play to win don’t play not to lose too often people are trying to think about risk mitigation trying to save every Penny because they can’t predict how could they keep doing it over and over so they’re playing defense not offense you want to wake up every day and go how do I win you don’t even want to talk about considering the option of losing cuz that energy will
(05:42) get you focused on it and what you focus on expands and you don’t want that number 16 it’s not who you know it’s who knows you see I believe that your netw workk is your net worth and back in the day I worked really hard to know the right people that could solve the problems for me now I make sure that I have a personal brand and a reputation that precedes me so that when I need to solve a problem those people are willing and wanting and available because they know who I am not necessarily that I know who they are number 17 broke people
(06:12) get good at doing tasks rich people get good at avoiding them just cuz you can doesn’t mean you should and honestly the thing that you’re best at becomes your Achilles heel as you grow because it’s the thing you’ll be most critical of somebody else doing for you that you give away last which means that if you want to be rich be lazy don’t give people the answers to the test if you buy back your time make sure it stays sold by not doing their work number 18 working hard actually means doing what scares you too often people talk about
(06:41) like I’m hustling I’m working hard no you’re not show me the anxiety you have around that task tell me where you’re outside your comfort zone cuz what I see is somebody that’s working long hours yes hard by your definition maybe for me it’s what scares you that you don’t want to do that you know if you do will expand you that’s what working hard means number 19 doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will see most people doubt themselves to even start they imagine this future of what could go wrong so they have all this fear around
(07:14) even taking action what I’ve learned is fear gives bad advice do things in spite of fear courage is not absence of Doubt courage is taking action in spite of Doubt number 20 build the people and the people build the business this is one of the most powerful lessons over the years I wish I would have learned when I was 18 19 20 because I would have invested in being a better leader for my people I would understood how to create a scenario where the people that I wanted to hire would want to work for me because the best people they’re very
(07:47) employed and what I’ve discovered is the ability to develop a person and understand their dreams and their aspirations and align their personal development to their achievement of their dreams that is the skill of leadership number 21 your team should work harder on themselves than they do on their job every Monday I do leadership training and I start with this quote where I encourage them please please please work harder on yourself than you do in your role because in doing that you’ll be better for your job
(08:14) you’ll be better for your team and that’s a weird one for a lot of CEOs or entrepreneurs to understand but that’s what they should be asking and if you do it for yourself you’ll be more for the people that need you most number 22 train don’t tell the thing I see bad boss do all the time is they run around telling people what to do they correct they fix they tell tell tell the problem is is that if you keep doing that you’ll always be the bottleneck because if they don’t get told how to fix the problem they won’t do anything instead train
(08:42) them talk about the philosophies the principles the process to help somebody do the work right if you train them they’ll scale if you tell them you’ll fail number 23 lead like you’re 5-year-old you know the other day we were remodeling my studio office and my GM comes in he asks me hey hey you know what are you doing with those shelves you going to design them up I just stared at him and I was like I don’t know I looked at him and he goes oh got it that’s my responsibility I was like yes he goes okay heard and he left he
(09:12) started working on hiring a designer to design the shelves cuzz he runs the studio not me it’s his responsibility if you run around and keep telling everybody what to do then you’ll never grow your business cuz they’ll keep coming to you for the answers number 24 results over effort every time you know I have some incredible leaders that work for me and sometimes they tell me they working really hard and they’re putting in super crazy hours and they’re trying to get the results but they don’t show up the only difference is the person
(09:37) either the person can figure it out and get the result or they complain about the effort and hav been doing this for 27 years I will tell you I don’t care how hard somebody works on my team I care about the results number 25 all business problems are just personal problems that manifest in your business if you’re stressed out at work it’s CU you’re probably stressed out yourself and that’s something that happens at home and your work is just an amplifier of who you are so if you learn how to be a better leader at work trust me you’ll
(10:03) be better for your family number 26 people problem versus process problems anytime there’s an issue in my business I default to a process problem not a people problem see most CEOs when there’s something that happens they go oh that person did this nope you hired them there’s a process is there a process show it to me oh there’s not if you’re the leader guess whose fault that is yours fix the process train the person if it happens again now you know you have a people problem number 27 know what your time’s worth rich people value
(10:32) their time poor people don’t it’s that simple the reason why there’s small businesses is because small business entrepreneurs don’t value their time they don’t even know what it’s worth they can’t make a decision to say no because they think everything is a yes because they want to be busy that’s not how you grow your business number 28 I have to work with you before I work with you I never hire somebody until I have the opportunity to collaborate with them I don’t want to have the first time that we ever work together being after I hire
(10:59) you after you quit your job join my team and now I see how we collaborate that’s crazy to me so we always do test projects I pay them for it and it happens before we ever give him the job offer number 29 use the 10810 rule to delegate without losing control a lot of creatives are scared of giving up projects that feel like art to them like they need to have their special touch and that’s why the 10810 is 10% ideation upfront to set the picture of what needs to get done 80% execution by the other person and that last 10% is integration
(11:30) where you get to sit down and add your fingerprint to the magic that makes it you so that it can have the feel of completion it’s the art form it’s the thing that actually makes it work not the busy stuff number 30 have dreams big enough for your team’s dreams to fit inside of if you want to hire great people and keep great people you need to have a vision big enough for your team’s dreams and goal to fit inside of if you don’t do this they will find somebody else that does and that’s why I see great people leave companies all the
(11:58) time to go start their own company to to go build this massive success that they could have built inside the company they’re at beforehand but the leader didn’t have this philosophy if you want to learn how to build a business that runs itself click the link and I’ll see you on the other side