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2020 is really tough especially for students and new graduates. What should you do to increase your career satisfaction and job prospect?
Here are some suggestions:
Learn a skill. Lean a building skill where you can FINISH building a product. Skills could be finishing a drawing, finishing a food item, finishing a program or APP, or finish a website. The ability to independently build something is important. Once you have that skill, identify the audience who you can serve with your skills.
One good way is to build a review. If you review something, people would naturally think you are an expect. Review a game, wines, some product category that has annual updates. Be the "guru" for that review. it may take a few years but the cost is minimal.
If you don't like your job, don't quit it. You need to learn the ropes and it takes time. Quit your job once you have three paying customers. Three. Paying. Customers.
Connect your skill to a market. At the market, watch for two things:
target audience that are under served.
new technology or social opportunities that are disruptive. Use those opportunities to open new stores or provide new product/services, and eventually grow and take over.
Don't worry if there is competition. Competition means there are customers.
Be careful about things that are too good to be true, especially never give up your job for it.
Don't give up your job. When you have a job, it is like you live in a beach town. If you start up, you have to fight and take a beach town. By yourselves.
When you start with no experience or money, try a local business, don't just do an online store or something "national". When you do a local business, you have advantage because you live there.
Use the interactive tools here to identify if your idea is good and look at free good ideas for business.
Startup and jobs both are skills and requires skills. So learn.
Friends tell friends secrets
You can never startup alone - it is very tempting but it is not a good idea. A solo preneur will struggle. Make friends. Discuss ideas with people. Observe these two principles:
You will need a second person to startup with.
Any idea you think of has been thought about by others. Don't "keep the secret" to a fault.
Is startup a job?
Think about a job as a "preparation for a startup". Most people stay on the preparatory role for their entire life, but they don't have to. On the flip side, you should not immediately "quit your job" just because you feel like going solo.
When you startup, it is recommended that you give up your job, for both ethical and practical (concentration) considerations. Otherwise it becomes a side hobby gig that will never grow too big.
Startup is hard, there is no real teacher. Startup is easy. Go ahead and act, fail, it you find the best teacher - YOU.
Startup is hardest thing in life! Don't worry if you are confused. It is so hard not many people can teach clearly.
Startup is to fail first. Your first effort will fail, and it is the first real learning. That is why we have books called "The obstacle is the way" and "the hard thing about hard things".
Startup is a skill! it is like driving, like swimming, like playing basketball. It is not done by "smart people", and not achieved with "clever thinking". Jump in the water and you will learn it in a minute how to float.
In startup, efforts matters, but choice and design matters more. Unfortunately, first time entrepreneur always fail. You don't know how to design before you start. You know it the second time.
Startup is virtually unteachable. It is experience based. It is self taught in real life.
many people tempt with idea-to-IPO or zero to riches scheme - don't believe any.
Startup is competition of DOING. Any idea is thought, and any thing remoted worthy of business has competition.
There are many reasons, mostly because it takes a lot of preparation. Prepare, do, focus. The first time is always a failure. Startup takes three stages prepare, launch, failure, success. When you start, you accept "failure" as success. The same questions for dating and marriage, same deal.
Startup is a skill, not a "mind polishing". It is like driving and swimming and high school basketball. You allow your failures. Second place finish is OK. First time, don't use your own idea. You can use other people's idea and still be new. It is action and action and hustle that counts, not idea. It is timing that counts, not YOUR IDEA.
It is not easy, but it is not because your idea that matters. Because you enter competition, not vacuum.
It is also easy, because once you realize it is a competition, that new idea must be executed, it is a matter of doing and planning, not thinking. Ideas are every where, they are not YOURS but it is you who is doing it.
Startup is renew the old. As a 21 years old in 2020, you don't have to out smart everyone in the world and in history. You are nature;s hellper, yyour focused beneficiary's friend, and nature's agent.
Doing a startup makes you a businessman and creator. You will learn how th eworld words, completely. You will go beyond all books ever printed by a mile. You will know who you are, and you will have better friends.
But you may not get rich. that's OK. Whether you get rich depends a lot on decision and experience.
Get your first loss under your belt.
All great business man and entrepreneurs and successful people fail. They hide their biggest secrets, hustle in uncomfortable zone. They hide their first failure, but they never hide the ideas.
You can not beat everyone all the time. You need to beat yourself first. You can not work for "everyone" or "someone", you must know who you want to have a relation first, and exchange benefits with them. You solve their problem, they give you something called money.
If you just taken aimless promising guess tour, it won't accidentally be big. Just like lottery tickets. No one is special.
DARE to succeed.
To "succeed", you must do things people won't do. You must dare to
dare to focus.
dare to let yourself fail once.
dare to deal with people.
dare to bend rules.
dare to let your secret out.
dare to throw away ideas (dare to let go).
dare to choose and then stick with your choice.
dare to build. Only things you build is yours. Your thoughts are just a cloud storage that frankly, no one cares to even look at or steal.
Focus, the world becomes bigger. The world is big. If you focus on a problem that 0.01% of people are happy, you have 100million customers!! don't try to make two 0.1% group happy. You don't have to.
Beyond ALL books, learning becomes your own act. No more teachers, no more teaching. If you are lucky a mentor will find you. Know what you stand for, pick a box and "take a stand". The more real you are, the more people will "fan you".
Don't worry about keeping your secrets. No one can really copy you, even if they can copy your product and hairstyle. No one can be YOU. On other hand, you can not copy anyone. You can not be anyone else.
Never bother to out smart people, out think people. Even if you really did, no one will accept that or pay you.
Everyone is same. Rich or poor. Get experience. Learn in the market. Learn by real failures. In real life, failures are golden, not like in schools.
All successful people just out hustled, out focused, out failed you, and that is why they are on the pedestal. You don't have to put yourself on a pedestal now. Just get in the line of being great. Learn by doing. Learn by failing. Dare to focus!
When young people can not start, it could be due to multiple reasons:
They does not yet know the importance of focus on only one idea.
They do not know that the first start is a failure, so you should start.
They do not know what startup really is and is actually undetermined if they should do it this or not.
They do not have good ideas.
So:
Here is a complete clarity about startup.
Why failure first time is OK and completely normal, and expected.
What is startup REALLY like, here are some movies.
How to check if your idea is good enough.
To startup, just build a relation you would like to have, and there are tons of ideas there.
Many many many other people are not clear. You are not alone.
Should I get a job or startup?
Startup is very very difficult. Very uncomfortable. It takes a lot of preparation. There is no rush. But don't be afraid to fail.
https://youtu.be/jpzk5jdVKaw Best Analogies of Startup
Why I must focus on one idea?!
How do students prepare?
Tools