1. Introduction
Introduction
6 minute read
Success is when opportunity meets preparation
When you’re 5, people say you can be anything in life. When you’re 25, they tell you to get your head out of the clouds and get a job, so most people end up paying the bills until they die. They buried their dreams and convinced themselves they have good jobs. If you are reading this, I know you want more from life — and there is so much more!
Owning a business is not easy, but the reward is worth it. Once you learn how to live life on your terms and generate revenue from your ideas, you will never want to go back to being "the human resource,” wake up with the anxiety of being late for work, or hoping your manager approves your vacation request. You can once again be anything you want in life — while creating massive value for others.
Welcome to the most exciting journey of your life!
Find the best idea for your first business
If you want learn what it takes to start a business that solves a real, practical problem and generates enough revenue to quit your day job — this course is for you. If you have an idea, this course will help you confirm or adjust the business model. If you are not sure where to start, this course will show you how to systematically narrow down your options to the best business model for your first venture.
To me, success is the freedom to work on what's important to you while generating substantial revenue so you never have to worry about finances and can focus on creating impact instead.
Fast Venture is based on the concept that the most direct path to success is building a business around your area of expertise that has a scalable business model and a lifestyle and will inspire you to do your best work. Here’s how to do it.
Course outline
The course is divided into three parts. In part 1 you will learn about nine characteristics of successful entrepreneurs to see what it takes to lead a company. The second part discusses the differences in three lifestyle stages as founders grow. Finally, part 3 compares five different types of businesses and nine marketing tactics, finishing with the idea grid — an exercise that pulls everything together, helps you select your business model and shows how to easily calculate whether this idea is worth validating.
By the end of the course, you will have a good understanding of what it takes to be an entrepreneur; learn to quickly estimate the market demand of any idea, and evalute the success potential of any business model for any niche.
How to make the most out of this course
Complete all lessons in sequence and take time to think about each activity at the end of every lesson to unlock the next.
Most lessons take 5 to 10 minutes to read but contain densely packed knowledge. Don't rush through the course — I recommend completing 1 to 3 lessons per week to let the knowledge sink in.
The questions are designed to help you apply the knowledge and help you reflect on your thoughts later, to see how you arrived at some decisions and how your perspective evolved. The deeper you can go now, the easier it will get later.
Your answers are visible to registered Fast Venture members — I encourage you to read other people's responses as well. Learn from each other. Connect. Network.
Every lesson comes with a downloadable summary and a workbook for you to keep. Some lessons also contain links to useful resources and other tools — make sure to check them out.
Next step
When you look at your photo from yesterday, you don't see any differences, but when you look at your picture from a few years ago, it's easy to see how you've changed, right? Your idea is the same — it keeps evolving as you gain more experience until you look back and see how far you've come.
The best way to measure your progress is to write down your ideas and what you think about entrepreneurship today, and see how it changes by the end of the course. In case you're worried someone will steal your idea — read this.
Activity
Write down your idea
Write down your your idea if you have one, and describe what attracts you to entrepreneurship, what excites you, and what scares you about creating a business?
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7 answers
Francisco
My personal principles are:
- Save as much fuel as you can, while you don't have a lot, a trip can take longer than expected.
- Errors teach, listen to them.
- Keep a clear vision (regardless of the vision changing across time), you have to see it in your head and it has to work before working on it.
- Always have next steps / checkpoints, otherwise you will ramble and that is not a good idea.
- Be pragmatical: you are good at something? Cool! You suck at something? Find it somewhere else.
- Be realistic: focus on what matters, note down the rest for the future.
- Build as simple and reliable as possible. Favorite example: WhatsApp. No junk in it, just messaging, reliable, for 1 billion people, for years now.
- Keep it real: things are not as bad as they seem most of the times (unless they are) nor as good as you dream.
- Use the cycling analogy, in this trip you will go over uphills, downhills and plains:
-- Suffering in the uphills is just normal, keep going is the target, speed is not.
-- Downhills are for recovering, use them! Enjoy the ride here!!!
-- Plains: define the speed you can keep for the longest and just keep it. Enjoy the ride here!!!
-- Always: watch out for hypoglycemia, water/nuts/sugar regularly.
This method ^ does not guarantee you will arrive to the end, but greatly enhances your chances!
Tessa
The Student-Athlete Academy aims to help young athletes and their parents navigate the world of obtaining athletic scholarships at the university level, primarily in the NCAA.
To start, the focus is on Canadian high school students and their parents as that is the same experience that I had.
The Student-Athlete Academy is the resource I wish I had when I was going through the recruitment process as a young Canadian high school athlete.
VladG
A rising tide lifts all boats and helping people live better are primary drivers for me.
Lawrence
I want to sell leads to help people grow their business on a pay-per-lead model so there is no risk for the business owner and they can rely on x amount of exclusive leads coming into their business.
Entrepreneurship isn't a choice for me, I just don't see many other ways of living that provide the things I want from life.
It's kind of exciting when you are broke and need to jump on some sales calls if you want to pay rent... Probably not the best place to be in... It's exciting testing new ideas and seeing them either fail badly or even better seeing them work well.
I'm scared of losing a lot of my youth sitting in front of a computer testing ways to get cheaper leads and trying to make money when I should probably be climbing a mountain, learning kung-fu in a temple or partying hard in the Caribbean... I guess that's why I need to make the F money.
Dorien
1. help people live better 2. dedication 3. sustainability in every sense
Jorge
I want to educate young people financially from an early age
Johnson
Work ethic, help people, rising tide.
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