Last year, I read a book by Felix Dennis. The title—How to Get Rich—isn’t my favorite, but it grabs people’s attention. The book is about succeeding as an entrepreneur, which leads to wealth—it’s not just about how to get rich. Dennis shares numerous lessons he learned the hard way as he built several companies, including Maxim magazine.

The book is a good read and contains lots of useful lessons for entrepreneurs. To see my takeaways, read my blog post series here.

One takeaway that stuck with me is about persistence and stubbornness. I regularly ask myself if I’m being persistent or stubborn when things aren’t going as I’d hoped. Here’s how Dennis describes the difference between the two:

Persistence is having the conviction that you’re right about something and that your point will be confirmed in the future (hopefully shortly). You simply keep going until you’re proven right. This is what entrepreneurs are known for. Simple enough, right? Well, how does persistence differ from stubbornness? Stubbornness is a form of persistence. You persist at something because you think you’ll be proven right. Stubbornness comes in when data or other evidence points to your likely not being right. Said differently, stubbornness is persisting even though signs are pointing to your being wrong.

Persistent people keep going, but they pay attention to red flags. If they’ve made a mistake, they change their plans. They persist, but in a different way—one that’s more likely to be successful. Stubborn people keep going and never course correct when they should.  

I think of persistent people as rational, clear thinkers. They’re grounded in reality and have the mental flexibility to acknowledge when they’ve made a mistake or bad decision. They acknowledge their error, regroup, and refocus their energies on the right activities so they can still achieve their goal.

I was stubborn once. I ignored signs that I was going hard in the wrong direction, and I regretted it. I vowed to do my best to avoid those kinds of mistakes going forward. Since reading Dennis’s book, I regularly ask myself if I’m being persistent or stubborn. I look for signs or data points that signal that I might be right. If I can’t come up with any, I know I’m likely being stubborn and need to course correct and put my energy into different actions that still align with my goal.

Recently, I started reading a book on financial history. I’m curious about the topic and think it could help me better understand the current financial landscape. I was excited when I received the book and began reading it, but I quickly realized I wasn’t feeling it. I was somewhat academic and a chore to read. The writing style wasn’t a good fit for me. I struggled to read thirty or so pages before I pulled the plug.

I’ve put pre-read steps in place to reduce the likelihood that I’ll start reading a book I won’t like, so this hasn’t occurred in many months. Because it isn’t happening as often, I second-guessed myself for a moment before I realized that I wasn’t the problem. The book was.

I read to gain wisdom from others and an understanding of topics that interest me. If a book isn’t helping me achieve those goals, I need to move on and find another book that will. There’s no shame in that. I’ve got an objective, and I’m on a mission. The world is full of books. If one isn’t working, there are plenty more to take its place.

I enjoy reading books from start to finish, one book at a time. But I’m not going to waste time. I finish books only if they align with what I’m trying to accomplish and aren’t a struggle to digest or comprehend.

Last year, I wrote a post (see here) in which I defined wisdom:

Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge in a manner that aligns with the outcome you desire. Wisdom means changed behavior and improved decision-making—knowing what to do and when to do it. Wisdom is acquired from experience (yours or someone else’s).

Wisdom is the entrepreneur’s friend because it allows them to hit their goals (e.g., grow their company) faster. Acquiring wisdom from the experiences of other credible entrepreneurs is best because doing so saves a significant amount of time.

How entrepreneurs acquire wisdom from others is something I’ve given a lot of thought to—after all, I’m reading biographies to do just that. Entrepreneurs pay lots of money to be in communities with people going through similar experiences so they can learn from them (EO, YPO, Vistage, Hampton, etc.).

I’ve been thinking about the difference between first-generation and second- or multi-generation entrepreneurs and how the acquisition of wisdom impacts their respective velocities, which is more important than their speed (learn why here).

I’m going to learn more about this, but I hypothesize that second-generation entrepreneurs have a material advantage starting out because they’ve acquired significant wisdom through osmosis from being around and talking to family members who are entrepreneurs. They learn from an early age what works and doesn’t work, and why, from experiences of family. So, when they start their own companies, they have a better idea of what to do and when to do it. Does that mean a second-generation entrepreneur is more likely to be successful? I don’t know. Does it mean a first-generation entrepreneur competing against a second-generation entrepreneur needs greater learning velocity? Likely so.

I’m curious about this and excited to learn more. I’m going to talk to a few entrepreneur friends who grew up in entrepreneurial families to get a feel for whether my thesis is directionally accurate.

I’ve committed to learning as much as I can about entrepreneurship, and the best way I’ve found to do it is by studying entrepreneurs. Reading about their journeys is my preferred method. I read a book every week, usually a biography, and then share it in my Library on this site. Every Sunday, I post the latest book I read.

Last summer, I read Call Me Ted, an autobiography by Ted Turner. The book is a great recap of Turner’s entire career through 2008 or so. But when I read it, I could tell Ted was speaking from the perspective of a wiser man who had calmed down a lot. I enjoyed that perspective, but I wanted to hear from Ted in his prime, when he was full of energy and said outlandish things publicly on a daily basis.

I did some digging and found another book. Last week, I read a biography of Turner, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way by Christian Williams. Williams was attached to Turner’s hip throughout 1979 and 1980. He saw and heard a lot. He was even aboard Turner’s yachts for some of his famous and tragic races.

The thing I like most about this book is that it’s filled with quotations of things Ted said. He was brash and direct, to put it mildly. His words offer a unique insight about his thinking and mind during, arguably, his prime. A period when he was undertaking some of his most ambitious projects (e.g., launching CNN), fighting some of his fiercest battles with competitors and regulators, and racing yachts all over the world (and winning, too).

If you’re interested in learning about the early years of Ted’s journey, how he was thinking at the time, and the details of what he was doing, consider reading this biography.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 63
• Total blog posts published: 406

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, a biography about Ted Turner, the cable and media entrepreneur who created CNN, TBS, and several other cable channels, covering his early journey through 1980
• Tagged specific actions on my blog (with the help of my buddy) to start collecting data via Google Tag Manager
• Created the brand journey for this project (learn more about this framework here)

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred sixty-eight was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

·      No material struggles last week

What I learned:

• Instead of starting a newsletter from scratch for this project, I could acquire one at a reasonable price at places like Duuce, a marketplace to buy or sell newsletters.
• Gary Hoover is a serial entrepreneur and walking encyclopedia of business history. He has studied 35,000 business books and had a collection of over 70,000 books before a tragic fire. He sold BOOKSTOP to Barnes and Nobles. He took small business information publisher Hoover’s, Inc. public via IPO in 1999 and sold it to Dun & Bradstreet for $117 million. He’s the founder and executive director of American Business History, an interesting resource. I learned a lot from this interview he gave.
• The brand-journey framework exercise was very helpful. I like starting with a goal and working backward, so it was right up my alley. It made the concept of building a brand make logical sense to me and provided me with something that will make decision-making and saying no to things that don’t align easy. For a more detailed explanation of the framework, see here.
• Google Tag Manager (GTM) allows for much more granular tracking of actions and events on a website than Google Analytics. It’s more involved to set up, and I needed someone with experience in both tools to help me set up GTM. But the granularity of the data should be well worth the effort.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

This week I caught up with a buddy who’s a software developer. He’s been working on a software idea that he hopes will become a large business. The scope of the project is sizable, so he’s had to hire a few developers to help him get it over the finish line. He shared with me that he’s learned a lot from the experience, the main thing being that he doesn’t want to work on any project that he can’t build by himself. He doesn’t want to manage other developers. He just wants the freedom to work on software ideas he’s curious about, launch them (and hopefully get revenue), and move on to the next project.

As I listened to my buddy, I thought about the indie hackers I’ve researched. The notable ones have one-person shops that have built a portfolio of several companies that collectively generate several million dollars in revenue each year (usually, one of them contributes the most revenue). From what I’ve learned, indie hackers love the process of building but also love new challenges. They don’t want to work on something indefinitely. They want to be individual contributors and work alone so they can move really fast. And most importantly, they want freedom—they want to be in the driver’s seat of their own lives.

I’m pretty sure my buddy is an indie hacker, but he might not realize it yet. I have a lot of respect for indie hackers. I think it’s amazing that they can do what they love; build cool, new stuff; turn it into companies; and generate enough revenue to give them financial freedom (in some cases, serious wealth). What I respect most about them is that everything they do is on their own terms.  

Not every software engineer wants to work at or build a large company. Some just want to continuously work on new ideas they find cool and be in control of their life. They don’t want to rule the world; they just want to live in it the way they see fit. I love it, and I think the indie hacker movement is a great part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem that will likely get much larger and well known in the years to come.

This week, I had a conversation with an early-stage founder building an AI company to help large companies manage software development. He recently completed a substantial fundraising round. He’s from Atlanta, founded his company here, and was splitting his time between San Francisco (SF) and Atlanta, but he recently moved full-time to San Francisco.

I was curious about why he moved, and he told me he had two main reasons:

• Talent – Only a few hundred people in the world know how to train large language models the way his company needs them trained, and those people are all in SF. He needs to be there to recruit talent.
• Ground zero – The biggest breakthroughs are happening daily in SF. When you’re there, you’re working alongside the people making them. Because you know what they’re working on, you can build complementary products six or eight months before other people—who aren’t even aware the breakthrough is coming. Additionally, being physically closer to large-model companies like OpenAI enables you to gain access to useful information such as product roadmaps, which allows you to stay ahead of the curve in your building and decision-making.

This founder’s perspective is unique, given his knowledge of and deep entrenchment in both cities. I found it helpful. I understand why he moved to SF, but I’m hopeful that Atlanta will attract and produce more AI talent over the next few years, making it feel like ground zero. If so, hopefully, talented AI founders won’t need to move to achieve outsize success.

Ever since I read James Webb Young’s  A Technique for Producing Ideas a few weeks ago, one of its ideas has been in the back of my mind: the importance of learning a principle before a tactic when trying to master something.

Here are a few passages from the book about this:

“In learning any art, the important things to learn are, first Principles; and second, Method.”

“Particular bits of knowledge are nothing, because they are made up, of what Dr. Robert Hutchins has called rapidly aging facts. Principle and method are everything.”

“We may know all these [advertising tactics] and still not be an advertising man, because we have no understanding of the principles and fundamental methods by which advertising works.”

“On the other hand, we may know none of these [advertising tactics] but have insight into advertising principles and method, so that employing technicians to help us we may produce advertising results.”

“Thus we sometimes see a manufacturer or merchant who is a better advertising man than his advertising agent or manager.”

I’m not sure how other people approach this, but I haven’t been intentional about learning principles first when I’m trying to master something. I’m intentional about focusing my reading and knowledge consumption on information specifically related to the topic. But I haven’t thought to prioritize starting with a book or podcast that explains principles. It happens sometimes, but it’s random.

The more I’ve thought about Young’s approach, the more sense it’s made. Principles are the foundation that isn’t likely to change, while tactics and methods evolve with the times. Understanding the principle is key to understanding why a current tactic is valid and to being able to experiment to find its replacement if it becomes ineffective.

I suspect that Young’s approach applies to learning in general, too. To understand concepts (even if you don’t plan on mastering something), it’s best to seek out and understand the principles and then seek out tactics that others have used. Doing so will result in better comprehension and retention, or so I think. I’m going to test this theory as I learn about copywriting this summer (see here).

I’ve been chatting with an early-stage founder and providing feedback about his pitch deck. He’s sharp and a go-getter, and I enjoy working with him. He’s looking to raise a seed round from a venture capital firm and wanted my thoughts, since I’ve been inside an early-stage venture capital firm.

One of the things I’ve been questioning is the problem he’s trying to solve. He wasn’t stating it succinctly—he alluded to it, mentioning other problems as well. It was up to me, the reader, to reach the correct conclusion about the main problem he’s solving. I’d talked to him, so I could do that, but what about the investors who see a few pitch decks a day and would see his pitch cold? They won’t take the time to try to figure out the problem; they’ll just say no and move on to the next pitch deck.

Businesses exist to solve a problem for their customers. Customers pay for that solution if it provides value to them. It’s that simple. The customer’s problem is the foundation of the business. Solve their problem in a way that customers value, and they’ll pay you for that value. If you can’t articulate the problem clearly, that failure cascades through all aspects of the business and makes everything harder. Raising money and closing customers is harder, and even recruiting may be more challenging.

Understanding the one main problem you’re solving and communicating it clearly is harder than it sounds. If you can’t articulate your problem in a way that people instantly understand (even if they disagree with it), consider spending some time refining it and getting feedback until you nail it. Getting this right as early as possible will give you a north star that will make decision-making, fundraising, and a host of other things easier (not easy!) down the road.