There is no “right” path to entrepreneurship

Hey,

This is Pat, founder of Starter Story — I wanted to give a warm welcome to the 788 people who joined us since our last newsletter. To anyone reading this, your support means a lot! I hope you enjoy reading our content as much as we enjoy creating it.

Three times per week, I write this email to share the lessons we learned after talking to successful founders around the world.

If you're not interested in our emails, you can unsubscribe here.

Heads up! – Are you ready to let your entrepreneurial spirit bloom this spring?

To help you achieve your goals a little easier, here’s a special discount for new members only.

Limited spots. Once they're sold, the deal is gone. Don't miss it!

Join us today, enjoy a 25% special discount for newsletter subscribers, and plant the seeds of your dream business.

And now, let's dive in: 

There is no “right” path to entrepreneurship

-----

Below is a guest post from BowTiedOpossum, founder of WiFi Money, a Substack & website that aims to teach anybody how to build & grow digital businesses to escape your 9-5.

-----

It’s true. And you’re not the exception. You won’t take the correct path to get where you want to go.

That’s not a bad thing, though. It’s actually a good thing. It means that you can find your path to entrepreneurship even if you went in the wrong direction to start.

Some people are determined to start a business. Anything to escape their 9-5 and allow them the freedom to control their schedule.

Some people fall into it.

Some people are forced into it when their life doesn't go as planned.

Whatever path you’re currently on, there is a way forward, because there’s no “right” path that you should take.

Let’s start with a few examples of people running unglamorous 7-8 figure businesses that took the “wrong path.” Since I know all of these people personally, I’ll be using fake names.

Pushed out when his company was acquired

Dan was once an HR exec at a multi-billion dollar company. The stereotypical corporate suit.

Play by the rules and climb the ladder. Until one day, his company is acquired. If you’ve been around long enough or high enough in Corporate America, acquisitions generally mean one thing.

Heads are getting cut.

Seeing that he was the head of HR, he assumed he was safe.  He was the one cutting all of the heads, after all.

Until. It was his head on the chopping block.

You don’t cry during these times. You take it on the chin and work to figure out what’s next.

During the transition period, Dan called up some old colleagues to see if he could get some short-term consulting work. It held him over for the time being, but he discovered that he loved not having a boss and creating his own schedule.

A few years later, his company’s client list would be recognized by almost everyone in America.

Related case studies:

👉 Started a $25K/month DTC brand after being fired from his corporate job

👉 Got fired at 24, and instead of searching for another job, started a 7-figure company

👉 From being fired twice in a month, to pocketing $10K/month with her own biz

From bankrupt to owning a 7-figure business

Sam was your average employee at a car dealership. A particularly nasty divorce left him bankrupt and unemployed. Needing money, he went and got a job running a landscaper crew. Within 6 months, he realized that the owner was looking to retire.

Businesses that are run by their founder usually need a buyer with a similar skill set. As it’s a hard business to sell, Sam realized that the likely outcome would leave him out of a job. 

Instead of trying to find a new job, he negotiated a way to buy the company with no money down and at a very attractive rate.

How? Owner financing, creative payment structure spread out over 3 years, and the personal relationship that he had built with the owner.

Sam doubled the company's size in less than 2 years and has his eyes set on taking it from 7 to 8 figures.

Related case studies:

👉 This guy went from broke and jobless to starting a $4.2M/year business

👉 This is how two broke students started a business and hit $1M in 12 months

Farmer to direct to consumer spices

Ethan and his wife Caroline were stereotypical small-town people. Between their farm, church, and working with the school, they stayed busy.

As retirement neared, they took an overseas cruise that landed them smack dab in the middle of poverty as they had never seen. 

6 months later, their retirement plans had shifted to helping the poor farmers build more efficient processes to help lift them out of poverty.

It helped, but 6 months later, they had a plan to accelerate lifting these people out of poverty. They themselves would buy the product directly from the farmers and sell it in the US.

By cutting out all of the middlemen in the spice trade, they could pay the farmers well above market prices for their goods.

They had to figure out how to build a website, and import and market products. A tall order, given that they had never done anything like it before.

Today Ethan and Caroline run a spice company allowing them to make a profit while also lifting the most vulnerable among us out of poverty.

Related case studies:

👉 This guy went from almost retiring at 28 to starting a $6M/year business

👉 This retired pro basketball player launched his own DTC brand

Abusive household to SMB owner

To say Allen grew up with a rough childhood is an understatement. After dropping out of high school, he quickly moved away from home to a rough city in a 30-year decline. He took the first job he could. Sales at a sewing machine shop.

Content with his life, he worked there for years and became an expert in all things sewing. When the owner decided to retire, it was clear who would own the shop in his absence.

Using similar owner financing techniques as Sam did with the landscaping company, Allen was able to buy the business and take it over for no upfront money down.

There is a unique opportunity in the next few years. An entire generation of boomers is retiring with nobody to run their business.

These boomers have two options:

1. Sell with a limited number of buyers allowing you to buy these businesses at a lower Price-to-Earnings multiple.

2. Close the business down, allowing for less competition in the market when you start your business. 

Related case studies:

👉 This guy bought a Shopify app and grew it to $1M/year

 👉 This couple bought a business for $535K...  and grew it to $8.5M/year 

The opportunity

Before you can capitalize on either of these routes, you need to understand one thing.

You need to understand how to analyze businesses. How they’re built… How they’re marketed… How they make their money… How they’re run…

The best way to do this is through practice. You need to develop a habit of analyzing every business you come across.

What makes the Starbucks on the corner have a line stretching to the street while the coffee shop down the road always seems to be empty? Or vice versa.

How does the website that you get information from stay afloat? How are they making their money?

Why is it that one website shows up for a Google search while another website is on page 3?

Why do people spend so much time growing an audience on social media?

The answers to these types of questions aren’t as straightforward as you might think. They’re all nuanced and specific to the situation. It’s your job to figure out the nuance.

If you want to learn how to analyze and understand the nuance, it will take testing, questioning, and repetition.

Once you understand the above and buy the business, there’s only one question that matters.

How are you going to improve it to grow it?

If you want to understand digital businesses in this way, follow BowTiedOpossum & sign up for the Substack WiFi Money. 

Together with Oceans

The secret weapon of the world’s most successful companies

Feel disorganized, and your to-do list keeps growing?

Oceans is your best bet. They provide professionals, with 5-10 years of experience, across operational roles from the global talent pool for 50-80% less than US-based candidates. 

We're talking $3,250 for professionals like Tehani and $3.500 for professionals like Dulakshi who have experience working with global brands such as the World Bank, MG Consulting, HSBC, Sysco, and more. 

Get your next hire via Oceans and join the likes of Austin Rief (CEO of Morning Brew), Ndamukong Suh (Philadelphia Eagles), and more.

Get matched with great talent.

Want to discover more strategies to start and grow a profitable business?

Get full access to our database with 4,000+ real-life case studies and 8,000+ business ideas.

Discover how founders:

a) Come up with money-making business ideas

b) Launch their businesses (even while working a full-time job)

c) Get their first customers, and what strategies they use to generate cash as quickly as possible

And find out exactly how founders went from idea to thousands of customers.

All the systems and strategies to build a successful business can be learned, so why not learn them from others who have already done it?

👉 Unlock full access now and launch your dream business.

Quick hitters