- Learn how to sell. Most people don’t know to close a deal. Take any job that offers you a chance to sell and that puts you in the proximity of great salespeople (this should be the first stop for ex-government or military employees on the way out as the gov’t downsizes).
- Deconstruct any business you see. Estimate revenues. Evaluate competition and competitive advantage and marketing. Etc. Find out how they make money and how much.
- Get experience in an industry or area that you love (so much so that it doesn’t seem like work). Find out everything on how money flows in that industry/area. Who makes the most and why?
- Look for gaps, errors, and failures. Anything that can be improved in that target industry area. Evaluate the opportunity to fill that gap (less upfront cost the better).
- Start something. Think in terms of organic growth. Start very small and self-finance. Bootstrap. Never borrow or take external investment if at all possible (the financial capitalist system will grind you up if it gets the opportunity). Expand slowly.
- Learn from your own failures. Do after action analysis. Be ruthless in this. Your failures will be numerous so don’t expect otherwise.
- Hire slowly and with extreme care. Ethics over ambition. Commitment over greed.
- Invest everything you make into more entrepreneurial opportunities that you control or can touch (or into systems that make you more independent by reducing living costs). Don’t put anything into stocks or bonds (essentially, financial derivatives of real world activity).
- Cooperate with others to eliminate barriers. Some objectives are too big for a single person or partnership to tackle. Joining or creating open source networks that break down barriers may help.
- Do you really want to know the alternative?