At the ripe age of 24, I had stumbled into being the Co-founder & CEO Pitchblak, while also being a shareholder in a decent stable of tech startups. Although it initially felt like I was moving along at a normal pace, I was continually asked how I got to this stage so quickly and at such a young age.
I wasn’t handed anything on a platter to get here, but there were some distinct things that made quite the difference in my journey.
Not going to university helped (A LOT!)
I’m 110% sure if I went to university, I wouldn’t be where I am today. While most my friends were studying and traveling for four to five years, I was knuckling down and learning by getting my hands dirty.
I don’t believe the uni model is completely redundant. I understand university is necessary for some professions. I certainly wouldn’t want to have a brain operation by some self-taught kid in a garage.
Though for anything business or marketing related, the uni system is totally broken. There’s way too much theory, and not enough doing. I even had this mindset right back in high school so I didn’t apply for university.
After graduating school, I immediately started applying for jobs and mistakingly ended up in the world of sales.
Learning to communicate a point effectively was a key part of my personal development. I also met tons of people from all different walks of life. This had a huge effect on me as I learned so much about how to relate to a vast range of personalities – a skill I’d later find out was vital to my success.
Working my ass off
In entrepreneurship, hard work trumps skill. It doesn’t matter how talented you are, you have to be prepared to work at least ten times as hard as the average person (in hours and output), otherwise, you simply won’t make it.
It’s an emotional rollercoaster…there were so many times I considered calling it quits to do something easier. The key to being a hard worker is not feeling sorry for yourself. It’s human nature to feel down when you’re at the office late at night knowing your friends are drinking beers and watching Game of Thrones.
The trick is to be aware of these thoughts and to cut off them off the second it starts happening. You’ll notice your working habits get easier once you start to see the hard work turn into tangible success. These wins are the ‘coke hits’ entrepreneurs thrive on.
The challenging part though is making it through the rough patch in the beginning of your journey where the small wins feel so small that they’re almost unnoticeable. You need to back yourself and realise with enough hard work you’ll get to the point where the ‘small’ wins will be things worth tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Taking risks
I didn’t have to take risks a huge as some of the entrepreneurs I know well to get to this point, but I sure didn’t take the comfortable route.
Even when I worked for other people, I wouldn’t choose the safe option that paid me a steady salary. I wanted my income to reflect my results. I started this approach at the age of 17 which made it so much easier for me to continue on this path throughout my entrepreneurial career.
If you always choose safety over risk it will be harder for you to leap off the once you’re ready to start your own thing.
Pouncing on opportunities I wasn’t ready for
Putting my hand up for opportunities I wasn’t ready for before owning my own businesses, I would argue my way into management roles way above my reach.
I was fortunate to have a few influential people in my life that gave me opportunities I wasn’t technically ready for. They saw a fire in my eyes and were willing to bet on me.
When you get solid opportunities, you need to deliver. I didn’t talk big only to get the role and take my foot off the pedal. I knew I was punching above my weight which made me push harder to get real results. By the time I was 20 years old, I had built a sales team within an ad agency from 6 people to more than 100 staff reporting to me.
I had no idea what I was doing but somehow I made it work. Always remember you will never feel ready for the awesome opportunities that life throws at you. So if ‘feeling ready’ is your key metric for making the decision to put your hand up, you’ll likely miss all the big shots.
Knowing I wasn’t good at everything (or much at all!)
Ego kills success. When someone thinks they’re incredible, they don’t ask others for help. If anything, I think my strongest skill has been the ability to recruit these amazing people to join our company’s ‘crusade’.
I knew I had to master recruitment as I wasn’t talented enough at most the technical skills needed to grow a business. This doesn’t mean I didn’t learn about each function though. A great CEO understands the ins and outs of each function within their business.
I read a lot of books and did online courses to teach myself how each part of a business worked so I would know great talent when I saw it and how to manage my team effectively. It’s also hard to gain the respect of your team if you don’t understand the tasks you’re asking them to perform.
There are some critical skills you will need though as a CEO which you can read here.