DailyBiz #1: Elon Musk's 5 Tips On Becoming A Real-Life Iron Man
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This is the first article of our new series DailyBiz where we learn about entrepreneurship from proven entrepreneurs. We will explore new lessons from different entrepreneurs every day, so make sure you follow me and never miss out.
Elon Musk
First and foremost, who is Elon Musk?
Source: TED
Even if you have not heard of him, I'm sure that you have heard of his companies. Yes, COMPANIES.
Currently, he is
- Co-founder and CEO of Tesla Inc.
- Founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX
- Co-chairman of OpenAI
- Founder and CEO of Neuralink
- Co-founder of SolarCity
- Founder of X.com (which later became PayPal)
Besides building multiple billion dollar companies, his hobby is to work on advanced projects during his side time:
Seriously? A multi-billionaire, genius and physicist? No wonder he is recognized as the real life Iron Man!!
Alright, enough of me fanboy-ing over Elon and let's move on to the 5 Tips from Elon Musk about entrepreneurship.
Tip 1: Work Super Hard
Elon Musk defined 'super hard' as working whenever you are awake.
Yup, that hard. Don't believe it?
When he started his first company with his brother, they rented a small office instead of an apartment to live in. They slept on the couch and showered in the YMCA. To put things into perspective, both of them had to share one computer to do work. The general workflow was like this: operating website during the day, coding and fixing it during the night. This was their lives for 7 days straight in a week all the time.
There's something about his work ethic that resonated deeply with mine, and I quote:
If you do the simple math, you say like somebody else is working 50 hours a week and you’re working 100, you’ll get twice as much done, in the course of the year as the other company.
Well, assuming that you're able to sustain the same level of productivity throughout your entire working hours.
(
)
Source: ShoutMeLoud
Tip 2: Attract Great People!
According to Elon, whether you’re creating a company or joining one, the most important thing is to attract great people. He suggested two ways in order for us to do so:
- Join a group that’s amazing (that you really respect)
- Build a company and gather great people.
Elon believes that a company is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service. The success of a company depends on two factors:
- How talented and hard working that group is?
- How focused and cohesive is the group in a good direction?
Source: Business Insider UK
Tip 3: Focus on Signal Over Noise
Elon stated something really interesting, that a lot of companies get confused in today's business world. He further explained that these companies spend a lot of money on things that don’t actually make the product better. Does this not sound familiar? Like how we often get distracted doing things that do not contribute to our goals?
He even gave an example on how Tesla was not distracted like everyone else. He explained that Tesla has never spent any money on advertising, instead all the money were invested into research and development, manufacturing and designing because they want to make their car as good as possible.
If you still do not know how to stay focused, here's a suggestion by Elon:
Are these efforts that people are expending resulting in a better product or service? If they’re not, stop those efforts.
Source: abc NEWS
Tip 4: Never Follow The Trend Blindly
Do not just follow the trend. Elon has been emphasizing this very much as one of the major factors that contributed to his success as an entrepreneur.
Elon who was once a physicist, is well-known for solving real-world problems using the physics approach - the First Principles.
It is through the First Principles that his businesses were able to accomplish multiple breakthroughs in technological invention and innovation. Rather than reasoning by analogy, Elon suggests that we boil things down to the most fundamental truths we can imagine, and then we reason up from there.
This is a good way to figure out if something really makes sense, or is it just what everybody else is doing.
As someone who is learning and practicing First Principles, I do admit that it takes a lot of effort. Like, SHITLOT of effort. But the results are incredible. To better understand First Principles and how you can apply it to your business, here is the best guide in my opinion and I highly recommend you to read it.
Source: Valentin Perez
Tip 5: Take Risks Now
The final tip from the real-life Iron Man is to take risks now.
According to Elon, our obligations start to increase as we grow older. Well, it's true right? We grow older, we get married, we have a family, we then have health problems etc... More obligations, agree?
An important note here is that when you have a family, you start taking risks not just for yourself, but for your family as well - which explains why it gets harder to do things that might not work out.
Frankly, this is one of the reasons why I am aggressively taking more risks than my peers. Not only am I starting up my own business, I am also a content producer and I am managing my medical studies at the same time. This is tough, I am well-aware that my plate is really full - but hey, I'm enjoying it! I do not regret how tough my journey is right now, because I know that the later I start doing these, the tougher it'll get and the less risks I can take.
Source: Business Insider
Reflection
As expected from the man who intends to lead mankind in colonizing Mars, these 5 tips are relevant to entrepreneurs of all background. It is really humble of Elon Musk to share with us how he has built his businesses, and I feel that this itself is another important lesson for us to learn from.
Personally, I have learnt a lot from today's episode and I hope that you did too. Remember, if you want to start your own business but have no idea to - don't overthink what you want to do, instead just go ahead and do exactly that!
Take care,
M
Shoutout to University of Southern California for the full video that inspired today's episode.
Great learning points there. Interestingly, when RDJ first got the role for Iron Man (instead of Tom Cruise. God, you can't imagine how different the MCU will be today), Elon Musk was one of the first few people he met, because according to Robert, Elon is the real life Tony Stark.
Well, they returned the favour when Elon made a cameo on Iron Man 2.:)
Yup!! Glad that RDJ recognised that before the 'mainstream media'. Naturally, when Elon had his cameo appearances on Iron Man 2, the internet went crazy hahaha
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