reminders to be a successful entrepreneur

Every morning I wake up and follow my daily ritual, however I follow a short list of rules. I write or re-write this list of principles in my cellphone everday to remind myself of what it takes for me to be a successful "entrepreneur" and let's face it success means money! :-) Plus it’s the easiest way of measuring value and more importantly freedom. I think principle number 3 is the biggest difference between entrepreneurs and everyone else.

What are the principles? Well these are the principles that I think separate entrepreneurs from everyone else and push me towards becoming one. (In no particular order here are the reminders in my cell)

1. You get out what's put in.
2. Remember Be Awake
3. Either create heaven or be comfortable in hell
4. Love your work
5. Change or die
6. Life is just 1 tiny step

Read further for the ideology behind each step, or just skip to the one you'd like to know more about.

1) You get out what's put in.

We all know this one. This is an old saying and should hit home with everyone. We all know that if you want to get anything, you're going to have to do something for it. "If you ask enough girls one will kiss you" – Warren Buffet I happen to have a girlfriend, but to get her I had to have the balls to talk to her, ask her out on a date and not play around with the fact I thought she was attractive. I had to put in time and energy to get her, not to mention going outside of my comfort zone attending a Yakima (live in Seattle) inter-college student conference. (They aren't mandatory) Yes, you get out what's put in and in order to know what I would have to put in I created these principles to create myself a recipe of the "what". Everyone had to pay a price for what they have even the ones "born" with it.

           2) Remember Be Awake

This one is also quite simple, as most of my principles are so I can remember them easier. Be awake, simply means that there are times in our lives where we're simply "following the pack", sheep, lemmings even! : ) It means don't be one, be yourself! Don't get comfortable with being a follower and think CONCIOUSLY for yourself, there are times when we're on autopilot just doing what we told ourselves we wouldn't do, staying conscious and being awake is important.  Think before you act, know why your doing it and have good reasons. It actually is very similar to the next principle. The word remember, is also added in to "be awake" because as we all know people naturally forget about their struggles, their hardships and all of their accomplishments. If you take a look back at your life and re-visit your hardest moments, nothing in the future should look insurmountable. If I take a look at the time my grandmother died of cancer and compare it to any other hardship nothing comes close to what I had to go through being around her.

          3) Either create heaven or be comfortable in hell


Before we get into a philosophical rant about what hell/ heaven is, if they exist etc,  I respect all faith(s)  so this principle isn't anti-spiritual, it's simply conceptual. The place you are in right now, the place you do not want to be in, I deem that "hell". The place you'd like to be in is what I call "heaven". Even though, these places might not have such a huge difference, I give them these terms to prevent myself from nullifying the very real fact that there is a difference. I think an entrepreneur doesn't live in "Mickey Mouse" world where everyone does what they're supposed to like a good puppet and not notice their surroundings. I want to create my  own slice of heaven, a place where I follow my own rules and am free; To do this I need to remind myself of where I want to go and where I am. Psychology also points out that humans are motivated more by pain  (hell) then heaven, recognize the pain of the situation you're in and you'll be on a fast track to success.

         4) Love your work


This one is super simple, but can be easily misconstrued. I wrote this principle so I can love the work I don't like or don't think I will like. We all have that thing about ourselves that we don't want to do but know we should. I'm telling you to love it! :-) Yes love to exercise, because if you don't you'll most likely stay or get fat and forget it has a benefit whatsoever, love to sell because it's what helps you connect with your customers, LOVE WHATEVER YOU NEED TO DO TO SUCCEED! (Of course stay ethical =P)  "Work" is simply a term that means doing something productive, love the productive things you do to get you to that next stage. If you learn to love what your next step towards success, you'll live an amazing life. (at least things shouldn't be so bad).

       5) Either change or die

This principle is repetitive of the hell one, so if you read that one you'll notice a similarity ; ) I think all successful entrepreneurs are "agents of change" as some would put it. If you don't change in today's society you die, so this one tells you how to survive. You have to change! Sooner than later someone else will change and if you don't as well you'll fall behind. You'll slowly shrivel away...like a snail!...ok maybe not a snail, but you get the point. By the way, my definition of change includes "innovate" just so you know ; )

      6) Life is just 1 tiny step

Since I LOVE to simplify things and make them "elegant", I like this principle the most. It makes your life easy and is a good one to remember when the going gets tough. Whatever you're down just remember…"life is just 1 tiny step". 1 Tiny Step is actually an idea I was a part of, which "failed" at start up weekend http://www.1tinystep.com : ) If successful our startup would give you the next tiny step to solving whatever problem you had, which I think was an ingenious principle in itself. If you don't know what to do, I'm sure you can think of a tiny step to help you get the answer. Action is most important and I'm sure you don't need a company to tell you that. Keep taking those tiny steps and you'll get very far. That next tiny step may be enough to push you over the edge, where you'll be free falling towards your success and hitting all your targets before you know it. This principle also resides with the whole "a journey starts with one step" saying, but my cellphone doesn't have a lot of space. = P

If anyone has any other principles they think are important for entrepreneurs to follow let me know below or just tell me what you think of the post. These are the principles I think I need to follow to be a successful entrepreneur, everyone has their own problem areas, but these just help me get back on track when I'm #$@%*&% up.

What reminders do you think an entrepreneur needs? Maybe I shouldn't have anything on my cell because typing reminders, reading etc could have been time used as action I could have taken for my start up.

How to find what you love

The path to riches is what we all want to take, but how does one do it? By "riches" my definition is the best life you can create for yourself. If you talk to a person who has made it already they'll probably say something like: "follow your passion" or "do what you love". I personally am really into technology and come up with about  1 tech idea a day of what I could do to start a business (most are worse than good)…so with this curse I've developed the last year, I'm pretty sure I should be doing technology. Luckily I also know that having a job in this field is not hard to find, but on the flipside there are fields where the chances of making it are very low...good luck making it as a poker pro. 

Who knows what the odds of making it platinum as a musician are and the odds of being a sports star?  Pursuing those things seems a bit crazy to me, which is how I know they're not my cup of tea. I'm very sure business is my sport. I can trace this back to my scheming 8 year old self. I would drive my remote control car around my neighborhood. When kids asked: "can I drive?" I'd say: "yea, but in return I'd like a Pokemon card".  A very efficient model for getting Pokemon cards, but I guess asking for 50 cents would not be so bad either. Plus,  I'd rather be a much less successful version of Bill Gates than Michael Jordon, Mike Myers or Michael Jackson any day so with this logic it's why I love business. Every once in a while I ask myself if this is my passion.....YES! Explodes in my mind…I also have been a bit of a musician in the past creating songs and various arrangements since I was 15. While I love to do that as well, I chose business for the future because, however fun it is being a rapper, being a business man is much more appealing and challenging to me.

I see people all around me that aren't following their path and looking miserable everyday.

So what if I didn’t know what my path was? How do we find out what we love to do?

My hypothesis:

Simply look at your heroes (hopefully you want to be like you heroes) and you follow those footsteps in your own way. The people I admire and try to learn the most from happen to be Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Wozniak, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Gordon Moore, Peter Thiel, Mark Cuban, Sean Parker,  I could dig out a lot more, but you get the point.  So just take your heroes study them, try to get in contact to similar people in the field and have fun. HOWEVER…

As we all know, there is more than one ways to skin a tiger (it’s a cat too) and nothing is set in stone until your last day, so let's look at the other options.

Some believe: "If you wanna be successful just take something like your hobby and blow it up" Even though this could be good advice at first, I think that in the long term it does not apply to everything directly, but can be great advice indirectly. I mean I like playing video games as much as anyone, but being a professional gamer is a bit out of the question…starting my own gaming company isn't though. (No I don't play a lot of video games anymore because my new game and most addicting game is business). Other advice could be to try to jump into a field and see if you fall in love with it, which isn't a bad choice either. Jumping in a field and working for a company can help you find your business passion while making some dough. It takes a lot of balls and I respect it as well.  Anyways, I hope I'm on the right "path to riches" money or no money.

An intro to myself and the blog

Who am I? My name is Vladimir K Mkrtumyan I'm a wannabe funny man/ wantrepreneur/ retired musician and chess player. Currently 20 years old, I'll turn 21 a month from now. I know you're thinking I'll go out partying though, I'm very prudish. I don't drink even though most of my friends do and I find nothing wrong with it whatsoever. I've grown to be a contrarian by nature, so that means if you go one way, I'll try to go the other just to see what happens probably making an ass out of myself most of the time. I try to be financially successful all though I feel I'm having as much success at the task as a flamingo trying to learn how to dance the flamingo…yes my mind does jump around a lot and I need an editor, so please try to follow along…moving on!

I came to this country as an immigrant, so and have always seen my parents work hard. Of course they never had any intentions of building a scalable company and making millions like me, but they did pretty well. My dad is a driver and my mom works in accounting. We have had bad financial luck and after the big boom around 2004 I decided that finances were something that I'd have to really try.  We'll see where I end up and I promise you, that if I can do it and if you can read this blog you should be able to attain my life's progress.  Let me tell you right off the bat…

I don't think I'm a genius by any measure, however like most people I think I'm smarter than the average bear. My justification for this is I got into college and got my degree. Of course I got a D in statistics and negotiated/begged with the teacher to pass that class, but I got my degree 2 years early and I think that's all that counts. Give me another 2 years and I would improve my 2.7 something GPA though I'll probably never go back.  I hated school so much I wanted to find every single short cut, plus I was convinced it doesn't help with life success. My mentor never went to college and he's made it, he tells me I can too and I believe him, but for now…let me get back to focusing on what this blog will be about.

You see, I always imagined when I graduated that everything would come so easy and success would be handed to me in a briefcase of some sort…I went around telling everyone I'd retire before the age of 25 (of course 90% of people laughed) , however giving a go at start up life I'm finding that you have to work tirelessly to get what you want. I've tried various methods of success and don't feel like any major breakthroughs are happening yet.  I've also come to realize that the term "retirement" should be dead, but I'll write a blog about it later. (you see how my mind jumps around? I'll write a post on that later too)

My business experience in the tech industry was virtually 0 a year and a half ago, but teaming up with my cousin and sister I had created a business and made it profitable. (About 5 dollars a week profitable, which is basically nothing.) Soon after we decided to re-model our business with a stealth idea, but my cousin left to pursue a degree of programming in Berkeley, leaving me and my sister stuck trying to learn how to program. I've interviewed and hired graphic designers, talked to dozens of entrepreneurs a handful of millionaires, went to Start Up Weekend Seattle and negotiated with other companies. I'm currently trying to learn how to program and "find myself" or how I'll survive in life/pursue my start up idea. 

So let us begin…

Today marks the day…today marks the start of my blog. For many years I told myself this is going to be the year that everything turns out amazing, the year I'll never have to worry about anything again and that life is going to be one big vacation from this day on. I'll finally be financially independent…

The plain and simple truth:

I know there is probably going to be a lot to worry about, especially for what I'm trying to do.

 I want to own a software company and I don't care if I break my hands typing, cry my eyes out from looking at the screen or look like a complete idiot if I have to.

So feel free to laugh at my mistakes and grab any golden nuggets, you can hopefully use this blog as knowledge/motivation/ or whatever it is that will give you that edge and we'll see what this turns into and you can see how many years it takes me to reach success or have funny failure stories.

Cheers and thanks for reading.