Calling All Experienced Entrepeneurs/Investors

[G-Diddy20]

I am 20 and an aspiring future entrepeneur/investor. I would like to know what all the entrepeneurs/investors who read this forum and who have had some success wish they had done at a young age and regret they didn't do. I am struggling trying to figure out where to get started when I get out of college or even now, and I would like to know from some of the elder successful statesman out there what they wish they would have done or even didn't do when they were just starting up. This can be on ANYTHING. My current goal is to read everything I can get my hands on as far as finance/investing/entrepeneurship is concerned. I have ordered about 10 books off amazon.com and hope to have them all finished in a few months and then read some more. Any advice is appreciated.


This is not just for my own benefit but that of other people on this forum too as I see alot of posters that look like they may be in the same or at least a very similar position as me. Thanks in advance,

G

[gull]

Speaking on the investing side, many people wish they had started saving and investing sooner. It's much easier to accumulate money before a house, family, and higher standard of living starts to eat away at your disposable income. Contributing to an IRA is particularly important, because there's a yearly limit.

[mindflayer]

There is a huge difference between Investor and EntrepReneurs.

If you are an investor, you invest in Others.
If you are an Entrepreneur, you invest in yourself.

If you are going the E route there are generally two routes.
1)Find your passion, then turn it into a business. (hard but fun way)
2)Find the demand, then turn it into a business. (easier financially because the sales are waiting to happen, but Much harder because you need to learn/become an expert at something you have dealt with before)

Usually #2 wins out in that a budding E will go to work for a random business, then (keeping his Entrepreneurial eyse open) see a major fault in the business production/delivery/service... become an expert at the product while getting paid.. then go off and start his/her own company to deal with the major problem and scoop the business.

[BradleyT]

What happened to your e-commerce store?

Investing in yourself >>>>> investing in the market.

[G-Diddy20]

we decided to just sell the shoes over ebay and have been doing very well so far.

we decided that a store would be to hard to get enough people there with all the competition out there as people said on here. we are in the green already and the work load is hardly anything. definitly a success. we are averaging about $30 in profit per shoe.


good post mindflayer, ty..

[NL__Fool]

I regret not getting my high school diploma, I only have 1 credit to go and still have not gone back, although i think about it every now and then.

I also regret going into business with a friend of mine as it cost us our friendship, We discovered later on we both had very different ideas on how the business should be run.

I also regret passing up on a lot of fun I could have had when I was younger due to the fact at the age of 17 thru 25
when all of my friends main concern was where to Party, when to Party and how to get laid that night, mine was how many copies of movie x should I buy, how much and where to advertise this month and where is our next location going to be?

A lot of my friends gave up calling me and I lost contact because I was always working and to tired to go to the bars
or Party's etc.

I was working 75-90 hours a week from 17 right thru to 22 or so to make my business a success.

If I could change anything I would move the opening date of our video store back 6 months so I could have gotten my diploma as I probably will never get it now.

I dropped out of high school at the age of 17 in Grade 12.

A friend and I were starting up a video store and there was no way we could open the store and go to school at the same time. 1/2 way thru the school year we gave up and both dropped out of school, we were falling to far behind in our classes to catch up as preparing the opening of our video store conusmed all of our time.

Our teachers, friends etc all that that we were nuts and we got into a ton of trouble by our teachers at school for skipping classes, tests etc and we finally had to drop out. It got to the point where our parents had to tell the principal and teachers to back off. No one but our parent scould understand why we couldn't do the video store "before and after school hours"

The thing is this wasn't just a tiny neighbourhood video store, this was a huge video store with very ambitious plans.

Our 1st store was 7,000 square feet (bigger then your typical Blockbuster Store) and we had to borrow 200K to open it. It opened in June 1993.

Our parents lend us 100K and the other 100K we had to borrow from the bank.

Fast forward 3 years, we had opened 2 more stores and our friendship was in tatters. I eventually bought him out in 1997 and he moved to Vancouver to do his own thing down there.

Fast forward to 2001 and I decided it was time to get out.

I sold my small chain of 11 stores to an up and coming national chain (Ambassodor Video who eventually went bankrupt)

I tried the restaraunt business after that, (I bought a well established restaraunt that made good money,discovered I hated it and sold it 16 months later at a loss because I just wanted out as quick as I possbly could.)

I didn't know what I wanted to do after that so I was a stay at home dad while deciding what to do.

Currently I'm an un-employed poker bum because I really have no need to work anymore. I'm 31

Currently I am thinking about becoming a real estate broker with my wife as poker is getting boring.

who knows what next year will bring?

[kimchi]

[ QUOTE ]
wish they had done at a young age and regret they didn't do

[/ QUOTE ]

A little off-topic, but:

While starting investing early is important, I think too many students (especially US students) don't travel enough after school/uni.

I've spent a long time traveling around and I've met a ton of folk from different countries, but the only Americans I've met are serving in the military (not the greatest ambassadors for Uncle Sam).

You're only 20. Save a couple of K, buy a ticket, and wander around somewhere for a year.

There's plenty of time to be sensible later.

I did this in my mid-20s (shouldn't have wasted 5 years working my ass off in London), and am still reasonably un-sensible now living abroad.

[Jailhouse]

Out of curiousity, did you travel around by yourself? It doesn't seem like there are many people in there 20s that can take a trip like that. If so, how did you decide where to go and how did you go about meeting people?

-Brian

[kimchi]

[ QUOTE ]
Out of curiousity, did you travel around by yourself?....how did you decide where to go and how did you go about meeting people?

-Brian

[/ QUOTE ]

(Sorry OP if I've hi-jacked your thread)

I used to be an expedition manager for a tropical forest and coral reef charity and worked in London and The Philippines. I decided to quit but wanted to stay in Asia, so after that I spent a year traveling around SE Asia by myself.

You can stay in guest houses for like $1 or $2 a night and hook up with people (especially slack backpacker chicks) and travel with them until your paths diverge a few days later.

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't seem like there are many people in there 20s that can take a trip like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not sure what you mean about this. I think long-term travel is easiest in your 20s.

I don't think many US students travel after or between studying. A year out or 'gap year' is pretty much a right of passage for European and Antipodean students (Canadians too, I think). Asia is crawling with 20-somethings bumming around.

I'm not (quite) in my 20s anymore, but I'll still be spending my summer arsing around in Malaysia or Vietnam.