3 builders who never spoke to each other

Take your lessons from one step ahead

The famous founders succeeded under conditions that no longer exist, so the useful teachers are people one to three steps in front of you, bought in small amounts and applied the same day. A published step-by-step account from someone who just did it beats inventing your own sequence.

The method

1. 01

   Take your lessons from people one to three steps ahead of you rather than from the biggest winners, whose situation no longer resembles yours.

2. 02

   Stop reverse-engineering famous founders' early moves, because they succeeded under conditions that no longer exist; the transferable lesson is only that they timed a trend well.

3. 03

   Treat another founder's success formula as one experiment to run in your own context, not a recipe - a single life cannot be re-run to prove which factor mattered.

4. 04

   Buy education just in time and in small amounts from people currently doing the work - a conference ticket, a course, a monthly coach, a book - and apply each thing the same day.

5. 05

   Follow a published step by step account from someone who already did it rather than inventing your own sequence, and you can be trading in weeks.

What it returned

• $40,000

  Justin contrasts a $40,000 four-year business degree that never taught him how to find a product people would pay for with roughly $2,000 for a conference, $500 for an online course, $200 a month for a coach and $20 for a book.

• 27

  Rohan Gilkes had posted a Reddit thread giving the steps for launching a local service business. Following it, the company existed in 27 days and had its first customer in about 45.

• Justin quotes Chris Hawkins on ignoring the advice of super-winners.

• Justin's examples of the questions people ask: what Steve Jobs would do, how ConvertKit kickstarted growth, why Basecamp worked early on.

Sources

• ⭐️ I've decided to pursue a Bootstrap MBA – Jakob GreenfeldJakob Greenfeld · jakobgreenfeld.com · Why learn independently? · 2020-08-01
• Forget about your heroesJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Forget about your heroes · undated
• What's on your hard drive?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · What's on your hard drive? · undated
• You can't split test human experienceJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · So what should we do with advice? · undated
• I wasted 4 years of my life doing thisJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · I wasted 4 years of my life doing this · undated
• From Desk Job to Building a $60k/mo Cleaning BusinessFinn Pegler · failory.com · How did you go from idea to product? · undated