Tough Tito Business Advice for my Younger Self

I used to dread the idea of turning 30. I had a specific business milestone by that age, and I was nowhere near it.

I used to dread the idea of turning 30. I had a specific business milestone by that age, and I was nowhere near it.

Ever since I turned 20, I didn’t enjoy any of my birthdays because I had 1 less year to hit that goal. I tried many things, like playing 4 concurrent tables of online poker with $1000 each (at 22), forex trading (at 23), briefly joining a funded startup (at 25), and countless more weird ideas that I don’t remember anymore.

When I turned 29, I got over it. I’m now much closer to where I want than ever before, and I’ll probably get it by mid-2020.

I always liked imagining how an older, stronger, and smarter Kenn would talk to me today; and here’s my list of advice to a borderline crazy 20-year-old me who liked to play with maximum risk.

Hopefully, you’ll find it useful too.

1. Don’t be Goal-Oriented, Be Habit-Oriented

What helped me most with my business growth was by being extremely militant about my day.

9am-12nn was blocked for writing proposals & lead generation. Afternoons were for client work and people management. Night was for international calls.

Whenever I’m in a coworking space, I don’t chit-chat like most people. I just work. I’m always alarmed to see “ambitious & independent millennials” gossip and rant their days away in these spaces. Ambitious goals don’t matter if you can’t focus and stay put.

2. Your ROI calculation should include all types of resources (like your time)

When I started out, I tracked each type of activity I did per hour using a time tracker tool and checked how much revenue or client retention I got for it. 3 hours per day was the sweet spot for growing the business. Anything less created stagnation or made the business shrink.

But it’s not just clocking in the hours, there’s also a minimum output required for those 3 hours. For me, it was at least 1 thirty page marketing audit, 5–10 personalized emails, 1 ad campaign, or PR work.

3. Improve your “Habit Batting Average” Over Time

Even if you don’t complete what you need to do within the allotted time frame, it’s okay. But it’s not okay to stay stagnant. Sure, you can start with 10% completion, but it needs to improve over time. Going beyond 90% is “reliable”.

It doesn’t have to be limited to work. The same concept can be applied to working out and dieting.

4. Maximize Variable Cost, Minimize Fixed Cost

As much as possible, avoid anything with contracts and installments. That means no car and no mortgages before 30. That will be a surprise to some, but it is the rational decision if the goal is to maximize the cash needed to reinvest into the business.

5. Learn The Right Behavior from Biographies

“Not having the right background” is not an excuse. You can get the context that you need for business by reading biographies. Robert Kuok’s biography is probably the best one. Benjamin Franklin’s biography and Erik Nordeus’ interview collections for Elon Musk is also good.

6. Be Impatient with Actions, But Patient with Results

If you’re 19 years old and think you should “work smart”, you can’t. Before you know what “smart actions” are, you need to try all types of actions. No one’s that smart to know it upfront, even with a lot of theoretical knowledge. You need to pay your dues.

And even if you do a lot of work, you also can’t expect results to come instantly. Realize that it’s an exponential curve, not a linear curve. So efforts in the early days have low ROI but things will feel like magic once you stay consistent for a few years. The curve starts to tilt by the 3rd year if you’ve been consistent and have paid your dues.

7. Business is Less About Passion and More About Keeping House

Business will feel like cleaning your room and doing your laundry. Until you figure out finding a purpose behind cleaning your room and doing your laundry, running a business during tough times will break you emotionally.

8. Change the People Around you If you Have to. Burn Bridges (And Know it Will Sting)

A pet theory I have about social mobility is that it’s hard for someone who comes from poverty to grow to middle income or high income because of the high social cost. Once a person has strong social ties, the person tends to stay in the same income or social bracket.

The only way is to only connect & love people who support your aspirations and shed away those who don’t.

It will hurt you for making such tough decisions, and it’s up to you if you are okay with that. I was okay with that.

9. You Don’t Have to Network That Much. Help Other People, and the Network will Come to You

20-year-old Kenn hates “networking and connecting”. 30-year-old Kenn also hates “networking and connecting”. Turns out we both didn’t need it anyway.

Grow your skills, help people in the best way you can, be more visible by paying for PR & news, and the network will start coming to you and people will start asking if they can partner with you. Your life will feel like it’s full of luck if you focus on improving yourself first.

It turns out that going out to drink to “network” or joking around to “create rapport” is non-factor. Creating value for other people is the only true way to network.

10. What You’ve Learned Will Become Outdated. Keep an Open Mind.

Theories and models work in context. When the context changes, you need to adapt with new theories and models.

Many small businesses stay stagnant because they stubbornly hold to what has worked before. Yes, you should stick to it *as long* as it’s working; but you should change when you see early signs that it’s not working like it used to.