Fouad Sader

Stop preparing to build a business--just go and build one!

@lrhaughton @drgurner I’ve accumulated a lot of experience through bad judgement (though painful to admit).

@fouadsader @drgurner Me? A lifetime being “too confident.” And a lifetime hearing “don’t get a big head.” Good judgement takes experience. And a lot of experience comes from “bad” judgement. Find the people who show they want what’s best for you and will encourage. And judge risks with math.

Good note Doctor. 👏🏼 We need more “red flags” to guide us. Especially red flags that bust the myth of “all feedback is good” and “don’t avoid people who are speaking ‘their” truth.” Edit out the energy vampires.

@lintreadertim @lrhaughton Treasure Island is a great book. I read Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo— what an experience. Thanks for sharing :)

@lrhaughton @fouadsader mine : Robert Louis Stevenson Washington Irving Edgar Allan Poe Dumas i don’t read much fiction and almost no novels

Take walks? Check. Read fiction. Sure. The masters. Read bestsellers? Toxic!

@lrhaughton Fiction

@fouadsader Business or Fiction masters?

Principles by @RayDalio

Most mistakes in business are inconsequential. These you'll often commit and learn from, but avoid the major ones with long-term consequences like the plague.

@AlperenTux And it probably is the toughest one to learn to handle

@fouadsader "They must act quickly with incomplete information" This one hits home for me

One Trait to Rule Them All.

When life throws a curveball, don’t flinch—swing hard. You might just knock it out of the park. You’ll sleep better, knowing at least you tried.

@lrhaughton Love it 😂

Robotic is SOP. Has been for a century. See “The Bedbug Letter.” (AI continues the tradition.)

Mental resilience is the key to entrepreneurial success. Here’s how to build the mindset that keeps you moving forward.

@AlperenTux GTM has always been the real battleground for me across my entrepreneurial ventures. It’s always that cold start phase that’s the most challenging.

@fouadsader Sounds like our Journeys are similar (also building my own consulting practice). What has been the most challenging part for you?

I'm back from taking a break of writing online, here's why and what I'm up to:

The Biggest Mistake I See in Business, and How I Overcame It. After 16 years as an entrepreneur, I can safely call myself an expert—an expert at failing, learning, and building. Building businesses, building teams, building calluses. So, in a series of posts, I’d like to pass on some of my experiences, with a special focus on my mistakes, so that you (hopefully) avoid them. What’s the Most Common Mistake I Encounter When Talking to Aspiring Entrepreneurs? They almost always have an idea for a product or service, believe that it’s very cool and profitable, and that all their friends encouraged them to go for it. All without any customer interaction, without attempting to make a single sale, without understanding their customers’ pain points, what drives them to use current products/solutions, and what it would take to get them to switch (switching costs). What Did I Do to Overcome This Mistake? Three things: 1. Learn to Think Through a Problem/Solution Framework. Instead of thinking from the perspective of a product that I find interesting or an idea that seems like a breakthrough after a long evening with friends, I learned to think about products in terms of what problems they solve, how they solve them, and for whom. This forced me to think ideas through. It forced me to consider current alternatives, understand motives and buying behavior, and dig into the real switching costs. 2. Think Short-Term Pessimist, Long-Term Optimist. You’re going to fail. You’re going to get a couple of bad deals, misprice something, deal with a lost delivery, have a bad batch of products, experience downtime, etc. You’re going to have a hard time getting people to care, sign up, or buy your product, and you’ll deal with less-than-serious employees and cutthroat clients. Bottom line: the short-term is going to suck. Plow through it. The only way out is through. Stay focused on your long-term vision, your dream, your purpose. Nothing worthwhile was ever built in a day. Great businesses take time to build. We’re talking about years, not weeks. Believe that you’ll get through this. Your situation is not unique—others have been where you are and have overcome it; so can you! Think in terms of 5 to 10 years and what you can achieve by then. 3. Run the Smallest Possible Experiment Selling the Product. When I understand a market and believe I have a good idea to execute, I have as many conversations as possible with potential customers. Yet often, that’s not enough. For me, the best validation is a sale. So, I try to figure out the smallest possible experiment I can run to complete an end-to-end sale—from how a customer will discover my product all the way to a paid sale. Even if the solution is hacked together and imperfect, even if half the processes have to be executed manually, or even if I have to get a product above the actual sourcing cost—it doesn’t matter. What matters is this: I learn about all aspects of the business, understand willingness-to-pay at a very low cost, and test my assumptions. And I Leave You with This: Entrepreneurship is a difficult yet extremely rewarding journey. If you think it’s going to be all sunshine, then you’ve got the wrong idea, and reality is going to hit you soon. Yet, if you think of it with a long-term lens and persevere through the pain and uncertainty, you’ll end up winning. And most of all, many years from today, you’ll look back and have one less regret than most.

To err is human.

Become An Entrepreneur Over a Weekend.

@lrhaughton @MattDoyle_ Survivor bias as well

@MattDoyle_ True. Luck of the wildly rich, (as in winning the lottery) is a huge factor obscured by your ignorance and their “half truths”. Get the “untold” origin story and see how much luck was their catalyst.

Topics I'm exploring in my life right now. There are 3 areas I am actively thinking about a lot these days: Topic #1: Building Generational Wealth Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in building things (and taking things apart). As I became an adult, my focus shifted to building sustainable businesses, often in areas that I didn't know much about. However, when I became a parent, my priorities in life completely shifted. I'm not interested in building businesses and just optimizing for exits, but rather, I'm interested in building sustainable business machines that one day can be passed to the next generation. My aim over the next 10 years is to set the foundations for a business that can one day outlast me. Topic #2: The Founder Mindset I first got interested in psychology 20+ years ago. It was a form of self-medication for me in the pursuit of healing and self-improvement. I would later learn—through hard-earned lessons, of course—that having an anti-fragile mindset is the key to success as an entrepreneur. And today, I can attribute the majority of business failure to a lack of a mature founder's mindset.* As I grow in maturity as an entrepreneur and after building 20 years of calluses, I reflect on the lessons learned and what I should avoid in the future. *Not that businesses don't fail, but failure is rarely permanent if you adopt the right mindset. More on this in future posts. Topic #3: Scaling Businesses I also focused on learning more about scaling businesses, reflecting on the mistakes I've committed when overexpanding or scaling too early, as well as the upside of the healthy business growth my businesses have experienced in the past. Some big questions I'm exploring here (or re-exploring, as I often do), is the linear scalability of retail businesses vs. the exponential scalability of e-commerce/tech, etc.-- areas that I've started operating in only in the past year or so. A question I consider sometimes is: if I had to make a choice, and only one business was to be my legacy, which one would it be? Right now, I'm focused on growing my High-Impact Consulting practice, implementing the hands-on lessons learned in business strategy and operations to help others build optimized business machines. Will this be my legacy? Follow my journey to see how it unfolds. P.S. It would be great to connect with other people who are interested in the same topics—so if any of the above resonates, feel free to reach out.