Early in my career, I had several mentors who played a massive role in shaping how I think about my career, my productivity, where to focus, and what matters.
This experience taught me first-hand the importance of having mentors. No matter what you're working on, mentors have a way to add to your understanding and maturity much faster than you can yourself. As I enter the second decade of my career since finishing my undergraduate degrees, I thought it important to experiment with mentorship. To give it new life and new meaning.
Another reason it was important for me to reset my thinking around mentorship was because I've changed my career path from large corporate roles to company-builder. There are, of course, overlap between what I was doing in the past and this new kind of work, but there are certainly new aspects to it as well. So finding mentorship to help with the new parts and to continually refine the old seemed like a sensible thing to do.
As an experiment, I expanded my search beyond people that I've worked with (which is where I had defaulted to in the past) and included online personalities who I knew had a lot of online content and resources that I could plug into. The first person I looked into was Daniel Priestley, whom I have never met but hope to someday.
Like me, Daniel is an ambitious Australian living abroad who is interested in business. He focuses a lot on early-stage companies. So, by default, he talks a lot about how to test business ideas, take ideas to market, and also has a really interesting macro-level view on opportunities that are unique to post-boomer generations. Some of these ideas had already crossed my mind, so it was validating to hear Daniel speak on such topics. He obviously put a lot of energy into his ideas and has had so many interesting experiences, I figured he was a great first online mentor to experiment with.
Re-emerging from studying Daniel, I thought I'd make this post about concepts that stood out to me. But I'll start with a quick background on Daniel.
Background
Daniel has started 7 businesses that generated over $1 million in revenue in the first 12 months and has started businesses that generate over $10 million in annual revenue. Today, he runs a successful business-building events consultancy out of London.
Takeaway 1
Ideation
My first takeaway from Daniel is that ideas alone are NOT valuable. The true value of an idea lies in the practical steps taken to validate and execute it.
He emphasizes the importance of testing the idea in the market, rather than relying on our own perceptions.
Daniel also discusses fast and effective methods to validate ideas and leverage those findings to determine next steps. He talks about setting up a waiting list to gauge genuine interest in an idea, citing examples such as Elon Musk's waiting list for Tesla models and Rolex's use of waiting lists to sell luxury watches.
Takeaway 2
Generational Opportunity
Another concept that really stood out to me is how he observes that the baby boomer generation had access to cheap real estate that rapidly increased in value. This opportunity is not nearly as widespread for the post-boomer generations. However, those generations have something else - access to technology that enables highly scalable global small businesses.
In just a weekend, you could set up a website and start selling to a global market, thanks to no-code website building platforms, reliable logistical infrastructure and a global financial system. It has never been easier to test ideas and grow an online business, and this presents an opportunity to make money efficiently.
Takeaway 3
Component Labor
Another concept that has stuck with me from following Daniel is his views on education.
Today, the education system is built for "component labor". What he means by that is the education system trains students on a particular set of skills, that can then be inserted into a company to perform that component task. But as technology gets more powerful, and AI becomes more readily available, this kind of labor is going to be less and less in demand.
For example, a large company might have a tax lawyer to help the company structure its legal entities and to comply with tax filing requirements. Moving forward with the power of artificial intelligence, a specialized AI agent will likely be able to perform this function more cheaply and with a higher level of accuracy. Of course there will be a need for some tax law specialist humans, but the number of them will be dramatically reduced with the use of technology. Even the safest of career paths could prove to be extremely vulnerable to layoffs in the not too distant future.
So you might be thinking what role will humans play if not as components of large organizations. The answer to that is something uniquely human that Daniel defines as 'life force energy'.
Imagine you are in a meeting room talking about a routine business matter. You’re looking at a screen filled with charts and words, when all of a sudden a dog squeezes its way through the door. It runs in with a big smile on his face and a ball in its mouth. It greets each person in the room, one by one each, with its tail wagging.
Where does everyone’s attention go to? The dog.
The dog has brought new energy into the room. It’s has attracted engagement, focus and enthusiasm. It has literally breathed new life into the room. I know it’s a terrible example, but I think the role of humans going forward will have a lot in common with this dog. People will be required to build skills that increase focus, increase engagement, and align others around a common purpose - to breath life energy into a company.
Takeaway 4
Balance Sheet Growth
Another takeaway from Daniel is the concept of growing a business using its balance sheet instead of its P&L.
More often than not, small companies focus on maximizing revenue and minimizing costs, which leads to a focus on driving monthly sales with a sense of urgency. Each month is a panic and the cycle repeats endlessly.
Daniel provides great lessons on building growth through a balance sheet by creating assets that work for you and generate continuous income, without being stuck on an endless hamster wheel. He argues that if you did nothing for your business for 6 months, would it still generate income for you? If your answer is no, this is not an autonomous business - this is a job.
Take for example content creators. They are a prime example of this kind of asset-driven growth. They can spend years posting about their life, experiences and interests, building a loyal and engaged community. This content and the loyal fans are the assets of the content creator. They combine to make a brand. After many years, these assets can be monetized into advertising partnerships, where brands will pay significant amounts of money to content creators to promote their products to their engaged audience, knowing that their audience takes their advice seriously and many will convert into a sale.
In a follow up post, I will share 4 more takeaways from Daniel.
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