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Business & incomeExperience excerpt · English

Business: We built a business over 8 years

… Business: We built a business over 8 years. It was hard. The first year we were negative in profit, paying ourselves out of our bank accounts. Overnight success in 8 years. Just keep learning everything that wasn't tech, marketing, people management skills, etc. Eventually we did well got up to like 20 person head count purely with organic growth and were acquired. Skills in general: https://gist.github.com/gtallen1187/e83ed02eac6cc8d7e185 "A little slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept". So now when people ask me anything. Career advice. How do I lose weight. How do I get in shape. "Let me tell you about my 10 year plan for you. you can't even imagine how long and hard 10 years is, I know, but that is what it is going to take to make a life long change. do you still want my advice?" Of course many good things happen sooner, but I only talk to people that can at least accept it is going to be hard and I don't hold any secrets about anything other than you have to work really hard and apply effort.

Original discussionOSTA/ULTA: We overestimate short term and underestimate long-term ability177 source comments · at import
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voisinHN

Tony Robbins has been saying this for decades. People overestimate what they can do in a year but massively underestimate what they can do in a decade. One implication being that if you take up a hobby (say, playing the piano) after a year you are probably not very good and a lot of people then give it up because their performance doesn’t meet their (over-)expectation. But stick with it, grinding it out year after year, and almost anyone can meet their expectations. The trick, of course, is to only undertake those few things which you think you’ll want to stick with over the long term.

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matwoodHN

I'm glad someone brought up BJJ. I'm ~4 years in, and it works exactly this way. The day to day doesn't seem like you're learning that much. In fact, I don't even feel like I know that much after 4 years. But, when I roll with high belts now many have to really work to get me. And like you said, if I go against someone who has never grappled before, I can gently fold them up without breathing hard.

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blueorange8HN

Yes this is exactly right. In my case the business has been 12 years and now we are probably valued around $65m. 12 years is a really long time. I never would have thought it would take this long, but also I never would have expected to have the success we have had. I often look at other startups and I think to myself — This was really freaking hard to build this business bootstrapped, but it wasn’t impossible. It also didn’t take any special skills. It just took determination and hard work and continuing to do that for a long time - and i wonder why they don’t try the same thing I did. It must be because people underestimate the impact of hard work over time. The key thing is don’t die and continue growing, even if its a small amount. Continue fixing things, getting better, getting more customers, etc. Just like you said above. In the case of my business i wasn’t thinking long term, i j…

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borrokaHN

BJJ black belt who has been training for 12 years and previously trained in wrestling. "After one year, all but the newest people still make you feel like you don't know anything, they can submit you pretty easily": this is not true in general, only with context. Athletic people in general would not be hopeless after one year at the local club level. I have athletic kids who show up and immediately give me problems because, despite still poor technique, their speed, power, cardio, flexibility, etc. make them dangerously competitive. The fact is that the vast majority of adults who start jiu jitsu today are not athletic. Jiu jitsu attracts a population of mostly nerds who, because of the cerebral nature of jiu jitsu, can do very well over the years, but for the first year or two their still poor or average technique does not allow them to overcome athletic limitations. Moreover, except fo…

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