The biggest lie in business

What I'm about to say will upset a lot of people. If this offends you, I'm sorry. But here goes:
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Entrepreneurship culture in America is all messed up and it’s a shame.
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TechCrunch. Product Hunt. Shark Tank.
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It’s all about new ideas. Changing the world. Innovation. 0 to 1. Blue oceans. Venture capital and exits and scalability.
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And IT’S ALL A LIE.
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If you ask the average American who a real entrepreneur is they’ll say Jobs, Musk or Zuck. We read stories about them and idolize them and hang on to their every word.
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So the brightest among us think they need a moat. A new idea. Something revolutionary.
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And we're setting them up for FAILURE.
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I took an entrepreneurship course at Cornell in 2011. 24 kids with new ideas. Big plans. Pitch decks looking for series As.
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I was #25 with a regular old-fashioned business.
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When professors asked me what my differentiator was I didn’t have an answer. "We're just going to pick up people's stuff and store it when they go home for the summer. I'll answer the phone, do things a little better and I think I can make some decent money."
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They hated the idea but I knew it would work.
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I saw a company out there doing sweaty, non-scalable work. They weren't very good at it and yet they made really good money.
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So I started by trading my time for money. I bought a $1500 cargo van and Storage Squad was born. Used the things I had in my life to make some profit. I wasn’t trying to educate a customer base. I wasn’t following my passion. I didn’t need funding or a network.
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I wasn’t competing against brilliant folks from Stanford. I want trying to prove a concept. I wasn’t emotionally attached to anything except adding value.
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My customers and my competitors existed. I could study them interacting with each other. I made decisions with my brain, not my heart. I was competing against folks with fax machines, clipboards and paper ledgers.
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And the best part... WE WERE PROFITABLE FROM DAY ONE.
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Not a single one of those 24 folks in my class succeeded. They all went and got jobs. Their new ideas didn’t catch on.
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They all had dreams of millions of users and an exit. Scalable models that could work anywhere from a computer.
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But 99% failed to make a single dollar.
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We made enough money in a few years to build our first self storage facility. We built it for $2.9 million and it's worth over $10 million today. It has created enough cash / value for me that I could live on that one project alone until the day I die.
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That grew into the 68+ property $130m+ portfolio we own and operate today and we sold the service business in January 2021.
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We had no debt and no silent partners. My business partner and I split the cash.
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So who are the real entrepreneurs? Who are the wealthiest people you know?
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I’m not just talking about money.
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I’m talking about the people who do what they want to do when they want to do it.
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Who are they?
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Now here comes the hard truth.
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I know a lot of wealthy entrepreneurs. Almost none of them had new ideas. Very few of them raised VC money. None of them were on shark tank.
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They all did common things uncommonly well.
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Regular old businesses just a little bit better. BORING STUFF.
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Most of them have a few things in common:
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They worked really hard doing something not fun for 5+ years. Many times 20+ yrs. They started out trading their time for money. They did things that weren’t scalable.
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Many of them offered services. They all had to talk to people. Most of the time face to face. They had to sell themselves and their ideas. They didn’t take a lot of risk.
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The main point: Stop buying into the hype. The click bait. The sexy stories of overnight success and mega riches.
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Entrepreneurship isn’t that complicated.
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Do something with good odds, low risk and moderate rewards.
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Don’t master your craft, master leading other people. Think with your head, not your heart.
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It’s not about you and what YOU love or what YOU want to be doing.
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And lastly.. Start SMALL.
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Biz is about momentum. I started 15 yrs ago carrying boxes up spiral staircases.
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Now I’m buying millions worth of real estate and my portfolio of companies make millions every month. And the best part:
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When you’re successful, experienced, wealthy and you have a killer network... It’s way easier to change the world with something BIG.

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Onward and upward!

Nick Huber

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