One of my favorite parts of business is the subjective nature of it. There are no absolute rights and wrongs; rather there are perspectives and opinions. But unlike social sciences, business does play out over time and a track record can be observed.
What this means is that best practices can be derived over time, and therefore experience and the study of business are exceptionally important for those that participate in the industry of making money. It also means that as an inexperienced business person I am at a disadvantage.
Understanding this concept is difficult for us young people because by nature we haven’t been kicked around by life yet. We believe in our invincibility and our general greatness. Some of us will succeed, even without the self-awareness necessary to overcome these challenges, through incredible abilities or sheer luck. For the rest of us, we must learn to mitigate our own inexperience and supplement it with the many advantages that youth brings.
Ways to Mitigate Inexperience:
1 – Surround ourselves with those of experience: The easiest way to mitigate the pitfalls of inexperience is by surrounding ourselves with people who do have experience. There really is no substitute for this; the more we are able to learn from those with a deeper understanding of business, the easier of a time we will have.
2- Read the truth of the book. I am almost religious about is reading. The written word is by far the easiest and least expensive way to tap into the collective business intelligence of those with greater experience. I am a ferocious reader and the book is my first line of defense when I want to understand subjects in more depth. When I needed to brush up on accounting I turned to Amazon and their collection of accounting books. When I needed to learn about branding, marketing, and financial modeling…I turned to books, books, and books.
3- Don’t talk, just listen: The third and final trick that I have learned to use to overcome my inexperience and lack of business knowledge is to listen and ask questions. I don’t pretend to know what I don’t, and whenever possible I ask questions.
Ways to Take Advantage of Youth:
1 – Run, run, run: Youth provides us with energy, so we must run circles around the competition, outwork them and generally do whatever it takes to make sure we work twice as long and twice as hard.
2 – Be in touch with the times: Everyone knows that the startup environment is drastically changing. Most people have a very tough time understanding the rapidly evolving landscape in which they operate, unless they are the target demographic.
3- Bootstrap and take a salary hit: With age comes huge responsibility, as recent grads we most likely don’t have a family to support or a mortgage to service. This gives us the unique ability to bootstrap companies and show what we are made of.
In the end, I am reminded of the old saying that G-d wastes youth on the young, and wisdom on the old. That might be true, but with a little work we can at least give ourselves a fighting chance.
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