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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2016-03-18
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63tVsJI31Tk
couple years ago I visited the immigration museum at Ellis Island York I saw a quote on the wall that somehow stuck with me until this day and it goes something like this before I moved to U. S. I've heard that the streets are paved with gold when I got here I found out three things first the streets were not paper goal second the streets were not
paved at all and third I was expected to pave the the reason why the call resonates with me so much is because it reminds me of how difficult a life can be when you move into a foreign country about speaking the language having any friends or having any cult knowing the culture when I was seventeen years old I had a huge stream of moving into the
U. S. finish school and start a business I know I am happy to say that I finally fulfill my dream of starting a business as a friend my business for about a year and now employs fifteen people and we've just had one point five million dollars in revenue not the most seasoned interpreter out there but I do want to share three key pieces of advice that
have helped me seat as a college and a printer the number one thing to starting any business is to find a problem my even my son easier than it is but finding a problem is a key ingredient to starting any business now you might wonder how do I find the problem we'll start with yourself star with your hobbies and the things you like to do do
you like traveling you like sports you like video games either one of these things there's a bunch or challenges that surround that particular hobby that might be waiting for your business idea when you do come up with a solution you want to talk to the community and your friends and see if they would use it if they would like that business and how much they would
pay for it once you get to that point you've got something I was lucky when I was a sophomore in college I was approached by a friend of mine who's asked me to buy an under armour T. should forum here in the U. S. and ship it to the Czech Republic I don't really understand why he's asking me to do this since I started doing some
research it turns out there's a lot of businesses here in the states that don't ship products internationally or don't accept foreign payments on the other hand I knew there's millions of people that don't have access to the same products and so I started a business I paid a friend of mine a hundred dollars to create a very basic website for me that would basically explain to
people how to buy from the U. S. and I would ship them overseas I ran a business for a couple months and it wasn't until four months before graduation what I've heard of the effort you business plan competition and the twenty fifty thousand dollar prize pool that you can win at that point I knew I meant the problem was I had no idea how just write
a business plan or how to present in front of a large audience so I knew I need to get help I found out about the free seminars that Florida Atlantic University was offering to young start ups to help them write business plans so I started attending the seminars and that's why I came across a very strange turn to me at the time that's called mentorship the
reason why I say it's strange is because mentorship as a concept of spearing as business people that have been there to have done it they've successfully started launched exited businesses and now they want to help people young people like myself to get their business to the next level for free now that's the biggest catch that's the thing that I couldn't understand I couldn't understand how somebody
would volunteer their time for free and not want anything for the reason why I don't understand it or die didn't understand it was because coming from a post communist country you get nothing for free and when you do there's usually a catch well there wasn't a catch this time I met my first mentor %HESITATION mentor Bob Nelson a gray haired seven year old dude who's been
there Dave is done at the Salt Lake City does business and he was there for me he's helped me to write a killer presentation a business plan and help me were in the first place at the FAA your business plan competition before I knew it I was approached by the FAA you to represent them at the statewide collegiate competition up in Orlando before I knew it
I was standing up on stage and right next to every single major university in the state of Florida competing for the state championship I told the judges my story I tell them how a friend of mine is approach me with the problem I came up with the solution that I had an existing problem an existing business that would solve this problem they loved it so much
that they thought that FAA you and me should when the first place in the collegiate state by competition and that was a great feeling that was one of my best accomplishment so far and at that point I knew there's no going back I joined the FAA you take runway accelerator program that is designed to help young companies and young people like me to succeed in their
business and that's exactly what they've done for me they provided me with capital space and a bunch of other gray haired mentors to help me get my business to next level and that brings me to my third piece of advice to bootstrap now bootstrapping basically means don't spend money on things you don't necessarily mean it's really easy to spend money but it's a lot harder to
make them when you're in school you're into learning face and you should really take advantage of all the resources that are available to you on the internet on YouTube or anywhere else that you can imagine you can learn the basics of basically any business online by yourself and you don't have to spend tons of money doing it when you're starting a business is extremely important you
don't spend money on things you don't mean and you can do yourself when you get to the point where you validate the business you validate your concept and you know that you can move forward at that point you can start spending as many as much money as you want but you can have intelligent conversation with those people because you'll know the basic Photoshop basic accounting basic
sales and marketing you know all those and that's what helps you the last thing that I want you to remember Stu don't be afraid if it doesn't work out the first time Thomas Edison was once asked if he was okay with the fact that he's failed thousand times before he's developed a light pole he simply smiled and said I didn't failed thousand times it just happened
to be a thousand step process and that's exactly how you should look at it your mindset has to be said on you succeeding when you give it everything you have when you put your heart into it a countless hours it will eventually happen for you so don't give up you might have to pave the road to get to the goal but when you do when you
