My Ten Point Plan to Get Rich Quick as an Entrepreneur

The only point to entrepreneurship is to get rich, so I’ve outlined below the keys to getting there faster and easier.

Get a nice ride.  First and foremost, you’ve got to look the part of a successful entrepreneur, so spend all the money you have and any money you can borrow on a really fast car, preferably something Italian.  You definitely want to have a car that’s faster than a venture capitalist’s Porsche; you need to command their respect.  Whatever you do, don’t save your money to invest in your business.  You should expect investors to put up all the money and take all the risk.
Quit your job.  If you’re serious about entrepreneurship, quit your job.  Don’t wait until you have a business plan or even an idea.  Quit your job now.  What self-respecting entrepreneur has a job working for someone else?  The last thing you want to do is let your current employer help fund your new business.
Quick, think of something easy.  Don’t waste any time developing a new technology or even developing a thoughtful plan.  Copy someone else.  Do something simple.  Whatever you do, don’t leverage your specific skill set and experience to create something new or something that you have a real passion for.  You want to get rich quick and doing something hard is going to take a long time.

Call it something cool.  Give your company a really high-tech sounding, made up name.  Be sure to describe your product in technological terms no one understands.  With just a little creativity you can make a sponge into a high tech product that will revolutionize one industry after another.  It’s all about the marketing.  Don’t waste a lot of money on research and development—you don’t have any money left.

Go it alone.  Management teams are overrated.  The last thing you want is to have a team around you that will challenge your ideas and tell you when you’re wrong.  What a waste of time.  Your business plan is easy; you can do it all by yourself.  OK, maybe you’ll need to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines for $4 per hour, but that’s it.  No one else.  You don’t want to build a team of experienced executives who can see problems you can’t.  You certainly don’t want young, passionate people from top schools who care more about changing the world than making a buck on your team.

Don’t do anything that matters.  If it matters and it hasn’t been done, yet, it’s way too hard.  That’s someone else’s job and it’s going to take them a long time and a lot of money to pull it off.  Remember, it took Steve Jobs over a decade to make his first billion; you don’t have that kind of time.  We’re talking about making a quick buck here.  Focus!
Ignore social issues.  There is no money in solving social problems, so be sure to steer clear of that whole arena.   Be careful, because if you wander into social entrepreneurship you’re likely to violate the last rule, too.  Double jeopardy.  Stay focused on the financial bottom line.  The only thing that matters is profit.
Raise lots of money.  Now that you have a simple business idea that you can execute all by yourself and you’ve spent all of your money on an Italian sports car, you’re ready to raise money.  Whatever you do, don’t give up more than 10% of the company or control of the board.  You are the only thing needed for success.  Anyone’s money will do.  Caution: don’t ask friends and family for money—you’ll see them again.
Go public.  As soon as you generate a few dollars in revenue, there are legions of financial advisors ready to help you take your company “to the next level” by taking your business public.  Don’t be concerned that these guys work for firms you’ve never heard of; they’re going to let you in on secrets that Goldman Sachs doesn’t understand.  This may involve something called a “reverse merger” into a corporate shell, but you don’t need to worry yourself with the details.  The equity line of credit they offer you will provide all the money you ever need.  The death spiral preferred will always be available if you need it.
You’re rich!  You’ll own millions of shares in a publicly traded company with virtually no revenue, no prospects for profits, a regulatory burden that will cost $500,000 per year and of course you can’t sell any of your shares.

If this plan doesn’t sound appealing to you, then maybe you should be working on something hard, something that matters, something with a social impact.  Maybe you don’t even want to get rich; you’ll probably go start a nonprofit somewhere and change the world.  It’s like you weren’t even paying attention to my ten point plan.

http://www.forbes.com

Similar Posts