- I'm old now, I'm 32.
But what many of you don't know about me
is I built my first multi-million dollar company
before I was 21 years old.
And I built four of them before I was 28 years old.
That's quick, not as quick as Mark Zuckerberg
but still decent enough.
Hey everyone, I'm Neil Patel
and today, I'm gonna share with you
how to build four multi-million dollar companies.
(upbeat music)
See, there's a lot of similar things
that I ended up doing
to build these companies.
It took me a long time to build my first one
but I learned what not to do.
The first thing that I learned
is I need to focus, and you do too.
You probably have a lot of ideas out there.
But just because you have a lot of ideas
doesn't mean you should go after each
and every single one.
I was headlining Richard Branson
at a conference in Brazil called VTEX
and I was speaking right before him.
It was only him and I speaking that day.
And I learned something interesting from him.
Business ideas are like buses and opportunities.
They keep going by, there's a lot of them.
The question is, which bus
or which opportunity do you want to jump on?
Pick one, once you have one
that's up and running and going and doing well
then you can do three or four more.
But, to run a successful business
it takes more than 40 hours a week
which gets you into my second point.
It takes more than 40 hours a week
to run a business.
You only have time for one
and you need to put in as much time as possible to do well.
So if you look at me, everyone's like
oh, you made some money
you probably have a chill life now.
No, I don't have a chill life now.
I'm not just watching TV shows all day.
I don't even have a TV in my house.
Heck, I don't even have a home.
All I'm doing 24/7 is working.
Yes, you may look at that and you'd be like
oh, your life is miserable.
Well, if you want to succeed
you've got to do more than everyone else out there.
If my competitors are gonna work 60 or 70 hours a week
I'm gonna go work 80 or 90.
I'm gonna do whatever it takes to beat them.
I don't care, that's how badly I want to win.
And that's why you need to put in more than 40 hours a week
into your business.
The third thing is, business doesn't sleep.
When you're sleeping, someone else is awake
competing with you.
You want to do well?
You've got to figure out how to work 24/7.
Yes, you're gonna be asleep.
You need your rest.
If you don't get enough rest
you're not gonna be productive.
But, you can have a website, an online business
that's continually promoting and selling for you.
If you look at all of my businesses
none of them are retail stores.
Why, I hate retail.
But, I love the internet.
Your internet, your website
is, or not really your internet
but your website is your store front.
It can continually sell for you
over and over again
even when you're sleeping.
That means you can make money when you're sleeping.
And someone in a different country
could be buying your products and services.
So have your 24/7 salesman, which is gonna be your website.
The next tip I have for you
is focus on one product or service.
Everyone, even if you're in eCommerce
you're like, oh I gotta go sell 20 things or 100 things.
No you don't, just sell one product.
Yes, you're focusing on one business.
We already got that out of the way.
But, within that business
one product or one service, that's it.
Not two, not three.
I was once at dinner, in a group dinner
with a guy named Brian Lee.
He's the founder of LegalZoom
ShoeDazzle, and The Honest Company with Jessica Alba.
And you know what he told me?
He was like, hey if you want to really do well
have laser focus.
One product or one service.
Once your business flat lines
and you can't have more growth
then expand more revenue items
and more products or services.
One of the smartest things I've ever heard.
Focus on one product, one service.
Then, when your growth flat lines
then expand into more products or services.
The next tip I have for you
is adapt super fast.
So me, I'm a quick executor.
I keep executing, I keep testing things out.
And when things go wrong, I adapt fast.
If you don't adapt, you're gonna get your butt
handed to you.
You don't want to be the loser.
You want to be the winner.
And to win, you're always gonna be competing
with that next 16 year old or 14 year old
who's building a company
and is gonna hustle harder than you.
So you know what?
Keep adapting, never stop.
The moment you stop, you're gonna get crushed.
The last tip I have for you
and I learned this one the hard way
is listen to your peers.
See, my mom and dad would give me advice
about entrepreneurship when I was younger
and they'd be like, oh you're investing in the wrong stuff.
Don't trust these people.
And I'm not saying they were always right.
And your peers won't always be right.
But they have feedback.
Listen to it, I'm not saying you have to take their advice
each and every single time.
But keep your ears open and listen.
When you do listen, eventually you'll figure out
alright, maybe I should take this advice
because multiple people have told me it
over and over again.
And if you're unsure if their advice is right
ask other people.
When you get multiple opinions
you'll figure out the right decisions to make.
As you're getting the feedback
you will improve, and you'll increase
your odds of succeeding.
And I know I already said that was the last tip
but this is the bonus one.
And this is one that has really helped me.
See, as an entrepreneur
you are gonna fail.
The question is, when are you gonna fail?
And that's okay.
Don't give up when you fail.
When you fail, that means you've made mistakes
that have caused your failure.
Learn from them over and over again.
If you learn from the mistakes
and you avoid making the same mistake
over and over again, what's gonna happen?
Eventually, you'll know what not to do.
I'm not that smart, I went to a mediocre college
called Cal State Fullerton.
It's not that I'm smarter than you.
I realized that once I learned from my mistakes
and I avoid making the same ones over and over again
I learned what I shouldn't be doing.
And now that I know what I shouldn't do
eventually, you start doing some of the things
you should be doing.
And that's how you succeed.
Follow those tips and tactics
and you can create bigger companies than I have.
(upbeat music)