Having come back recently from Carter’s Bluecloud Event in Hawaii and hearing some of the amazing stories of the presenters there, its helped crystallise for me the keys to success, whichever field you decide to master.
#1 Have a strong “why”
You need to have a strong reason for doing something that takes you outside of the norms of society and outside of your comfort zone.
My why I guess was the challenge of creating something from nothing, for achieving financial independence. I’m very competitive so competition is a strong driving “why” for me.
And of course freedom to do whatever the hell I want and pursue any business ideas or interests that take my fancy, without needing to consider financial matters.
I knew that I would have to succeed or die trying – there was no other option.
#2 Be persistent as hell
The mantra that was running in my mind was what I mentioned above – I would succeed or die trying. Success did NOT seem like a certainty to me but I knew that I would do everything in my power to succeed.
David Reichelt created 40 games that made no money before he created a hit, Color Switch. He knew he would never quit and he had this dream of travelling around and being able to run his business from his laptop, having complete freedom so that he could pursue all his creative interests.
OMGPop created created 35 games before they had a hit with Draw Something.
Rovio had 51 failed games before Angry Birds.
You WILL fail. That is USUALLY a pretty certain thing. So you need to be persistent and have enough grit to push through the failures so that eventually you will succeed.
#3 Have an attitude of learning
Adopting an attitude of learning I think is SUPER important to succeeding.
When I started out creating my first app with my business partner, we decided to invest a small amount of money (up to $500) to create an app.
We didn’t care if the app would fail or succeed financially (of course we hoped it would!), the main overt goal was simply to learn the whole process – how do we hire a developer? artist? how do we upload to the App Store? how do we get download?
When I speak to people who are interested to start a business these days, this will be really one of my top tips. Whichever field you go into invest in your learning initially and DON’T look to making money as the main outcome.
The next step is to make sure that you do get the most out of your experiences, debrief and make course corrections so that on the next iteration hopefully you will see improvement in the right direct.
