Why You Should Think of Your Life as a Startup

Invest in yourself to the point where it makes someone else want to invest in you.

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The period between the ages of 18 and 24 is the most important stage of our lives in terms of personal and professional development, development that leads to our long-term success as people.

Let’s see why I say this period of life is very important.

Let’s draw a parallel between a young person choosing their future at the age of 18–19 and an entrepreneur with a business at the start of the road. You may be wondering why this comparison.

Harvard Business Review says:

“If you want to launch a company, you have to think about how much you invest in it. It is said that on average a company needs 2 to 3 years of activity and investment to reach a level of self-sustainability and growth.”

If you’re an entrepreneur at the start of your journey, you have to think long-term and see where you’re going and what you want to achieve in a few years’ time.

You should be interested on a daily basis in how you are going to develop your business, how you are going to attract more customers, and, most importantly, how you are going to bring money into the company.

If you stop and think about it, it’s quite a long process for an entrepreneur to make a profit. There are cases where you have to invest 2–3 or even 4 years to be able to say that the company is self-sustaining.

Now let’s go back a little to why I say that a startup is a lot like an 18-year-old.

At 18, you have the most important decision in your hands that could change your life in the long term, which is college.

Some are thinking about which college to choose, and others are thinking about not going to college.

Because student life is more or less like that:

• Taking out student loans with rising interest rates and the debt can reach six figures, which will have to be repaid after graduation.

• Working during the course can make it difficult to finish quickly.

• Looking for scholarships and grants, which don’t have to be repaid, but which are also not always available and have certain criteria.

• Find an employer willing to pay a salary that will cover your student debt, pay rent, or be qualified by the bank for a mortgage.

In my opinion, college represents the move that most young people make with the greatest carelessness.

Why?

Because they don’t have the necessary long-term thinking and they aren’t guided properly and by whom they should be.