A 24-year-old wants to restart a construction business after failing at 20 with no funds. Evan Carmichael's path: get a job in construction first to learn the trade and build a network, then run a side project while employed, then go full-time once it's reliable. Most startups fail because founders skip the learning phase.
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How to start a business with no money. So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, love you guys, Mohammed, who wrote in to say, I'm 24 years old. When I was 20, I was trying to do my own construction business, but I didn't have enough funds, so I just left it. Now I'm 24 and I'm thinking of starting it again, but I don't have anything in my account. I just graduated from business college with business studies diploma. How do I start again? So this is a great question, and I feel for you because you had this dream 4 years ago and you didn't do anything because you didn't have money. And now you've got the same dream and you're in the same situation where you don't have money. And I don't want you to just leave it at that and end up doing this forever in your life. And you get to the point where you're 70 years old, looking back on your life and saying, wow, I wish I had taken some chances. I wish I had bet on myself and launched this company. If this is your dream, it's been your dream for 4 years, then you got to take some action on it. And the best way to get going, if you don't have any experience, if you don't have any money, if you don't know what you're doing yet in your field, go get a job. The reason why you get a job is to learn. You're not getting that job just to make money. You're not getting a job so you can live for the weekends and the evenings. It's to learn. So look at a company that has maybe 10 employees, 20 employees, that's in the construction business, a company that you want to build. You look at that company and say, "I want to be that guy," and go learn from him and get as close to the founder as possible. Take on as many roles as you can because you're there to learn. You're getting paid, you're making mistakes, you're making connections and contacts, you're learning the ropes, you're understanding how the industry works. You're making mistakes and getting paid to learn, right? You just came out of business school. How much did you pay for that, right? You paid an annual fee to go there. Here, you're going to get paid to learn and to make those mistakes and make those contacts. That's the best way to do it, to get started. Then when you go and you're ready to start your own thing, you start it on the side, part-time, on the side. I don't know why there's a stigma against starting a business part-time on the side. You do not have to go and quit your job and do this business full-time. Most of the people who do that end up after a year or 6 months or 3 months, whatever it is, running out of money and having to go back and get a job again, and you lose all the momentum that you built up. It's better to do something consistently every day, small, on the side while keeping your job where you're learning, so that you allow this momentum to grow. And maybe your first project is, is not a solo project. You know, you're investing in with other people and you're understanding how that market works and you're making a return off of that and investing it to then launch your own campaign. If you started when you were 20 and you went and you got that job and you learned for a year, you'd be in business by now. So get started. Go find a company who you look up to and respect and work with them. And your goal here isn't just to do manual labor, but to understand as much about the business as possible while looking for opportunities on the side to start your own thing. You want to make sure that that small part-time income can be enough to support you before you leave and make that your full-time job. So step 1, go find a job where you're going to learn. Step 2, start small on the side after you've built up some connections and industry knowledge and you know how things are working, you're ready to start on the side. And step 3, when you've launched and you're making some money and you're comfortable enough to quit because you know you're going to make some money from your business, that's when you go full-time. Okay, this applies to anybody, not just a construction business. You have to understand, you may be thinking, Evan, you're the entrepreneur guy, why the heck are you telling me to go get a job? Because I don't want you to fail, okay? Most companies fail, they shut down. 80%+ of companies will fail. And a lot of it is because the entrepreneurs, they don't know what they're doing. So before just jumping in and say, "Hey, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm going to launch this thing," go get some experience. You have to understand that the fastest way to learn, the fastest way to learn is not by doing. The fastest way to learn is through mentoring. The fastest way to learn is to find somebody who's already done what you're trying to do and have them show you how to do it. Because if you just trial and error, trial and error, trial and error, you could go years and not figure out the solution. Where somebody has done this, it's easy for them. For them to show you quickly massively ramps up your learning time. So go find a job. There's nothing wrong with it as long as you're learning. That's the first step to getting started. Believe. For those of you watching, let me know what you think. If you took a job to get your business started to learn, leave a comment below. I'd love to hear from you. If you have a question for me, leave it in the comments below. I'll make a video response. Give it a thumbs up if you like this video and click on my face to subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.
