Nicolas Cole argues that first-time founders sabotage themselves by pivoting away from working business models too early. Freelancers hitting $10-15k months often jump to YouTube or podcasts instead of doubling down on what's already profitable. His advice: maximize cash flow from your proven system, hoard it, then experiment.
This is a little like business money mental model that has really clicked for me in the past couple of years is you have to realize that one, like the absolute hardest part of business is Zero to One. And the reason it's so hard is because you think like you walk into the journey thinking, oh, I just have to learn one new skill. And you don't realize that, that in that one skill there are like 100 sub-skills, right? And so it, it's painful. Like, quick, but like a funny thing to jump forward though, for everyone that's like, yeah, it sucks, the joke though is that as you become more successful, you actually miss that. Like, you miss, you miss being able to go back and, and start over. That's why like serial entrepreneurs are a thing. Like, they achieve all this stuff and then what do they do? They, like, want to go back to level 1 and be like, let's build something new from the ground up again. Because as difficult as it is, that actually is the most exciting part of the journey. Okay. Side note, the reason I say that it's Zero to One is the hardest is because you are trying to build a machine with momentum. Right. You have zero momentum and now you are trying to build momentum. What a lot of people do and the biggest mistake, and I have made this mistake more times than I care to admit, is once they start gaining momentum, they think, oh, this thing is working. I should go do something different. And it's like, no, you just got the thing to work. You should just keep doing the thing that's working for a sustained period of time. Right? And sometimes doing something different means like, I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone in PGA be like, like they went from I'm struggling with everything to all of a sudden I'm making $10,000 a month, $15,000 a month, like awesome. And then they think, now I want to go do something different. I want to start a YouTube channel, you know, I want to start a podcast. Horrible decision. Or what they do is they want to try and do something different in the sense where they're like, okay, I just got here. Now let me change the business model. Let me try and scale into an agency like they do that too quickly. That's actually a different thing as well. And so the correct answer is once you get something to work, you should realize that like here, here are the, the way to— here's the way to think about two decisions. If I keep doing the thing that's working, my only risk is effort. I know it works, Derek. You know this works. You understand how the business works. I do cold outreach, I fulfill on clients, money comes out the other side. Yep. Right. So the only risk is effort. It's like you choosing to wake up every day and do the thing. It's the only risk. But if you change it and you go, okay, now I want to say expand into an agency, or I want to adjust my business model, or now I want to start launching digital products, or I want to do something different. The risk is beyond effort, right? The risk is, is significantly more unknown. You're like, I don't know if this is going to work as well because I am literally doing something different. And so my advice to you and to everyone here is, especially in the beginning, especially if this is your first business, especially if you're younger, especially if you haven't had the ability to save up very much money before. My advice would be when you start getting something that's working, just maximize that thing and take as much cash off the table as possible for a prolonged period of time until the amount of money that you've saved up, like, it is— it essentially rationalizes, like, now I have to do something different. Because it's, it's too incremental. Hey, by the way, if you're brand new to the world of ghostwriting, maybe you've heard the term but aren't really sure what it is or how it's different from copywriting or content writing, check out premiumghostwritingblueprint.com. It's in the description below, okay? This is a free masterclass that I've put together for writers who want to monetize their skills and love for writing with ghostwriting. This is what I did, and ghostwriting completely changed my life. It's how I quit my job. It's how I quadrupled the amount of money I was making. It's how I've gotten to work with so many smart, amazing people but also have time for my own writing, like writing this book, The Art and Business of Ghostwriting. Anyways, check it out. If you're at all interested in making money from your writing, I would really encourage you to get into ghostwriting, and this free premium ghostwriting blueprint in the description below is the best place to start.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
