Tyler Wagner dropped out of the University of South Carolina at 19 after reading The 4-Hour Workweek, wanting to become a public speaker. He noticed paid speakers were almost always authors, so he decided to write a book to build credibility in a niche and land speaking gigs.
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How did you get started in this business? Story is this. When I was— it was around 19, 20 years old, I was going to college at University of South Carolina. I had realized after reading the book The 4-Hour Workweek that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Started like adding up for me in my head that a degree from a college was basically going to get me somewhere that I didn't even want to be. And I decided to drop out. My first thing as an entrepreneur was I wanted to be a public speaker because I just love talking to people. My way of doing that was I realized from going to all these conferences, most of the speakers were authors or bestselling authors. You'll realize that when you go to all these conferences. So I was like, okay, I'm 19, 20, I don't really have any expertise. Who's gonna pay me to speak? I was like, okay, what can I write a book on to become an author that then would make me an expert in a field that would then enable a conference coordinator to pay me?