I'm not rich, but i've been self employed for nearly a decade.

I often lurk this subreddit and see a lot of posts that are either someone showing their successful store, making hundreds of thousands per month, someone who just started their entrepreneur journey and others who are looking to start. I don't see very many people like myself who just earn a regular income from being self employed, without any sort of magic formula. I wanted to make a post about what i've learned over the last 10 years and what has truly mattered for my various levels of success. I don't know if anyone will find this useful, but i've wanted to contribute back to the community in some way.​Some background about me: I'm a web designer by trade and a jack of all trades, master of none. I have had some 6 figure years and some 4 figure years, but have averaged a comfortable lifestyle. I worked in sales for some large corporations before breaking free and would consider myself techy.​Who you knowThe biggest successes and opportunities i've had in life are due to the people i've met along the way. It sounds cliche, but it really is about who you know at the end of the day. People are more willing to hire or refer someone they know, so getting yourself in various circles will be the best networking you can do. You don't have to attend entrepreneur meetups or focus on making friends with bankers, instead focus on joining a tennis club, an art group, an acting club....you get the point. You never know who you will meet and how they can leverage your future.​Find a mentorHaving a mentor is one of the best ways to grow and learn rapidly. A mentor has been through it all and can help you minimize your failures or help you reflect on a failure that will help you grow to be a better entrepreneur. With Sub-Reddits like this and the wealth of information on YouTube, you can find mentors a lot more easily now and have entire communities to help you but having a one on one relationship with someone who is willing to guide your growth in the world of business is priceless.​Learn to make your own websitesAs a web developer, this probably sounds like I am shooting myself in the foot by suggesting this but it's the most important skill I can think of. The reason I say this is because most business is online these days and even if it's not, you need a website at a bare minimum regardless of the vertical. If you can't make a website you will be forced to constantly hire developers and pay money to get a website up and running. Imagine if you knew how to build a website yourself, you could create infinite businesses without any cost outside some hosting and your time. I've had more failures than successes and i'm not sure I would have had the budget to reach the success if I was paying for web developers along the road.​Don't obsess over things that don't bring a profitThis is the most common failure I see among people trying to get started as an entrepreneur. People tend to focus on things that don't truly move the needle but are fun to obsesses over. A good example of something like this will be people spending huge amounts of time or money on their logo when they haven't made a single sale. Another example is getting a huge office, furnishing it and creating an environment of success, without ever having any success. These things are not important and should be the least time consuming things when starting a business. I'm not saying to use a Microsoft Paint logo your nephew created, but you don't need to spend weeks or even days deciding on your initial branding. If your company is successful, you can adjust all that later. I find that people spend time on tasks that they won't encounter rejection and feel "rewarding" in a way that makes you feel like you are helping your businesses bottom line. Focus on the profit drivers and what actually gets you a sale because it's almost never going to be because of your logo or office filled with iMacs and bean bag chairs.​Don't buy inventory for an unproven product or serviceAnother thing I would avoid is starting a business that requires you to dump money into it before the concept is proven. Many people will stock their garage with the product they think is gonna be a success, spend weeks on their logo and retail location only to find out the idea is a flop and sales are few. I'm not saying to avoid physical products, but don't get a sunk cost bias about your business because you've invested in inventory. Service based businesses, pre-order or print on demand are much safer to start.​If it doesn't feel like work, you are doing the right thing.Businesses that feel like leisure are the ones you will be most successful with. When a 10 hour day has gone by and it was truly productive, you will understand what I mean. When you are doing something you enjoy and are passionate about, you will be excited to work and that will shine through to your customers. My biggest successes have been ideas that stem from personal hobbies that eventually become income generators.​​​I have no idea if this post is useful to anyone, but I wanted to share some thoughts I had. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask!​Have a fantastic weekend Reddit! see hubwealthy.com/wealthy