Just before I get into it, my book, Musta’s Mixtape, is coming out on Amazon this Tuesday, Oct 8th. I’m going to email you out of excitement when it drops. I hope you will support me and get a copy.
Now back to it…
You see, I once thought entrepreneurship meant risking it all.
Before I quit my job to go to business school in 2014, all I wanted to do was start my own business. I heard everything a young person in their mid-20s wanted to hear.
Risk it all.
Go big or go home.
Maximum risk, maximum reward.
Over a year later, I was sitting in a class at Stanford, taught by some top investors and one of them said something that has stuck with me ever since.
He said: “what I’ve found is that the best entrepreneurs I know, do one thing very well. They know how to minimize their risk. They are risk minimizers.”
What???
It went against everything I had heard. But now I understand it even more.
Go Big. Stay Home
Some people will never leave their home because of how big their dreams are.
They dream so hard, they keep hitting the snooze button when it’s time to go get it. What most people want is control and autonomy, but what most don’t have is capital.
This ends up in risks that are not sustainable.
Now, I’m not talking about capital in terms of money (although that helps), I’m talking about skill capital.
Without the skill to deal with the unknown, seek feedback, and preserve, a lot of people seeking autonomy end up taking big risks that are just band-aids for the short-term dopamine hits.
“Oh, she just has a YouTube channel talking about food. I’m going to quit my job and start my video blog” But do you have the patience to deal with less than 100 subscribers for the first 4 years?
Taking a big risk and trying to hit a home run all the time (except you’re Ohtani) is a fantasy that will keep you trapped.
Most great entrepreneurs take little risks, consistently.
With each act, they gain feedback and learn what to do next. More importantly, they gain perspective on what “not to do.” With each step, they learn a better approach to make their venture less risky, knowing that a huge risk can put them over the cliff.
To build the path that you want, you have to build the muscle for trying things out and learning how to take sustainable risks.
It’s not about blowing it all on one big risk.
Become a risk minimizer.
4 Steps To Stop Going Big and Start Going Small
Most authors only sell 250 books, on average, in their lifetime.
250! Read that again.
That’s the stat that was presented to me at a writing workshop I joined in 2019. The instructor then hit us with the reframe: “Just sell more than 250, and you’ll be better than average.”
He taught us how to sell books before they get published through a crowdfunding campaign. I’ve now used this same crowdfunding campaign to publish three books. It was a very interesting lesson in minimizing risk ahead of time.
That little bet paid off. I’ve applied the same approach to other parts of my life.
When you take little bets along the way, you learn how to leverage opportunities, build courage, and lead a more meaningful life.
Here are four things in mind to help you become a risk minimizer.
1. Be humble
Sit down.
After a few years of drafting my manuscript, I hit a roadblock. I had thousands of words on the page and a few people that read, saying: “it’s a cool story.”
But I had no clue on what to do next.
Then I told a friend about being stuck. He recommended that I join a writing workshop run by a Georgetown professor. I joined the workshop and learned from people who had published stories before.
They became mentors and guides.
In whatever you’re about to do, there is a high chance that someone else has done it before.
Be humble. Ask for help. Find a mentor.
Seek someone who is a few steps ahead of you who can guide you and tell you the mistakes to avoid.
Minimize your risk with a guide.
2. Be a student
Always be selling.
That’s the mantra for my sales people out there. Happy Q4 to you all. But in this case, here is the main mantra for those that want to venture on the path of consistent little bets:
Always be learning.
When I started that writers workshop, I just wanted to complete my fiction story for my mixtape. After speaking to the instructor, he said: “Nifemi, you’re here talking about music so much, just go write a book about it.”
I asked: “what about the fiction book?”
He said: “you can get back to it later. This first book will have more impact.”
I thought I was hopping from one thing to another.
First a mixtape, then a fictional tale, now a non-fiction book. When will I actually settle on something and finish.
But I had to switch my mindset to a learner approach, deciding to use it as an opportunity to learn the entire publishing process. I learned everything from setting aside time to write, how to edit, story structures, how to format a book, designing a cover, publishing and marketing.
Minimize your risk by leveraging the knowledge of others. Be a student.
3. Be practical
9 months after starting that writer’s workshop, I published my first book in April 2020. We had planned a full book tour for marketing but as the world would have it, the pandemic hit and we were all indoors. I had to adapt and learn how to sell online.
Later that year, I took what I learned to publish my first manuscript.
I reached out to the writing workshop crew. Since I already had a manuscript, I skipped the first step and went straight into editing and publishing.
I saw the entire process as steps and knew exactly where I needed the most help. It was easy to decide where to take risks – the steps where I didn’t need as much help.
For instance, for my first audiobook I had to work with the publishing company. My second audiobook, I did it all by myself.
Be practical with the process.
Minimize your risk by taking bigger risks on the part of the process you require the least help with.
4. Be patient
It’s not going to happen overnight.
I could have put my business to the side and focused on publishing books. But you remember those stats right? The average author only sells about 250 books in their lifetime.
Not a very sustainable path for most.
Hey, dream big, but not everyone is going to be J.K. Rowlings or George Martin.
However, telling authentic stories and building a publishing business on the side is a worthy endeavor. Now, I’m building a portfolio of books that can be discovered with time.
Not only have I gained so much in terms of cultivating discipline and ordering information from my mind to books, but these books have also brough credibility that allow me to have interesting conversations and be in rooms I never planned on being in.
This process takes time.
It all started with a mixtape. Almost ten years later I’m writing Musta’s Mixtape.
Minimize your risk by giving yourself the time.
Final thoughts…
The best entrepreneurs are risk minimizers.
It’s not about taking the biggest risk and having the biggest dreams.
It’s cultivating a practice of taking little bets, leveraging that to make progress, and compounding your learnings for growth.
Be humble, a student, practical, and patient.
One step after the other.
I hope you take little bets on yourself.
Yours truly,
Nifemi
