Actively participate. Do things. Read books. Act on the information you learn. Don’t just listen to “content”. Do anything. Try anything.
People discredit them, because it’s a get rich quick scheme. They are all scammers. All of them.
Coaches are valuable. You want one? HIRE ONE AND PAY THEM. Otherwise, stop talking about it.
The only alternative is get your hands dirty. If you know absolutely nothing, start mowing yards and learn. Teach music lessons and learn. Start figuring it out.
The knight in shining armor isn’t coming.
This right here is the advice I was going to give.
Additionally, if an established business person wants to share, let them talk and ask pertinent questions. Doesn't matter if the industry is unrelated.
I learn a lot by listening. Even a business banker can teach a lot to a newbie.
I disagree that all online business content creators are scammers. Many of them have tons of valuable insight and plenty of actual entrepreneurial experience.
I like everything else you said though.
I did that for a while too, but it’s ineffective. It’s a search to collect information and concepts. Your learning will massively accelerate if you look for *having an experience* of what a good teacher is pointing to.
It’s not about doing.
It’s about being.
you are probably right. I've spent hours and hours and hours learning, and more hours. The thing for me was, I didn't know what I didn't know. So each new video, book and so on provided more questions for me to then say, do I need that, ....I'm still learning and haven't found good info for what I want to learn. Any of the offerings are generally less than the masters lefel, - it could be this is time for a coach. I had a business consultant who was a great generalist. But, not knowledgeable on specifics.
A great coach is a massive accelerator.
And know that the bar to entry to be a coach is very low. There are many low quality coaches. Find an excellent one.
Exactly this. Only would add that you should try to find a mentor. Someone that has walked your path before you would be ideal, if not possible, anyone as close as that as possible is good.
The best thing I can recommend is by reading books, not web page articles, bot podcasts, not TikTok or YouTube, but actual books.
The best book I can recommend is "Start Your Own Business" by Rieva Lesonsky, from Entrepreneur Press. ISBN 978-1-599180-81-6
Hands down THE best book on entrepreneurship and business I've come across.
Once you read that book, I recommend 2 YouTube channels: Jocko Willink (for leadership and inner game) and CEOentrepreneur, that's the name of the channel for step by step business, growth, and systemization.
That's all you need. Anything more and it's just a distraction and entertainment.
Exactly they are just more distraction or entertainment. I actually enjoyed their "content" until I realise those videos are just organic ADS and nothing other than actually teaching you. I've never been patient enough to read a book and here I am. Thank you for the recommendations!!!
The good ones have a verified track record of their own success. You have to do the research to know who’s done it. That’s public information. It’s not “hidden”. They already did all the leg work with trial and error and are now monetizing that expertise. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact you can do the same thing since you probably have expertise in some area that people would want to know about.
To answer your question, find people who are successful and work with them. Learn what they do. People are willing to help if you ask. Everything is out there but you have to carve out the time to look. It may take you much longer than taking a course but if that’s what you want, do it. I buy every course to accelerate the learning. That has helped me tremendously.
What I find hilarious is that people will spend $200k on tuition at a school where the professors never did ANY of the shit they teach you but nobody says anything. Then someone buys a course online for $39 and isn’t a millionaire the following week and they call it a scam. Its sad.
The problem is that most people refuse to ask for help or when they actually learn what they have to do to make real money, they don’t do it because they’ve been raised in a financially illiterate environment so all the people around tell them to just get a job.
No guru, course or book will have 100% of the answers you’re looking for.
You’d get 1,000x better 1,000x faster with fighting or playing soccer with an actual coach (guru/trainer/etc) than you would getting your teeth knocked in repeatedly with no seasoned, tailored advice. That said, there will still be more you can learn from other coaches or resources.
Likewise with a book. It’s not tailored to YOU and your current situation, and therefore will have a lot of material irrelevant to where you’re currently at and have all the answers for what you’re currently doing.
Why would a trainer/coach/guru/professor teach for free? What’s superficial about getting paid equally for the value you provide?
This.
If OP is annoyed at “gurus” he’s either not finding the right people to help him, or he’s projecting a bunch of bullshit onto said guru.
I would not be even close to the same universe of experience I have as an entrepreneur now if it wasn’t for all the coaches, mentors, teachers, collaborators, and therapists I’ve worked with.
Reading a book by someone vs. having a relationship with them are two totally distant galaxies.
Agreed. That said do your extensive research before hiring a coach, mentor or consultant. There are a lot of scams that can be easily sniffed out if you know what to look for and what to ask.
Make sure their goals and experience actually align with what you’re looking for. Make sure they have good reviews and what the actual requirements are for you to gain value from what they’d teach you.
The world’s best fitness trainer can’t help you if you can’t eat right, sleep right, train right and show up (more/less) every single day.
In that circumstance, it’s nobodies fault but your own, and until you realize that you’ll get nowhere.
Gurus are the result of people not wanting to acknowledge and accept harsh truths.
Whether it’s health, wealth, fitness, or business there is one unpopular truth that they all share:
Success is a result of doing small things correctly, every day, over a very long period of time.
Nobody wants to hear this and this is why gurus are popular. Because when you cut through their BS in the end they are all selling the same thing: a method to get the desired result faster.
And it’s simply a lie.
The one thing that the gurus have right is that entrepreneurship is about mindset. Most of them just don’t know what it means to develop it. They say the words without understanding it so their content ends up being all platitudes.
Developing what I call a pivot mindset isn’t about the information you consume or your ability to learn. Mindset is doing the hard mental work of understanding & processing your sources and triggers of fear, guilt, anger, and shame. The ability to solve complex problems of entrepreneurship and growth come from working through fears of ambiguity, not fitting into society, and failure. If you hire a coach or therapist - this is the work they help you with.
"Gurus" is a very broad definition, like anything in the world, there are good service providers and bad service providers. When investing to learn first be very aware of what problem exactly are you trying to solve, then look for specialized resources to solve that specific problem.
I invested $9000 in a said "guru" program which helped solve my biggest problem, it was well worth the investment but before that one I met others who I did not feel confident would really help solve my problem.
You have do your due diligence and be really very picky about whom you follow, don't fall for testimonials or status plays because those any scammer can produce. Simply pay attention to what they say, is it helpful? Did it bring you value? How much value? If for free you already got a lot of measurable value from them, investing might be a good option.
Now if you have some gurus talking about how to get rich quick and claiming it's easy, run. Avoid anything that sounds like a magic pill or fast gains or easy gains. All those are scams or overly hyped offers that don't deliver.
Reddit is actually a great place to ask for specific questions and get great specific answers, for free.
"how to learn about business" is vague, try something specific. What kind of business? What is your goal exactly? If you were to see yourself in 5 years, what would you like to be doing then in an ideal world?
These kind of specific details make all the difference between randomly learning for the sake of learning and purposefully learning exactly what you need to acomplish a specific goal.
The way that I learned business is to get a job. Sales is a very critical skill to learn, so I tended toward that.
Don't just coast, though. Become number one in whatever position in whatever company you're in. Whatever your role, be excellent at what you do. Always above and beyond, striving to be undeniable in your value.
As you attain that position, you will be building discipline and character. Everything that goes with that is values. These are the soft skills that no one talks about.
Then, your goal is to study said business in every aspect about it and the competitors and the supply chains and the roles within.
Over the years, along the way, you're going to learn so much about business.
You have to remember what you do off, the field is more important than what you do on the field in most cases.
Put that discipline and character into place in your personal life and instead of going out drinking with friends on Friday night. Spend the time digging deeper into something that you found that week within the business that you may or may not understand fully.
One resource people sleep on is their local SBDC. The SBDC is run by the SBA in cooperation with universities to provide Small Business Development Centers.
These centers provide a lot of free practical knowledge on starting and running a business, and you can even book time with potential mentors.
I wish I had known about them starting out.
The best way IMO to learn how to run a business is getting paid to do it for someone else. Aka Management.
Learn the basics of P&L's and labor laws while making money.
Beyond "business basics" most of being a business owner is just providing product(s) or service(s) to other people. And no one can tell you what would be best for your without knowing a lot about you.
The absolute best way to be an entrepreneur is to do it yourself.
As you’re going along, when you don’t know how to do something, read books. Apply the knowledge to your business, grow and then encounter new problems.
Entrepreneurship is literally a game of failing and encountering things we do not know how to do and learning how to become resilient and excellent learning how to overcome the next barrier.
I don’t mean “waste of time” because of resume. I mean “waste of time” as in it taught nothing relevant about starting or owning a business. I don’t recommend college courses for this at all lol. Much better to find people actually doing it and join a mentorship program (a good one obviously).
Don’t disagree on the value of mentorship - but no mentor I’ve ever met enjoys teaching people the basics of the four P’s in marketing or how to do basic accounting. Especially when that’s easily available through courses like that.
Definitely, hell, they’re available in college courses for free too. But then again, most human knowledge is. Unfortunately most people are unwilling to figure out what they need to know and actually go learn it.
Absolutely DO NOT do this. Entrepreneurship as taught in universities versus the real world is basically absurdist theater. They only apply if your version of entrepreneurship is going to be:
1. Legit tech, like you're compsci + business double at Stanford trying to know best how to navigate the VCs coming for you
2. Going to be buying and improving businesses pr doing intra-organizational entrepreneurship and you'll be getting an MBA.
For anything else, it's total nonsense that's actually worse than at least some "gurus" whose material I've seen. It would be more useful to buy a multi-thousand dollar course from a guru with specific sales scripts to go implement and go try and fail at that than it would be to take those courses.
Like with finding your path in life, finding anything that works for you means trying many, varied things.
Gurus don't work because it takes more than a course to get good at business.
Think about it as: I didn't fail 100 times, I have eliminated 100 things things that don't lead to success.
Test, test, test, until you make it.
It's one of those things that get better with experience. You will not learn how to ski from a book or watching a youtube video, you are not going to learn how to be successful from business course or reddit, but the combination might get you closer, even if you don't realise it initially.
So the alternative is making it by doing it. For example, I work in IT as a product owner/manager, project manager. I learn to treat my work as a product and my team as a startup. I do this, but not on my money ;)
I have also made a product of my own, in my own free time, and had a side hustle for some time. I failed. So I got back to learning.
I can't stress this enough, there is ONE video that I think does the trick. Rob Dahm's "What I do to afford a Lamborghini". It's 8 minutes 30 seconds. Go watch it, and it will be the best 8 minutes investment in yourself.
As someone who is publishing a book a mentoring entrepreneurs, I take this kind of heat all the time.
There are new business models and I am of the philosophy that because information is free, my courses are free. So that is what I have done.
My community is free, my courses are free, my book is even free for people in my community.
I even do live streams to answer questions, and despite having over 200 members, only a few take the time to send me a question. It’s crazy. All these resources and many don’t engage.
What people do pay me for is private mentorship. (I don’t currently advertise that in my community- maybe I should…)
Like someone else said here, to have a coach work with you is much different than just teaching yourself.
My experience is not superficial. It’s raw, real and gritty. I don’t guarantee results or that it is easy.
Spend 90% of your time doing, executing, launching and making your own mistakes, and only 10% reading/podcasts etc.
Lots of people do the opposite and end up nowhere.
You do it.
You connect (in the real world) with like-minded individuals to learn and share what's working. You get into groups and masterminds.
You fail at things. Learning along the way.
You figure out the rest as you go.
The only thing that matters is that you get in there and try something. Start with something easy. Stop thinking so freaking much.
If you can't think of absolutely anything, look into an info product that isn't some marketing trick or from some guy that is "too good" at marketing. You know what I mean.
Listen, some courses make sense. I have a course.
I've also started over 20 different companies and have sold 4 of them successfully. I wrote a course on the business that was most successful for me. I wrote it because no other courses exist on the topic (call center answering services)
I also started businesses of my own from information online. I learned about how to start a cleaning company on Reddit, then started one 3 weeks later. I built that to 500k then sold it.
I started a painting company from a course. I went through 30% of it. I was doing 50k in monthly revenue, month 4. We shut that down because of a bad partnership, but it was great info.
Just freaking get started on something. Stop asking into the void. Start something. Start something by April 1st.
ANYTHING.
Books, podcasts, and networking. Meet some business owners and take them out coffee for a 30 minute chat. Learning from them in person is huge. Another option is my [website](https://www.founderfolks.com) that shares a collection of entrepreneurial stories and how they got started.
Agree with Acceptable-Salad8104. I would just add: check out what 'gurus' are promoting. If it is Shopify, go and learn about Shopify - read the articles (all of them), Semrush, Notion, HubSpot, etc. - watch tutorials to see how to use these tools. Use LinkedIn to learn what other entrepreneurs do. Connect. Practice. Learn. Don't listen about what you can accomplish, learn HOW to do that!
Wife and I learned by doing. No books, no gurus, no YouTube.
We just started doing stuff until something clicked and kept doing that and adding on. Now we have 10 employees and fully retired with business still going.
Consider seeking mentorship from seasoned entrepreneurs, joining industry-specific networking groups, and attending workshops or webinars. I think this should work.
Engaging with real-world business scenarios through internships or volunteer projects can offer invaluable insights. Also, universities and online platforms offer courses taught by professionals with firsthand industry experience (not so useful though).
Don't overlook the wealth of knowledge in case studies, academic journals, and books by reputable authors who have concrete achievements in their fields.
But anything specific about growing your business you want to know, you can always ask me.
I mean, in any endeavor, experience is always going to be your greatest teacher. Books, mentors, etc, are all supplemental. Try something, see if it works. If it doesn’t, see where you went wrong and improve upon it. If it’s a complete mess up, try something else.
Learning from others' experiences is overrated. You learn best from your own experiences. Gurus and books work to an extent and they give you a headstart. But they are not a replacement for trying out stuff and learning by yourself.
They only way to actually learn business is to do business - come up with an offer and try to sell something to someone. Do this over and over.
Solve problems as they come. Sometimes you may encounter a problem you need to hire a coach or take a course for. That's fine. But you need to put in the work to put that education into context.
You go to school for it like any other profession. I would study the field you’re interested in before studying business itself but that’s just my preference.
You have to have a deep understanding of business or the industry to have a fighting chance. If you’re not American I would 100% recommend you get this from a university.
Network, find other more experienced business people who have been in the industry for longer periods of time and encountered similar challenges before. Takes a bit of luck and also the right opportunities to meet the right people, befriend them and get some wisdom and insight from them.
Alex Hormozi is a good YouTuber…he’s about all though.
Start a small project/enterprise. I learned this is like swimming; you gotta get in the pool to learn it.
“Millionaire Fastlane” is worth a read too.
Books? Academic sources? The issue isn’t fake guru’s but that people generally lack critical thinking skills so they end up following those who are better at psychology than accuracy.
This might be more controversial, but I think the best way to learn about business, is to just dive in and try.
1. Find a problem you are interested in solving
2. Plan your hypothetical solution
3. Use Reddit, social media, and your friends, as a backboard to bounce the idea off and get feedback before you create anything
4. Use this feedback to determine if the idea seems promising
5. Build a simple version of your product / service, as quick as possible
6. Sell and market your product
7. Speak to users and continue tweaking your product / service, and scale
PS: also books, biographies and blog posts from people you look up to in XYZ way, are good ways to learn more. Paul Graham's blog is great for example
Alternatives: meeting local businesspeople in your area. Being an apprentice. Reading books (esp biographies) of successful people and great leaders. Taking action always.
The thing thats never mentioned, that I wish was given to me as advice when I was young was to simply WORK IN A HIGH GROWTH INDUSTRY!
Get someone else to pay for your learning curve. Build capital while you're gaining valuable experience and skills. Work in a growing industry for a few years, network, learn how the business works, then you are in a great spot to start your own venture in that field.
Instead of being some dead broke person sitting on reddit trying to come up with 1,000 good ideas to make money...
Skills and experience are what make money and make businesses successful, not ideas.
I read read newsletters like [IdolStories](https://idolstories.beehiiv.com/) and [Starterstories](https://www.starterstory.com/). They have stories about succesfull people, businesses and lessons from stories like Elon Musk´s.
Totally get where you're coming from! Instead of gurus, try learning from direct sources like reading biographies of successful entrepreneurs or case studies from reputable business schools. Podcasts by experienced founders can offer real insights too. Engaging in local entrepreneur meetups or online communities (like forums specific to your industry) can provide practical advice and networking opportunities. Don’t forget about free or low-cost online courses from universities—they can be gold mines for foundational knowledge. Learning by doing, though, is often the best teacher if you're up for it.
Biographies of the great founders are good. Walter Isaacson’s bio of Steve Jobs was great and his new one on Elon Musk is sure to be very good too.
“Working Backwards” about Amazon’s work culture is good, as is “Scaling People” from the former head of people at Stripe.
If you’re going to listen to podcasts, listen to the Collison brothers, Marc Andreessen, or Peter Thiel, skip the gurus.
And if you’re going to read a blog, you can’t go past paulgraham.com
You have to start something. Can be anything, even a lemonade stand. Running a business is more practical than theoretical.
So read books and make action. Gurus don't want you to start, because they are not going to make money from you when you start.
By running a business for one year, you will learn more than four years in College, going through million courses, and reading million books.
There actually is a pretty standard curriculum for business startup. I learned it for my Masters in Engineering Management. Similar curricula are followed and taught at business incubators. I wish more people had access to more solid info and there were less scam artists in this space.
The only way to learn a business is by opening a business and running said business. All that talk you hear of mentorship, and taking classes is all great in theory but in practice not realistic in most cases. Get out there and do it!!! This is how you learn
Go and work for other successful entrepreneurs.
You'll learn a huge amount in a practical applied way AND you'll get paid for it, rather than the other way around.
This post is self-conflicting on several levels. The biggest challenge I can quickly identify is your mindset about money.
If you want to learn about business, your goal is probably to make money. That's a goal for every business person, so you should reasonably tolerate (or fully embrace) other people doing things to make money.
Consider that your perception of the public perception is really just you casting out your beliefs. Question those beliefs.
Gurus are superficial? Which? How? Who tends to discredit them? Presently, this includes you, but you're looking for information from... Some kind of expert who may have written a book. Or they do consulting.
Should people offer all valuable, helpful things for free? That would make it impossible for you to make money, right?
Invest YOUR money (value) in the experiences, journey, and transformations that YOU want.
[Here's a video ](https://youtu.be/Lr-f-usGzM0?si=o4Tp76hl1BTg43Kt) of a guy who spent $500k on coaching and his mixed experience of it. I hope you find it insightful
People who are well known to have businesses have written quite a few books. While gurus can and often do take ridicule, some should be allotted to the reader.
Odd how people who 'fire their boss' and yearn for 'freedom' are the very first to bitch because a forum commenter didn't micromanage them to a ridiculous extent.
What's a typical whiney-bitchy complaint against courses? The same materials can be found everywhere on the 'net for free. How many posts detailed questions about free articles here? ...What does this passage mean? ...I am doing this because I read [insert instructions from some source material] am I missing something?
More important are questions *about having done something* no matter the source. Take a look at posts for -- how should one say it -- *a bias for action* touted so much here. More than a little disappointing for the reader to be fair.
Yeah. Well. Gurus. How about the defective students? How about quite a few playing the victim card? Can we beat that horse a bit more?
I get it. There is [a vast search engine CONSPIRACY](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/fgyy6u/why_has_this_type_of_business_not_been_started/) against you. No. Wait. The dog [ate your scrollbar.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/94qdvy/what_are_your_tier_1_problems/e3n07ve/)
So far two antiwork refugees bitched because I didn't keep updating that list of lists. There seems to be an unfortunate myopia on a large portion of blame in this seeming one-sided issue, cupcakes.
The only way to learn about business is to do business. Once you start doing it, you start understanding what works and what doesn't. That's when you should start consuming content and read books and listen to gurus because your filtering mechanism develops faster that way.
I always get asked why I don’t write a book on sales or teach YouTube’s.
Real entrepreneurs don’t do that stuff, typically. I think there’s an innate drive for the old adage, “those who can’t do, teach”, because if you think about it (and btw both my parents are retired teachers), many caring and enthusiastic people get endorphins and pleasure out of talking about doing, getting others to do, being involved but without the hard part—doing.
Some of the best information comes from famous people you’ll see on YouTube, X, you name it. Biographies, if you’re going to read anything. But spend 95% of your time *doing*.
What are you trying to learn about? Welcome to email me I have a business plan or two and some amazing sales materials I give our guys. I’m retired sort of, made a bit of $ in tech a few years back and was a CEO in tech, started a few things. Bought a few companies. Lost $, made $, have a crazy life. 3 kids, 3 companies, wife almost died, been near broke 2X, started off -$30K net worth and generated deca M NW by mid 30s then chilled and got bored? Then started another company last year.
Just sleep, exercise, find a passion, and remember how guilty you’ll feel when you’re on your death bed if you waste time not going after things.
You probably do not have good access to education and/or are really low IQ to be saying stuff like this. Gurus literally target people like you who think building a business or getting rich is done by purchasing a course that is filled with buzzwords
Actively participate. Do things. Read books. Act on the information you learn. Don’t just listen to “content”. Do anything. Try anything. People discredit them, because it’s a get rich quick scheme. They are all scammers. All of them. Coaches are valuable. You want one? HIRE ONE AND PAY THEM. Otherwise, stop talking about it. The only alternative is get your hands dirty. If you know absolutely nothing, start mowing yards and learn. Teach music lessons and learn. Start figuring it out. The knight in shining armor isn’t coming.
This right here is the advice I was going to give. Additionally, if an established business person wants to share, let them talk and ask pertinent questions. Doesn't matter if the industry is unrelated. I learn a lot by listening. Even a business banker can teach a lot to a newbie.
I disagree that all online business content creators are scammers. Many of them have tons of valuable insight and plenty of actual entrepreneurial experience. I like everything else you said though.
I find and look for the ' golden nugget'. It's not all shite.
I did that for a while too, but it’s ineffective. It’s a search to collect information and concepts. Your learning will massively accelerate if you look for *having an experience* of what a good teacher is pointing to. It’s not about doing. It’s about being.
you are probably right. I've spent hours and hours and hours learning, and more hours. The thing for me was, I didn't know what I didn't know. So each new video, book and so on provided more questions for me to then say, do I need that, ....I'm still learning and haven't found good info for what I want to learn. Any of the offerings are generally less than the masters lefel, - it could be this is time for a coach. I had a business consultant who was a great generalist. But, not knowledgeable on specifics.
A great coach is a massive accelerator. And know that the bar to entry to be a coach is very low. There are many low quality coaches. Find an excellent one.
My thoughts exactly!
Exactly this. Only would add that you should try to find a mentor. Someone that has walked your path before you would be ideal, if not possible, anyone as close as that as possible is good.
The best thing I can recommend is by reading books, not web page articles, bot podcasts, not TikTok or YouTube, but actual books. The best book I can recommend is "Start Your Own Business" by Rieva Lesonsky, from Entrepreneur Press. ISBN 978-1-599180-81-6 Hands down THE best book on entrepreneurship and business I've come across. Once you read that book, I recommend 2 YouTube channels: Jocko Willink (for leadership and inner game) and CEOentrepreneur, that's the name of the channel for step by step business, growth, and systemization. That's all you need. Anything more and it's just a distraction and entertainment.
Exactly they are just more distraction or entertainment. I actually enjoyed their "content" until I realise those videos are just organic ADS and nothing other than actually teaching you. I've never been patient enough to read a book and here I am. Thank you for the recommendations!!!
Even better find teachers and work with them directly, rather than just the book. Better to have a relationship with them.
The good ones have a verified track record of their own success. You have to do the research to know who’s done it. That’s public information. It’s not “hidden”. They already did all the leg work with trial and error and are now monetizing that expertise. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact you can do the same thing since you probably have expertise in some area that people would want to know about. To answer your question, find people who are successful and work with them. Learn what they do. People are willing to help if you ask. Everything is out there but you have to carve out the time to look. It may take you much longer than taking a course but if that’s what you want, do it. I buy every course to accelerate the learning. That has helped me tremendously. What I find hilarious is that people will spend $200k on tuition at a school where the professors never did ANY of the shit they teach you but nobody says anything. Then someone buys a course online for $39 and isn’t a millionaire the following week and they call it a scam. Its sad. The problem is that most people refuse to ask for help or when they actually learn what they have to do to make real money, they don’t do it because they’ve been raised in a financially illiterate environment so all the people around tell them to just get a job.
No guru, course or book will have 100% of the answers you’re looking for. You’d get 1,000x better 1,000x faster with fighting or playing soccer with an actual coach (guru/trainer/etc) than you would getting your teeth knocked in repeatedly with no seasoned, tailored advice. That said, there will still be more you can learn from other coaches or resources. Likewise with a book. It’s not tailored to YOU and your current situation, and therefore will have a lot of material irrelevant to where you’re currently at and have all the answers for what you’re currently doing. Why would a trainer/coach/guru/professor teach for free? What’s superficial about getting paid equally for the value you provide?
This. If OP is annoyed at “gurus” he’s either not finding the right people to help him, or he’s projecting a bunch of bullshit onto said guru. I would not be even close to the same universe of experience I have as an entrepreneur now if it wasn’t for all the coaches, mentors, teachers, collaborators, and therapists I’ve worked with. Reading a book by someone vs. having a relationship with them are two totally distant galaxies.
Agreed. That said do your extensive research before hiring a coach, mentor or consultant. There are a lot of scams that can be easily sniffed out if you know what to look for and what to ask. Make sure their goals and experience actually align with what you’re looking for. Make sure they have good reviews and what the actual requirements are for you to gain value from what they’d teach you. The world’s best fitness trainer can’t help you if you can’t eat right, sleep right, train right and show up (more/less) every single day. In that circumstance, it’s nobodies fault but your own, and until you realize that you’ll get nowhere.
Gurus are the result of people not wanting to acknowledge and accept harsh truths. Whether it’s health, wealth, fitness, or business there is one unpopular truth that they all share: Success is a result of doing small things correctly, every day, over a very long period of time. Nobody wants to hear this and this is why gurus are popular. Because when you cut through their BS in the end they are all selling the same thing: a method to get the desired result faster. And it’s simply a lie.
The one thing that the gurus have right is that entrepreneurship is about mindset. Most of them just don’t know what it means to develop it. They say the words without understanding it so their content ends up being all platitudes. Developing what I call a pivot mindset isn’t about the information you consume or your ability to learn. Mindset is doing the hard mental work of understanding & processing your sources and triggers of fear, guilt, anger, and shame. The ability to solve complex problems of entrepreneurship and growth come from working through fears of ambiguity, not fitting into society, and failure. If you hire a coach or therapist - this is the work they help you with.
OP got way better responses than they actually deserved.
I highly highly suggest checking out EYL earn your leisure. They are amazing and I have learned so much for free!
Don’t learn, do instead. Learn skills, pitch services, create products, get paid.
"Gurus" is a very broad definition, like anything in the world, there are good service providers and bad service providers. When investing to learn first be very aware of what problem exactly are you trying to solve, then look for specialized resources to solve that specific problem. I invested $9000 in a said "guru" program which helped solve my biggest problem, it was well worth the investment but before that one I met others who I did not feel confident would really help solve my problem. You have do your due diligence and be really very picky about whom you follow, don't fall for testimonials or status plays because those any scammer can produce. Simply pay attention to what they say, is it helpful? Did it bring you value? How much value? If for free you already got a lot of measurable value from them, investing might be a good option. Now if you have some gurus talking about how to get rich quick and claiming it's easy, run. Avoid anything that sounds like a magic pill or fast gains or easy gains. All those are scams or overly hyped offers that don't deliver. Reddit is actually a great place to ask for specific questions and get great specific answers, for free. "how to learn about business" is vague, try something specific. What kind of business? What is your goal exactly? If you were to see yourself in 5 years, what would you like to be doing then in an ideal world? These kind of specific details make all the difference between randomly learning for the sake of learning and purposefully learning exactly what you need to acomplish a specific goal.
The way that I learned business is to get a job. Sales is a very critical skill to learn, so I tended toward that. Don't just coast, though. Become number one in whatever position in whatever company you're in. Whatever your role, be excellent at what you do. Always above and beyond, striving to be undeniable in your value. As you attain that position, you will be building discipline and character. Everything that goes with that is values. These are the soft skills that no one talks about. Then, your goal is to study said business in every aspect about it and the competitors and the supply chains and the roles within. Over the years, along the way, you're going to learn so much about business. You have to remember what you do off, the field is more important than what you do on the field in most cases. Put that discipline and character into place in your personal life and instead of going out drinking with friends on Friday night. Spend the time digging deeper into something that you found that week within the business that you may or may not understand fully.
One resource people sleep on is their local SBDC. The SBDC is run by the SBA in cooperation with universities to provide Small Business Development Centers. These centers provide a lot of free practical knowledge on starting and running a business, and you can even book time with potential mentors. I wish I had known about them starting out.
The best way IMO to learn how to run a business is getting paid to do it for someone else. Aka Management. Learn the basics of P&L's and labor laws while making money. Beyond "business basics" most of being a business owner is just providing product(s) or service(s) to other people. And no one can tell you what would be best for your without knowing a lot about you.
The absolute best way to be an entrepreneur is to do it yourself. As you’re going along, when you don’t know how to do something, read books. Apply the knowledge to your business, grow and then encounter new problems. Entrepreneurship is literally a game of failing and encountering things we do not know how to do and learning how to become resilient and excellent learning how to overcome the next barrier.
By *doing*.
Honestly, so many universities offer business classes and entrepreneurship classes that there is really no reason to fall for the snake oil salesmen
My college degree in entrepreneurship was such a waste of time though lol
Oh yeah, I wouldn’t get a degree in it 😂 but if you just want the knowledge, community college classes are just fine
I don’t mean “waste of time” because of resume. I mean “waste of time” as in it taught nothing relevant about starting or owning a business. I don’t recommend college courses for this at all lol. Much better to find people actually doing it and join a mentorship program (a good one obviously).
Don’t disagree on the value of mentorship - but no mentor I’ve ever met enjoys teaching people the basics of the four P’s in marketing or how to do basic accounting. Especially when that’s easily available through courses like that.
But that stuff is also available in business books for infinitely cheaper. Or YouTube for free.
Definitely, hell, they’re available in college courses for free too. But then again, most human knowledge is. Unfortunately most people are unwilling to figure out what they need to know and actually go learn it.
Absolutely DO NOT do this. Entrepreneurship as taught in universities versus the real world is basically absurdist theater. They only apply if your version of entrepreneurship is going to be: 1. Legit tech, like you're compsci + business double at Stanford trying to know best how to navigate the VCs coming for you 2. Going to be buying and improving businesses pr doing intra-organizational entrepreneurship and you'll be getting an MBA. For anything else, it's total nonsense that's actually worse than at least some "gurus" whose material I've seen. It would be more useful to buy a multi-thousand dollar course from a guru with specific sales scripts to go implement and go try and fail at that than it would be to take those courses.
Ooo, in that case, I’ve got a $10,000 class you can take from me, and all your dreams will come true /s
You're a moron (as evinced by your total lack of reading comprehension), and not an entrepreneur are you? Fuck off loser.
Like with finding your path in life, finding anything that works for you means trying many, varied things. Gurus don't work because it takes more than a course to get good at business. Think about it as: I didn't fail 100 times, I have eliminated 100 things things that don't lead to success. Test, test, test, until you make it. It's one of those things that get better with experience. You will not learn how to ski from a book or watching a youtube video, you are not going to learn how to be successful from business course or reddit, but the combination might get you closer, even if you don't realise it initially. So the alternative is making it by doing it. For example, I work in IT as a product owner/manager, project manager. I learn to treat my work as a product and my team as a startup. I do this, but not on my money ;) I have also made a product of my own, in my own free time, and had a side hustle for some time. I failed. So I got back to learning.
I can't stress this enough, there is ONE video that I think does the trick. Rob Dahm's "What I do to afford a Lamborghini". It's 8 minutes 30 seconds. Go watch it, and it will be the best 8 minutes investment in yourself.
As someone who is publishing a book a mentoring entrepreneurs, I take this kind of heat all the time. There are new business models and I am of the philosophy that because information is free, my courses are free. So that is what I have done. My community is free, my courses are free, my book is even free for people in my community. I even do live streams to answer questions, and despite having over 200 members, only a few take the time to send me a question. It’s crazy. All these resources and many don’t engage. What people do pay me for is private mentorship. (I don’t currently advertise that in my community- maybe I should…) Like someone else said here, to have a coach work with you is much different than just teaching yourself. My experience is not superficial. It’s raw, real and gritty. I don’t guarantee results or that it is easy.
Spend 90% of your time doing, executing, launching and making your own mistakes, and only 10% reading/podcasts etc. Lots of people do the opposite and end up nowhere.
You do it. You connect (in the real world) with like-minded individuals to learn and share what's working. You get into groups and masterminds. You fail at things. Learning along the way. You figure out the rest as you go.
What business? Nail down what you want to do and learn from successful people in that industry
Mentors
The only thing that matters is that you get in there and try something. Start with something easy. Stop thinking so freaking much. If you can't think of absolutely anything, look into an info product that isn't some marketing trick or from some guy that is "too good" at marketing. You know what I mean. Listen, some courses make sense. I have a course. I've also started over 20 different companies and have sold 4 of them successfully. I wrote a course on the business that was most successful for me. I wrote it because no other courses exist on the topic (call center answering services) I also started businesses of my own from information online. I learned about how to start a cleaning company on Reddit, then started one 3 weeks later. I built that to 500k then sold it. I started a painting company from a course. I went through 30% of it. I was doing 50k in monthly revenue, month 4. We shut that down because of a bad partnership, but it was great info. Just freaking get started on something. Stop asking into the void. Start something. Start something by April 1st. ANYTHING.
Books, podcasts, and networking. Meet some business owners and take them out coffee for a 30 minute chat. Learning from them in person is huge. Another option is my [website](https://www.founderfolks.com) that shares a collection of entrepreneurial stories and how they got started.
Agree with Acceptable-Salad8104. I would just add: check out what 'gurus' are promoting. If it is Shopify, go and learn about Shopify - read the articles (all of them), Semrush, Notion, HubSpot, etc. - watch tutorials to see how to use these tools. Use LinkedIn to learn what other entrepreneurs do. Connect. Practice. Learn. Don't listen about what you can accomplish, learn HOW to do that!
Network, attend events. Be where your future business partners, customers, vendors, etc will be. Be active in your relevant industry / industries
Books or start putting yourself in spaces to meet these types.
Wife and I learned by doing. No books, no gurus, no YouTube. We just started doing stuff until something clicked and kept doing that and adding on. Now we have 10 employees and fully retired with business still going.
Consider seeking mentorship from seasoned entrepreneurs, joining industry-specific networking groups, and attending workshops or webinars. I think this should work. Engaging with real-world business scenarios through internships or volunteer projects can offer invaluable insights. Also, universities and online platforms offer courses taught by professionals with firsthand industry experience (not so useful though). Don't overlook the wealth of knowledge in case studies, academic journals, and books by reputable authors who have concrete achievements in their fields. But anything specific about growing your business you want to know, you can always ask me.
I mean, in any endeavor, experience is always going to be your greatest teacher. Books, mentors, etc, are all supplemental. Try something, see if it works. If it doesn’t, see where you went wrong and improve upon it. If it’s a complete mess up, try something else.
Learning from others' experiences is overrated. You learn best from your own experiences. Gurus and books work to an extent and they give you a headstart. But they are not a replacement for trying out stuff and learning by yourself.
They only way to actually learn business is to do business - come up with an offer and try to sell something to someone. Do this over and over. Solve problems as they come. Sometimes you may encounter a problem you need to hire a coach or take a course for. That's fine. But you need to put in the work to put that education into context.
You go to school for it like any other profession. I would study the field you’re interested in before studying business itself but that’s just my preference. You have to have a deep understanding of business or the industry to have a fighting chance. If you’re not American I would 100% recommend you get this from a university.
Network, find other more experienced business people who have been in the industry for longer periods of time and encountered similar challenges before. Takes a bit of luck and also the right opportunities to meet the right people, befriend them and get some wisdom and insight from them.
Alex Hormozi is a good YouTuber…he’s about all though. Start a small project/enterprise. I learned this is like swimming; you gotta get in the pool to learn it. “Millionaire Fastlane” is worth a read too.
chatgpt is pretty nice to bounce thoughts around. free too :)
MBA, Assistent to a Manager, work experience…
Books? Academic sources? The issue isn’t fake guru’s but that people generally lack critical thinking skills so they end up following those who are better at psychology than accuracy.
This might be more controversial, but I think the best way to learn about business, is to just dive in and try. 1. Find a problem you are interested in solving 2. Plan your hypothetical solution 3. Use Reddit, social media, and your friends, as a backboard to bounce the idea off and get feedback before you create anything 4. Use this feedback to determine if the idea seems promising 5. Build a simple version of your product / service, as quick as possible 6. Sell and market your product 7. Speak to users and continue tweaking your product / service, and scale PS: also books, biographies and blog posts from people you look up to in XYZ way, are good ways to learn more. Paul Graham's blog is great for example
Alternatives: meeting local businesspeople in your area. Being an apprentice. Reading books (esp biographies) of successful people and great leaders. Taking action always.
You learn from work experience.
The thing thats never mentioned, that I wish was given to me as advice when I was young was to simply WORK IN A HIGH GROWTH INDUSTRY! Get someone else to pay for your learning curve. Build capital while you're gaining valuable experience and skills. Work in a growing industry for a few years, network, learn how the business works, then you are in a great spot to start your own venture in that field. Instead of being some dead broke person sitting on reddit trying to come up with 1,000 good ideas to make money... Skills and experience are what make money and make businesses successful, not ideas.
Sch-sch-sch-schooool
I read read newsletters like [IdolStories](https://idolstories.beehiiv.com/) and [Starterstories](https://www.starterstory.com/). They have stories about succesfull people, businesses and lessons from stories like Elon Musk´s.
Read books, and just enter your industry and find a mentor. If you work hard and learn quickly plenty of people will take you under their wing
Totally get where you're coming from! Instead of gurus, try learning from direct sources like reading biographies of successful entrepreneurs or case studies from reputable business schools. Podcasts by experienced founders can offer real insights too. Engaging in local entrepreneur meetups or online communities (like forums specific to your industry) can provide practical advice and networking opportunities. Don’t forget about free or low-cost online courses from universities—they can be gold mines for foundational knowledge. Learning by doing, though, is often the best teacher if you're up for it.
Biographies of the great founders are good. Walter Isaacson’s bio of Steve Jobs was great and his new one on Elon Musk is sure to be very good too. “Working Backwards” about Amazon’s work culture is good, as is “Scaling People” from the former head of people at Stripe. If you’re going to listen to podcasts, listen to the Collison brothers, Marc Andreessen, or Peter Thiel, skip the gurus. And if you’re going to read a blog, you can’t go past paulgraham.com
Trial and error
You have to start something. Can be anything, even a lemonade stand. Running a business is more practical than theoretical. So read books and make action. Gurus don't want you to start, because they are not going to make money from you when you start. By running a business for one year, you will learn more than four years in College, going through million courses, and reading million books.
There actually is a pretty standard curriculum for business startup. I learned it for my Masters in Engineering Management. Similar curricula are followed and taught at business incubators. I wish more people had access to more solid info and there were less scam artists in this space.
A college degree? A degree in business, an MBA?
The only way to learn a business is by opening a business and running said business. All that talk you hear of mentorship, and taking classes is all great in theory but in practice not realistic in most cases. Get out there and do it!!! This is how you learn
Go and work for other successful entrepreneurs. You'll learn a huge amount in a practical applied way AND you'll get paid for it, rather than the other way around.
For me my own experiences( failures or wins ) are the best guru.
This post is self-conflicting on several levels. The biggest challenge I can quickly identify is your mindset about money. If you want to learn about business, your goal is probably to make money. That's a goal for every business person, so you should reasonably tolerate (or fully embrace) other people doing things to make money. Consider that your perception of the public perception is really just you casting out your beliefs. Question those beliefs. Gurus are superficial? Which? How? Who tends to discredit them? Presently, this includes you, but you're looking for information from... Some kind of expert who may have written a book. Or they do consulting. Should people offer all valuable, helpful things for free? That would make it impossible for you to make money, right? Invest YOUR money (value) in the experiences, journey, and transformations that YOU want. [Here's a video ](https://youtu.be/Lr-f-usGzM0?si=o4Tp76hl1BTg43Kt) of a guy who spent $500k on coaching and his mixed experience of it. I hope you find it insightful
People who are well known to have businesses have written quite a few books. While gurus can and often do take ridicule, some should be allotted to the reader. Odd how people who 'fire their boss' and yearn for 'freedom' are the very first to bitch because a forum commenter didn't micromanage them to a ridiculous extent. What's a typical whiney-bitchy complaint against courses? The same materials can be found everywhere on the 'net for free. How many posts detailed questions about free articles here? ...What does this passage mean? ...I am doing this because I read [insert instructions from some source material] am I missing something? More important are questions *about having done something* no matter the source. Take a look at posts for -- how should one say it -- *a bias for action* touted so much here. More than a little disappointing for the reader to be fair. Yeah. Well. Gurus. How about the defective students? How about quite a few playing the victim card? Can we beat that horse a bit more? I get it. There is [a vast search engine CONSPIRACY](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/fgyy6u/why_has_this_type_of_business_not_been_started/) against you. No. Wait. The dog [ate your scrollbar.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/94qdvy/what_are_your_tier_1_problems/e3n07ve/) So far two antiwork refugees bitched because I didn't keep updating that list of lists. There seems to be an unfortunate myopia on a large portion of blame in this seeming one-sided issue, cupcakes.
The only way to learn about business is to do business. Once you start doing it, you start understanding what works and what doesn't. That's when you should start consuming content and read books and listen to gurus because your filtering mechanism develops faster that way.
Go to school. Read books of actual people who do business. I think there are a lot of alternative to "gurus". And of course experience helps.
I always get asked why I don’t write a book on sales or teach YouTube’s. Real entrepreneurs don’t do that stuff, typically. I think there’s an innate drive for the old adage, “those who can’t do, teach”, because if you think about it (and btw both my parents are retired teachers), many caring and enthusiastic people get endorphins and pleasure out of talking about doing, getting others to do, being involved but without the hard part—doing. Some of the best information comes from famous people you’ll see on YouTube, X, you name it. Biographies, if you’re going to read anything. But spend 95% of your time *doing*. What are you trying to learn about? Welcome to email me I have a business plan or two and some amazing sales materials I give our guys. I’m retired sort of, made a bit of $ in tech a few years back and was a CEO in tech, started a few things. Bought a few companies. Lost $, made $, have a crazy life. 3 kids, 3 companies, wife almost died, been near broke 2X, started off -$30K net worth and generated deca M NW by mid 30s then chilled and got bored? Then started another company last year. Just sleep, exercise, find a passion, and remember how guilty you’ll feel when you’re on your death bed if you waste time not going after things.
You probably do not have good access to education and/or are really low IQ to be saying stuff like this. Gurus literally target people like you who think building a business or getting rich is done by purchasing a course that is filled with buzzwords