How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital summary

Copying others has a bad rep. We’re told that its unethical and that it’s a badge of honor to only start your own business once you’ve had a brilliantly original idea of your own. That’s the second rule you’ll need to break if you want to be a successful capitalist. 

There are no two ways about it: the most successful companies out there copy their competitors all the time. They always have and they always will. It’s the unspoken truth known to all top entrepreneurs. The trick is to be subtle about it. Companies don’t just rip each other off – they take someone else’s idea and give it a little tweak, like applying it to an adjacent industry. 

Lots of people are obsessed with goals. That’s understandable – after all, few things are as satisfying as working through a challenge and savoring the taste of that hard-won promotion or tropical vacation. But here’s the problem: goal-setting can become a trap. If you want to become a successful entrepreneur, that’s another rule you’ll have to break. 

That’s because success is ultimately about systems rather than individual goals. Let’s jump in with a definition: a system is basically any procedure that helps you automate your work output. Take the author. Back in 2010, he’d just started his first company – Heyo. The idea? Selling customized Facebook fan pages, which he was building himself for $700 a pop. 

All right, we’ve taken a look at a couple of rules you’ll have to break if you want to launch yourself on the path to success. In this blink, we’ll explore a rule you should be following. 

To get to that, let’s start by thinking back to the nineteenth-century Gold Rush. Workers from around the world rushed to hotspots in search of the precious metal. But while they were sifting streams and dynamiting rocky outcrops, another group was getting rich: the folks selling miners supplies like jeans and pickaxes. And that’s our rule in a nutshell: sell pickaxes to goldminers. 

Follow the tips and tricks we’ve explored in the previous blinks, and you’ll be well on your way to building a successful business. That, however, takes a while. So what do you do in the meantime when you’re low on cash? Well, you’ll want to keep your expenses as low as possible. But don’t worry – that doesn’t mean you’ll have scrimp and save. 

The alternative is to take a leaf out of the book of the already wealthy and make the most out of your existing assets. The author, for example, recently moved into a house he’s bought in Austin, Texas. He paid 3 percent of the $425,000 asking price up front. The monthly mortgage payment and taxes come to $2,700.

Making money isn’t all there is to wealth – you also need to be savvy about how you spend your money. That’s something well-known to the New Rich: people who’ve become wealthy over a short period of time. Their secret? They know how to live luxuriously without spending a ton of cash. In this blink, we’ll take a look at how they afford their jet-set lifestyle without breaking the bank. 

Nothing says luxury quite like flying round the world in business class. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to cost loads of money. In fact, if you make use of specialized companies, your travel bill will be close to nothing. Take it from the author, a man who travelled first class for 45 days on the cheap. 

Buying a company sounds pretty daunting, right? Well, sure, you shouldn’t take it lightly – but don’t let that put you off. In fact, you’d be surprised how simple the basic principles of acquiring a firm are. 

Let’s start with the first bit of advice: if you’re in the market for a company, go digital. Here’s why: digital companies are usually a much more straightforward investment. That comes down to a couple of points. First off, they can be built up and run without office space. That means you’ll be saving a ton of money on rent and insurance, giving you much more financial leeway and flexibility. 

People usually assume the author makes his money through his digital companies and his podcast. That’s not entirely wide of the mark, but it’s not where he makes the bulk of his cash. What really brings in the big bucks for him is the way he multiplies these revenue sources. So how can you follow his path to success? Let’s find out! 

The first thing you’ll need to do is ask your customers a simple question: what products are they buying that are similar to yours? So if your product is software that helps folks fill in their tax returns, you’d want to find out what other tax management software they’re using.