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How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital summary

Name: How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital
Rating: 4.2 (173 reviews)
Author: Nathan Latka

Nathan Latka

The Four Rules You Must Break to Get Rich

4.2 (173 ratings)

21 mins

Topics

Capitalism & The Free Market Memoirs Success

Table of Contents

How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital
Summary of 8 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Learn to play by your own rules and achieve success.

What do you need to make it as an entrepreneur? We’re usually told it’s some combination of hard work, original ideas and single-mindedly pursuing your goals. That amounts to a pretty flattering portrait of today’s top capitalists, but it’s well wide of the mark in most cases.

For every creative genius like Steve Jobs, there are a hundred self-starters who broke every rule in the business playbook. Instead of creating their own dazzling products, they copied their rivals and put their own twist on already successful ideas. Rather than blazing their own trail through the market, they chose the path of least resistance and let others do the hard work. Sound unfair? Well, who cares? It works!

That’s the credo of Nathan Latka, a multimillionaire who started out with just a little more than a hundred bucks in his bank account. Along the way, he realized that you don’t have to follow other people’s rules – in fact, bucking conventional ideas is pretty much mandatory if you want to make it big.

In these blinks, we’ll explore his recipe for success and find out

why multitasking is better than sticking to one core skill;
how to outsource basic tasks and free up time for more valuable activities; and
how to get the most out of your existing assets.

Maximizing your income sources boosts your chances of success.

You’ve heard it a thousand times: your best chance of success is to pick a single career path, knuckle down and stick to it. It’s an age-old philosophy as dear to parents as it is to professors. And here’s the thing: it’s not far off the mark if you want to be a hardworking neurosurgeon. But what if you don’t?

Well, if you want to make money without working endless hours, you’ll need to rebel against that rule. Sticking to a single career path means putting all your eggs in one basket. If things don’t work out or you get fed up, you’ll be left without a backup plan. But even if you do make it, you’ll always be vulnerable to competition. After all, there’s always a chance an even better neurosurgeon, banker or entrepreneur will come along and snag your clients.

So here’s the alternative: avoid specializing in one narrow field, and guarantee your financial success by cultivating multiple sources of revenue. That has a couple of advantages. First off, you’ve always got something to fall back on if your venture fails. When you spread your bets, you’re much less likely to go broke. Secondly and more importantly, multiple income streams mean you can multiply your overall revenue.

Consider the author. He launched his podcast, Top Entrepreneurs, in 2016. That’s a nice little earner. Sponsors pay to have their content hosted on the show, and the more listeners he has, the more they’re willing to fork out. But it isn’t his only source of income. He also has a business called Top Inbox, a tool that allows Gmail users to add special features to their accounts, like scheduling already-written emails to be sent out at a later date.

Placing pop-ups on the Top Inbox user interface exposes even more internet users to his sponsors’ websites. It’s a win-win situation: they love the extra exposure, and the author can charge more for hosting their content on his podcast. His current going rate for an advertising slot on his podcast? $160,000!

Successful companies copy their competitors, and you should too.

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.

Systems are more important than individual goals, which is why you should outsource routine work.

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.

Supporting a thriving industry is a great way to get rich.

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.

Making the most out of your assets is more effective than scrimping and saving.

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.

Using specialized services can help you save money when you travel.

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.

If you’re buying a company, go digital and look for a firm that serves as a distribution channel.

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.

Multiply your income by limiting your number of customers and asking them a simple question.

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.

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What is How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital about?

How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital (2019) unlocks the secrets of the capitalist system to show budding entrepreneurs how to make big bucks without burning the candle at both ends. Packed with creative hacks and actionable advice, self-made multimillionaire Nathan Latka demolishes the myth that you need a ton of money or a dazzlingly original idea to get rich. So what do you do need? Simple: a willingness to break established rules and chart your own course.

Best quote from How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital

If you pigeonhole yourself into one thing, youll lose the chance to recognize patterns and capitalize on them to multiply your income streams.

—Nathan Latka

Who should read How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital?

Entrepreneurs and self-starters
Financial and business experts
Anyone looking for a new career

About the Author

Nathan Latka is an entrepreneur who started out on his path to success at the age of 19 with just $119 in his bank account. He is the founder of Heyo, an app that helps businesses market their services on Facebook, and the cloud computing company SaaS. Latka also hosts Top Entrepreneurs, a popular podcast on which he interviews the world’s leading CEOs. How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital is his first book.

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