Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2014. Its statement that HubSpot “recently went public” refers to the company’s October 2014 IPO.
Let’s say you want to become a millionaire. Or a billionaire. The goal is clear enough, but the road there could be anything but.
Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot, a company that recently went public, has a very clear view of how to become a billionaire or reach whatever level of financial success you aspire to.
Jeff Haden collected his surprising advice on Inc.com.
To begin with, money shouldn’t be your priority. In fact, when Dharmesh talks about his definition of success, he says money should come near the bottom of the list.
As Dharmesh puts it, money doesn’t matter much to him, although he admits that at one point it mattered a great deal, probably because he didn’t have much of it.
So let’s assume that, like millions of other people, you want to be a millionaire. What kinds of things should you do to improve your chances of becoming a new millionaire? These are the steps this entrepreneur suggests. They aren’t quick or easy, but they’re more reliable than the shortcuts so many people look for and that never work for them.
1. Stop obsessing over money
It may sound contradictory, but focusing only on money is a distraction that keeps you from building everything that will grow your wealth. So you have to change your perspective.
You have to see money not as the main goal but as a by-product of doing things the right way.
2. Start keeping track of how many people you help, even in very small ways
The most successful people I know, financially and in other respects, are surprisingly helpful. They are incredibly good at understanding other people and helping them reach their goals. They know that their success ultimately depends on the success of the people around them.
So they work very hard to make other people successful: their employees, their customers, their suppliers… because they know that if they can do that, their own success will follow naturally.
They build a business, or a career, that they are truly proud of.
3. Stop thinking about making a million dollars and start thinking about how to serve a million people
When your business has only a few customers and your goal is to make a lot of money, you have an incentive to squeeze every last euro out of those customers. But when you find a way to serve millions of people, many other benefits follow: word of mouth grows, your chances to improve your products and services are much greater, you have more opportunity to hire more employees and learn from them…
In short, find a way to serve a million people, serve them incredibly well, and the money will surely come. That way your business will become something you never even dreamed of.
4. See “making more money” as a way to do more things
There are two kinds of people:
- One does things because they want to make money. The more they do, the more money they make, even though what they actually do doesn’t matter much to them. It’s just money, and as long as they’re earning…
- The other wants to make more money because it would let them do more things. They want to improve their product, expand their line, reach more people and offer a better product to more people, and to do that they need money.
In the second case, they want to build a great company, and they believe their product could improve many people’s lives. That’s their dream, and the only way to feed that dream is to make enough money to make it possible. The most successful companies on the planet evolve and grow, and as they make money, they reinvest it to keep improving.
As Walt Disney said:
“We don’t make movies to make money; we make money to make more movies.”
5. Do one thing better than everyone else
Pick one thing that’s in demand. Become a maniac about it. Learn everything you possibly can about it, practise, evaluate, refine. Be relentless and self-critical.
Financially successful people do at least one thing better than almost everyone around them.
(Read: How to know what to do with your life: the perfect job or business for you)
Being an expert, or simply being excellent at something, is its own reward, and it will give you a better reputation, greater self-esteem and, as a rule, a bigger paycheck.
See also: How to succeed when you have no special talent
6. Make a list of the 10 best people in the world at that thing
Choose 10 people in the field you want to work in and don’t just admire them. Follow them, study what makes them so good, what they did to get so good, how they think and why they think that way.
For example, if you’re a writer, pick 10 great writers who have made it onto the top-10 bestseller lists. If you want to start a company, find 10 great entrepreneurs and read everything you can about them.
Without a doubt, to be the best, you have to learn from the best.
7. Build routines and follow the process
Success comes from building habits, developing routines and constantly tracking your progress.
To go back to the example of the writer: if you want to write a 300-page book, the easiest way to reach that goal is not to think about the 300 pages but to commit to writing 10 extraordinarily good pages every day. That way, in 30 days you’ll have finished the book.
The same happens when you start a business. Most new entrepreneurs are obsessed with getting results right now, which is logical given that a new company usually lacks cash and the bills can pile up at any moment.
But an entrepreneur should follow the same system, which is to look every day for ways to win new customers. Not even that: every day, visit potential customers and get in touch with potential customers. That way, the number of customers grows every day, and the money eventually comes in.
But we always need to set ourselves goals and create routines that support those goals: fix what doesn’t work, improve what can be improved and repeat the processes until they come out right.
Main goal: be better every day than you were yesterday, but not as good as you’ll be tomorrow.
Further reading
- Ray Dalio: the four habits that took him from poor to rich
- Different ways to make a million euros or dollars
- 25 habits of successful people
Featured image: Betsy Weber, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
