A self-made entrepreneur who built a paper net worth in the low nine figures since launching a business in 2010 has taken to Reddit to share five pieces of advice he wishes everyone knew about starting and scaling a business.
“The people who succeed are the ones who suck it up and power through the sh*tty parts of entrepreneurship,” he wrote. This line became the heartbeat of his post and resonated throughout the comments.
He says that after taxes, his net worth will likely settle in the high eight figures, but the insights he’s picked up through the years still hold true. And while he isn’t looking to build another company, he wants to help others get there.
“I’m working on launching a charitable foundation,” he wrote. “There is just so much stuff when you’re starting out that’s a pain in the as*, and there’s no one to do it but you.”
The original post on r/Entrepreneur sparked hundreds of replies from other founders, freelancers, and side hustlers. Many said the advice felt refreshingly real.
Here are the five points shared, plus the biggest takeaways from the comments.
1. Learn Technical Skills
Unless you’re running a restaurant or working with your hands, most of your work will be digital.
The entrepreneur said that knowing how to use multiple monitors, do basic coding (HTML, JavaScript, SQL), and build spreadsheets helped avoid bad hires and saved time early on.
He recalled an early conversation with a friend who was struggling to launch a business.
“I said ‘learn how to code’ and he responded with ‘but that’s too hard.’ Yes, learning new things is hard, and he also should have learned how to code.”
Other people echoed this. One said learning to code was the best decision they ever made: “There is so much efficiency gain in doing little automations here and there… A ton of my business runs on code I wrote running on computers I own.”
Still, others emphasized that coding alone isn’t enough.
As one software developer put it:
“Learning what to code and how to translate it into a business is a much more critical skill.”
2. Suck It Up and Do the Hard Things
The entrepreneur emphasized that the difference between people who make it and those who don’t isn’t talent or money, it’s grit.
“The vast majority of people give up when they hit their first wall. Another huge chunk drop off after the second, third or fourth,” he wrote. “The people who succeed are the ones who suck it up and power through the sh*tty parts of entrepreneurship.”
This part resonated with founders in the trenches. One person summed it up:
“Everyone loves entrepreneurship until it stops being aesthetic and starts being suffering with invoices.”
3. That Which Gets Measured Gets Improved
The entrepreneur has tracked their company’s profit and loss daily since 2010 using a spreadsheet. They stressed the importance of tracking key metrics early, even if the numbers are small.
“If I determine that something is critical to my company’s success, I carefully measure it over time and take note of any initiative that moves the numbers.”
One person agreed: “The reminder about doing the hard, unglamorous work and actually tracking what matters hits home.”
Another person put it this way: “Clarity is the multiplier for every skill, every habit, every metric and every obsession.”
4. Practice Good Manners
Professionalism doesn’t cost anything, and being courteous can go a long way. Responding to emails, saying thank you, and helping others when it’s easy all help build goodwill.
The entrepreneur pointed out how often people make requests without any awareness of mutual benefit: “The number of people who will say ‘Hey, it would really help me if you do X and Y’ without even considering whether it’s in my interest.”
5. Be Obsessed With Your Business
After stepping away from day-to-day operations, the entrepreneur noticed a key difference: obsession.
“I was obsessed with the business, and they’re not,” he wrote. That obsession meant problems didn’t catch them off guard, new ideas were always ready, and they became the go-to experts across departments.
One person replied: “Obsession part… It’s the tax you pay for owning your time.”
Others disagreed. One person said being less obsessed allowed them to build trust and scale by empowering their team.
The entrepreneur acknowledged the nuance: “I think you can make yourself be obsessed with something as long as you can convince yourself that it’s important enough to merit obsession.”
The Comments Section Turned Into a Masterclass
The post quickly became a hub for practical discussion. Founders shared struggles, from getting foreign clients to juggling family, or figuring out if affiliate marketing still works in 2025.
One 20-year-old said their affiliate business grew from $5,000 to $40,000 a month, and now they were debating whether to go on a study-abroad program.
The entrepreneur’s take: skip the cruise.
“If you skip out on your business and can’t restart it when you return, you’ve lost out on millions of dollars and financial freedom. Kind of an easy call, which is worse, no?”
Another quote that resonated: “Most people will read this, nod, and still do none of it,” one person wrote. “Everyone wants nine figures, no one wants the 3 a.m. spreadsheet anxiety.”
The entrepreneur didn’t promise hacks or shortcuts. His advice, and the wave of responses it inspired, made one thing clear: success doesn’t require perfection, just the discipline to keep showing up when it stops being fun.