How to Get Rich (My Talk at a Business School)
Ali Abdaal shares the advice he gave students and professionals at the CUHK business school in Hong Kong on starting a first business: finding problems worth paying for, charging more, using content as marketing, and making time.
The gist
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Abdaal's lottery lesson: look at people 5 to 10 years ahead on your career path and ask whether you want their life.
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He warns a safe job can become a golden cage, and credits The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss as his gateway into entrepreneurship.
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Start with problems, not products: keep a problems list and ask people with money, since 10 clients paying $10,000 beats 10,000 paying $10.
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Abdaal says earning from content alone is very hard; instead sell a product for a specific problem and use content as marketing.
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To find time, he suggests caring less about top grades, then planning an ideal week in a new calendar and time blocking business work.
Ali Abdaal uses it
"When I was in med school, I didn't realize this was possible, and it took reading a book, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. For me and a lot of my friends who are my age, I'm like 32 now, that book was our gateway drug into the world of entrepreneurship and made us realize t..."
▶ Play at 4:556 creators recommend it, including Michelle Khare, Andrew Huberman, and Brian Dean.
See all on the The 4-Hour Workweek page
Ali Abdaal recommends it
"So if you're just going to take one thing from this video, I would recommend, if you haven't already, start a problems list on your phone. And every time you talk to people, just ask them about their problems. And as they're telling you about their problems, just write down so..."
▶ Play at 11:10
Ali Abdaal recommends it
"The best productivity hack I've ever found is something called the ideal week method. It's basically where you create a brand new Google Calendar or whatever, and you just decide what do I want my ideal week to look like? And that is where you squeeze in the time to build your..."
▶ Play at 32:48
Ali Abdaal uses it
"It's just a case of putting stuff in your calendar. That's like literally it. I've been an advocate of time blocking on the calendar for a decade at this point."
▶ Play at 32:437 creators recommend it, including Cal Newport, Amy Timberlake, and David Epstein.
See all on the Time blocking pageWhat they recommend · 4 picks
"So if you're just going to take one thing from this video, I would recommend, if you haven't already, start a problems list on your phone. And every time you talk to people, jus..."
"The best productivity hack I've ever found is something called the ideal week method. It's basically where you create a brand new Google Calendar or whatever, and you just decid..."
"When I was in med school, I didn't realize this was possible, and it took reading a book, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. For me and a lot of my friends who are my age, I'm ..."
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