New to Entrepreneurship - Does Anyone Need Help?

[AlexB2023]

I have several B2B, website and e-commerce business ideas of my own, but technical unfamiliarity is holding me back. I want to learn skills like better website creation and AI art and e-commerce at the elbows of other people, but America is a Hermit "Society" where you can't seem to reach out to people, even to help.

Nonetheless, I wonder whether anyone further along than myself may need help with anything remotely, or especially in person in the greater NYC area. Given the sclerotic nature of job wanted ads, I feel like it's squandered time to even try to help people in startups if gatekeepers are just going to stymie things. I'd help part-time while juggling a salaried P/T job, but I plan to learn fast enough that I could transition to setting up my own business(es) part-time, then eventually run them full time. In the case of a serial entrepreneur, I'd be open to learning enough about the business to eventually run it after the original manager goes on to found another one.

 

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[Paydette]

I have several B2B, website and e-commerce business ideas of my own, but technical unfamiliarity is holding me back. I want to learn skills like better website creation and AI art and e-commerce at the elbows of other people, but America is a Hermit "Society" where you can't seem to reach out to people, even to help.

Nonetheless, I wonder whether anyone further along than myself may need help with anything remotely, or especially in person in the greater NYC area. Given the sclerotic nature of job wanted ads, I feel like it's squandered time to even try to help people in startups if gatekeepers are just going to stymie things. I'd help part-time while juggling a salaried P/T job, but I plan to learn fast enough that I could transition to setting up my own business(es) part-time, then eventually run them full time. In the case of a serial entrepreneur, I'd be open to learning enough about the business to eventually run it after the original manager goes on to found another one.

I know you think you're trying to do someone a favor but you're actually asking someone to do you a HUGE favor

 

[AlexB2023]

I know you think you're trying to do someone a favor but you're actually asking someone to do you a favor

Both can be true; it doesn't have to be zero-sum. I can help a mentor with some of their more mundane tasks, and learn what may be routine for them.

 

[Paydette]

Both can be true; it doesn't have to be zero-sum. I can help a mentor with some of their more mundane tasks, and learn what may be routine for them.

Nope. The value is not 1 to 1. Mentors can hire out the help they need without spending time..which is way more valuable than money.

People always assume their time is valuable to others. It isn't if what you're doing costs them less than what they make doing high level work.

Also, consider that the whole reason people want a mentor is to learn so they can go off and make money. So, the time the mentor invests is never profitable... that's why mentorship is either paid or, in the traditional sense, takes place between close acquaintances/family/family friends.

 

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[Paydette]

But... I like that you're at least trying something.

If you want some general advice, ask away...I am in all those spaces you mention.

Websitea: unless you want to build out super complex sites, use oxygen builder... (I don't know if they still sell it). Its lighter than elementor.

B2B...the holy grail is lead gen and customer closing

E-commerce...the story and traffic source trumps everything else.

 

[The-J]

I want to learn skills like better website creation and AI art and e-commerce at the elbows of other people, but America is a Hermit "Society" where you can't seem to reach out to people, even to help.

Wrong. America is the single best country to do cold outreach. I live in Canada. Cold outreach is basically illegal. Most places in Europe, same thing. Asia, Africa, South America, they don't trust strangers and they rely on their family and friends even though they're incompetent. So America is the single best place to do cold outreach and it's not even close.

You believe things that are wrong. Not your fault, you lack the experience. And that's actually why these people aren't responding to you: you can't help them.

I remember some years ago, a common tip was to offer to buy a millionaire a coffee to pick his brain. Why the hell would any millionaire want to waste their time in such a manner? People don't recommend that anymore. At least I hope they don't.

It sounds like you already have a salary job. What has that job taught you? What problems have you solved on that job? Have you been able to automate a job task? Did you build a skill set on that job that you can sell to others? Offer THAT. Don't just say "I will be a fly on the wall and learn from you" who wants to teach you for free? You have to believe that you have something of value.

I want to learn skills like better website creation

Build a website, spend some money on ads, measure conversion rate. That's how you get good at building websites that sell.

AI art

Not a skill

e-commerce

Find a group of people that want stuff, find something to sell them (could be anything), then start selling it. The best way to learn ecommerce is to do it yourself because working for someone else, you'll only ever see one side of the business. I did media buy for an ecommerce company not too long ago, and I saw a lot, but I wasn't intimately familiar with what it was like to calculate supply costs, vet suppliers, finance the order, etc.

 

[JaaYu]

I get where this is coming from, I remember I tried doing the same thing when I first started.

But @Paydette is right, its a bigger favor for them then it is for you.

Why would someone want to spend their time thinking of tasks to give you when they could easily just hire someone else with more experience to do whatever task needs to get done.

Even with mundane activities, they can easily just hire a VA, but you might get lucky if someone's searching for someone to do those types of mundane activity. But you need to show initiative and willingness to put in the work more than anyone else.

Anyone can easily just post on a forum asking people if they need help, you need to separate yourself from everyone else by doing what other people aren't willing to do.

If you want to get into the game, you should learn a skill first.

Then provide whoever you want to learn from with tons of free value personalized to them without asking or even expecting anything in return.

Eventually, if you do this to 100 people, one of them will probably like the value you provided, and you can ask to learn the ropes of the game while also still getting better at the skill you were originally hired for.

And since skills and experience are much more valuable than money at the start, you should be finding people who will help you grow in your chosen industry along with your skills instead of whoever will pay you the most.

 

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