Top 6 Entrepreneurial Tips from Multi-Billionaire, Bill Gates

Bill Gates is one of the world’s most successful and renowned businessmen. There are a lot of learnings, that every entrepreneur can pick up,  from the business journey that Bill Gates has transgressed.

“It takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes, but an even wiser man to learn from others” so said Bill Gates.

Likewise, we can adopt many lessons from other businesses and competitors at every stage of a business.

Here are the top six entrepreneurial tips by Bill Gates that will help you to bring about a sea change in the way you think and work.

(1) Work hard, even in your hard times

Bill Gates’s first company named “Traf-O-Data” did not take off  due to poor marketing activities, but that failure did not stop Bill Gates. If he had said to himself that “I’ll stop here”, he would have never been a founder of a trillion-dollar market valued company called Microsoft.

Bill Gates did face many hurdles and he overcame them with his persistence. His persistence continues to be an inspiration for all of us, whenever we take up any challenging tasks.

(2) Never stop or unwind after a new customer sign up

In a start-up scenario, it is not good to rest or unwind after a small win or customer sign up. As soon as we see a small amount of cash flow in the initial days , we think that we have succeeded in the business journey, and start celebrating!

However, we shouldn’t take this approach, and as an alternative, here’s what Bill Gates says:

“Instead of buying airplanes and playing around like some of our competitors, we’ve rolled almost everything back into the company.”

This quote is a perfect example of how start-ups should plough back their money on initiatives rather than on luxuries.    

(3) Innovate Fast

Companies should always try to analyze emerging trends and create products or services that will delight their consumers. Not only creating new products or services will make the company stand out from the crowd, but the success of the product/service is determined by how quickly this hits the market and creates a buzz. As part of innovation, you should also have a precise and time bound GTM strategy.

Speed is the essence in whatever we do.  So, companies should be focused on how fast they are creating products and also making them available in the market. Having a deadline and being organized while developing a product should be the priority for all companies.

With regard to speed, Bill Gates said:

“The most important speed issue is often not technical but cultural. It’s convincing everyone that the company’s survival depends on moving as fast as possible”

(4) Learn from competitors

From his early days, Bill Gates had learnt a lot from his competitors and aligned his business appropriately.  Even, people accused Bill Gates that he had stolen their ideas and marketing strategies since he had achieved greater success as compared to his adversaries.

Every company can learn many things by watching their competitors. We can analyze the marketing strategy of our competitors and the feature benefits and/or USP of their products / services. By doing so, we plan our roadmap/strategy to beat the competition.

As a real-time example, Zoom stormed and captured the Video Calling Industry pushing  Skype,  and became the best in the COVID pandemic situation. Zoom and Skype both are video conferencing applications, but Zoom saw an opportunity and drove specific marketing strategies to become the Number One.

(5) Don’t do the same mistake twice

Bill Gates shares that he learnt from his mistakes and he also knew how not to do them again. This tip is an important for every company and start-up that exists in this world.

Bill Gates says that if you make a mistake, don’t just sit and keep regretting it.  Be responsible for the mistake and learn from it. Naturally, everyone makes mistakes, but learning from mistakes and preventing them from occurring again is what makes you stand out.

(6) Always be keen on Learning

“I am not in competition with anyone but myself. My goal is to improve myself continuously”- Bill Gates

Despite having many years of experience in a field, a person is likely to face data deluge on account of  many new innovations, updates and emerging technologies in this fast-paced world. Hence, continuous learning is important.

In every industry, there are always new things evolving and these cannot be ignored.  So, everyone should keep upgrading their knowledge and have the appetite to learn new things.

There is much to learn from Bill Gates. It would be great if we could imbibe some of his principles in our respective businesses.  Such principles will help everyone to achieve something spectacular. Looking back at his history, we can see the failures and successes that motivated him to be where he is today. Bill Gates just marched forward irrespective of the results and emerged as a successful entrepreneur, which is a great lesson for all businesses in this world.

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others”- Bill Gates