I'm assuming that many here transistioned into entrepreneurship from poker. What I'm wondering is, has anyone done it successfully without having any "real" work experience? My entire work history consists of working 1 day in sales 10 years ago.

I've been playing poker since high school, I'm in my late 20s now. At the moment I'm developing an online business(a real business with a real service, not another crappy affiliate site). I have done some affiliate marketing in the past didn't like it too much because I felt like I was filling up the internet with more crap. However, I did manage to make around €500/month on the side from AM while I was playing poker. I know a bit of SEO, email marketing, social media etc.. I'm definitely not completely green but never worked on it full time until now. I think I really love the entrepreneurship grind and can definitely see myself doing this for the rest of my life. I even went back to school to finish my business degree(I live in Europe, it's free). A part of me feels like man... running your own business seems like 10 times easier than poker lol but I'm still worried since I'm in the early phase and maybe I'm getting carried away because I've managed to already to make a tiny profit.

However I have no real work experience and it feels weird doing this and I'm wonder if there are other people out there that managed to make it work. I get the impression that most successful entreprenurs actually had experience in the industry that they started their business in. This is going to sound odd but I've been googling, looking for successful entrepreneurs that managed to do it with zero employee experience just to get some reassurance. I don't like the idea of finishing my degree and then working for someone else and postponing my entrepreneurial journey.

For any business venture in an industry you lack knowledge of, I suggest looking into mentoring. Find a industry you want to work in, find out where the entrepreneurs get together (local chamber of commerce, etc), find out the ones that seem to be the top dogs. When you have done your research, go see them and tell them you want to start your own thing, tell them your reaching out to them because you think they are doing things better than the others and you would like to get mentoring from them.

It's really important for them to see a win/win situation. You can ask if they would be willing to talk over dinner in a restaurant a couple of times per month or if they are willing to take you onboard and teach you in exchange for free work.

Entrepreneurs know how hard things are when you start and usually they can relate to you. Most people are happy to pass knowledge to others.

You will get many no but you only need one yes!

So you're mediocre at skills that hundreds of other companies have already mastered...sorry, that's not really a recipe for success. I suppose it's better than grinding poker, but not by much.

If you have some savings my recommendation would be to look at purchasing a franchise. You can be an "entrepreneur" without spending years learning how to get good at something working for someone else. There's people on this board who have expertise in this area. This is just my 2 cents but senior care franchises seem to be killing it right now. It's a very unsexy business with sexy margins. Much better than sinking 2 mill into a fast food restaurant.

Sorry, I phrased my post wrong. I mean that I'm working full time to do something else than poker for the first time. I'm not offering SEO or any type of marketing service, I meant that I already know some stuff that you need to know to run an online business. I don't need to outsource(for the most part) SEO, paid advertising, web develop, etc. My business is in the finance niche, i'm also majoring in business, finance.

I have savings, about €70k but not interested in franchising or a physical store at all for that matter. Don't even have enough capital for that.

I think a fair answer to your question is there three main things to be aware of:
1. intelligence
2. education
3. experience

I think its possible to "succeed" with a good amount of any two of the three. Take Google, I am pretty sure the founders had like 0 experience (so 1,2).

Take Amazon, I think Bezos only had an undergraduate degree (so1,3). He did some Wall Street thing for a while.

I would imagine in most cases intelligence is a common factor.

Hope that answers your question.

I tried to find a "proper" academic paper on this subject. Didn't find anything though. It would be interesting to know the correlation between successful entrepreneurship and years of experience, educational attainment, IQ and controlling for external variables but that sort of study would be very hard to do. I think I agree with you, above everything else intelligence is the most important factor followed by hard work.

Did some investigation and there are a couple of well known business guys with practically no education, experience and network that made it work. Richard Branson is a prime example, started his business at 16.

I wasn't looking for extreme exceptions, obviously those statistical outliers exist but I also looked up unknown guys with relatively successful businesses. Apparently it wasn't as uncommon as I thought it was.

In fact, I found the owner of a website that is doing a very similar business that I'm doing so the blueprint is there. I did some linkedin stalking and he's basically been running businesses since he was of legal age. Also found others like him in other industries who started their business at age 16-18 and had great success. I guess employee or intern experience is definitely not a must. In my case I'm starting a relatively low cost business, I'm mainly investing time.
(I obviously don't count working a summer job or 2 months flipping burgers as experience.)

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison
-didn't finish undergrad

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg,
Undergrad only

OP - I don't really think there's a great answer here. It sounds like you are just looking for some validation from others that starting your own thing in an industry you don't have much experience in can work out. I'm sure that it can. But it's not easy and probably not all that likely.

I'm a pretty big believer in just getting in the habit of trying things and seeing what happens. It's easy to overthink stuff.

I would say just keep doing what you are doing if you really do "like the grind." What you are starting right now probably won't work but you'll definitely walk away with some experience and probably walk away with some further ideas to explore.

As for school, if it's free, I would keep doing it. A degree is a good thing to have as a fallback option especially as someone with your background. As a general rule I would only stop doing school if it was clear that my business pursuit was taking off and I needed to spend more time on it to allow that continue.

If you really don't want to do school then another option you could consider is finding a business you admire and try to get an internship or low paying job just to start learning there.

True, I will try if I fail, I will just try again until it succeeds. I have a few things going for me, I have extremely low living costs and some money coming in every month so I don't need to dip into my savings. I actually have quite a lot of time on my hands to make this work.

I'm definitely finishing my degree. I only have 1 semester left(kept taking credits here and there while playing poker over a long period), even if my business would take off tomorrow I would still stay in school. I'm actually even thinking about continuing after my undergrad to do a master's in entrepreneurship, however I've read all kinds of negative **** about entrepreneurship as an academic subject, however the school I have been looking at does seem to have interesting curriculums and real business people as lecturers(it's a reputable school in my country). And again, it's free!

As for your last point, I'm planning to send a message to that dude with a similar business and asking him some industry specific questions and if he can point me to the right direction.

Edit: I'm well aware of those famous examples you're posting rand but they also have an IQ of around 3 standard deviations above the mean. It wouldn't surprise me if IQ correlates a lot stronger with business success than educational attainment however, I don't think neither IQ or education make or break one's entrepreneurial journey.

Can you talk more about the industry you are trying to get into?

There is a wealth of knowledge out there in podcasts and blogs. About 2.5 years ago I wanted to begin the transition away from poker. I was still playing full time but I knew I wanted something different since poker is dying for many reasons. I started reading tons of blogs and listening to a wide variety of podcasts. There are people making money out there doing a huge array of different things.

Find some topics that interest you and begin digging a little deeper and try to make some small tests (small in terms of money) to see if you can gain some traction. Find something that you don't mind putting in 60-80 hour weeks in the beginning until you gain some level of mastery, then create standard operating procedures and start to outsource the work to people overseas. There has never been a better time for a solo entrepreneur imo. Buy some courses and go through them. There's a huge opportunity in essentially arbitraging the skill/compensation disparity between the US and other countries. These people overseas are smart, driven, and cost 1/4th or less than a similarly skilled person in the US/UK/Germany.

Good luck!

+1

Always fascinating how people who have actually done something sound so different than internet forum intellectuals.

Something else to keep in mind is long-term thinking. Wiltontilts idea about listening around, looking at certain models/arbing 1st vs 3rd world labor is a great idea.
However, you need to be careful when selecting ideas...
Do you want a high-paying self-employed job ("lifestyle business") or do you want to build a business of scale?
The moment I understood the difference (and that playing poker belongs into the first category), I decided to quit playing full-time.
It's wonderful and poker is one of those "to good to be true" things that happened in my life, but it didn't align with my long-term goals.

When (real) goals are clear, decisions are easier.

maybe i'll ask this question here instead of starting a new thread. i think it ties into entrepeneurism.

what are the restrictions on giving advice - perhaps soft advice - in areas where you are certified?

an example would be fitness trainers, many of whom are licenced and/or specifically qualified through a course or certificate....... but alot give advice on diet and supplements where theren't necessarily explicitly qualified.

another example would be someone i know who works with people with mental disorders i.e helping them organize/cope/etc. but i'm almost certain he isn't qualifed.

i guess i'm asking about some variation of being a lifestyle coach, even though i really hate the term/idea.

my thought was learning alot about sports psychology and then advising people on it - not necessarily for $$$$$. maybe just a hobby and/or being helpful.

thx in advance.. i know or presume that things like doctors/lawyers/etc. you have to be very careful - and for good reason.

good subject... as others mentioned, i don't think there's a good answer...

you definitely need to be a good self-starter and i would definitely look into doing courses on computer coding and desktop publishing almost no matter what you end up trying to do... i think those skils are pretty widely applicable and they show people that you self-starter, versatile, intellectually curious etc... probably another 4 or 5 obvious areas to take courses. they could be online or community college. i don't have high standards for what courses you do.

i think the whole idea of working as a marketing agency has merit... although maybe internet is supplanting that.

i think that is an amazing insight... i think i've had that idea generally in my mind but 1) i've never seen it stated explicitly before; 2) you described it very well.

one thing about the world is that i think agents are being replaced - less disintermediation - and more and more you will have to be a principal. also, do something people can't do on their own and obviously that's been turned on its head the last 15 years.

i only see reference to third world vs. first world labour arbitrage. i think that also is a great idea. there must be so many companies that don't know enough about accessing 3rd world labour. i'm sure there are firms that bridge that gap but i don't know of any myself except at a very high level, like computer work that competes with IBM in services.

for people looking for low level job, i always think buying something where it's cheap - wal-mart, dollar stores etc. - and selling it where it's expensive - the beach, hotels, etc..- is a great idea too.

some many "great" ideas it seems i overuse the expression.

This seems very bizarre.

The past couple times I vacationed with my sister in law she has a list of places to get her picture taken, like a Reese Witherspoon mural in Nashville or welcome to Vegas sign. I guess she gets these places from the pinterestgram.

Every place we went to there was a line of girls to get their pic taken. Buy a velvet rope, a vintage Polaroid camera and you're in business.

Depends on your point of view.

Like the story of the blind people touching the elephant.

give out free targeted gifts like cheap rings with the vegas strip and girls' names and stuff like that.... probably get them no alibaba for 25c a pop. might have to work with a supplier.

there's another idea........ buying stuff on aliexpress and alibaba and selling it retail - perhaps with a zero real estate focus - must be a no-brainer.

as for the scale vs. non-scale (poker) comment i think it certainly touches on whether you can do the activity for 20+ years as well.

If you can't make enough money gambling to retire in <10 years then you should get a job.

Right, you're generalizing from your personal experience playing poker to conclude that high-paying self-employed jobs are "lifestyle businesses" and non-scalable. But you can leverage the skills, knowledge, connections, and money from gambling--or any other job--to transition into a scalable business later on. The two paths aren't mutually exclusive.

You've just proven my point.

If that's your goal ( a business of scale) in the first place, why do something that doesn't align with that goal?

If you wish to do something else for other motives, nobody cares, this is not "x is better than y" or "skills from a past profession are useless". Nobody said that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale

P.s.: Offtopic, there is close to no leverage in business from having money from gambling. The personal wealth just buys you some independence and the ability to say FU to anybody you wish (which I personally value highly). But in regards to building/starting a business, the marginal utility of your own capital in the year 2017 is close to 0. Banks/VCs throw money after every idiot and if you don't pass that test, then you have other problems to solve.

+1 to this, the population is getting older in general and there will be more and more seniors, this is the business to currently get into.

You're delusional; they're perfectly aligned. You don't think gaining relevant skills, knowledge, connections, and money would help when trying to grow a business?