My First Million
The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.
The Boy vs The Guy Framework
Young ambitious person works directly for successful entrepreneur for 2-3 years as protégé/chief of staff, getting mentorship and connections in exchange for dedicated service
How It Works
Creates mutually beneficial relationship where mentor gets dedicated talent and mentee gets accelerated learning, network access, and eventual backing
Components
Find successful person with 20+ year age gap
Cold email offering specific value
Commit to 2-3 year apprenticeship
Shadow extensively and handle everything
Leverage backing and connections afterward
When to Use
When you're young (20+ year age gap required), ambitious, and want to accelerate career trajectory through direct apprenticeship
When Not to Use
When you're too close in age to potential mentor, already have strong network, or prefer building independently
Anti-Patterns to Avoid
Example
“Ben Horowitz was Reed Hoffman's chief of staff, Blake Masters worked for Peter Thiel - both leveraged these relationships into major entrepreneurial success”
Related Knowledge
Launch a business using content creator's audience as unfair distribution advantage
Nine-figure exit where creator makes more from equity than they ever made from sponsorships
Acquire venture-backed companies with broken cap tables at discounted prices
Good business making $10M revenue growing 30% annually but founder and VCs both happy to exit due to misaligned incentiv
holding-company-trap
harvard-plumbing-mismatch
Audience Co-Founder Framework
Partner with content creators who have audiences by building or buying the perfect business for their audience, giving t
Regulatory Compliance Arbitrage
Build businesses around government-mandated compliance requirements where non-compliance leads to jail time or massive f