So you want to be rich. Welcome to the club – current membership: everyone with a pulse and an Instagram account. And in your quest for wealth, you've probably been bombarded with ads from some guy in a rented Lamborghini telling you that "entrepreneurship is the only path to true financial freedom."
Let me save you a few years and potentially your life savings: if getting rich is your primary goal, entrepreneurship might be the most idiotic path you could choose.
That statement probably just made half of you close this tab in disgust while the other half leaned in closer. Good. Let's talk to the people still reading, the ones who value uncomfortable truths over comfortable fantasies.
I've spent years watching friends launch startups, build small businesses, and chase entrepreneurial dreams. Some succeeded wildly. Many more failed spectacularly. And through it all, I've noticed a strange paradox: those who became entrepreneurs specifically to get rich almost never do, while those who became wealthy through entrepreneurship rarely started with wealth as their primary motivation.
This isn't some fluffy "follow your passion" lecture. This is about the fundamental misalignment between how wealth is actually created and how most wannabe entrepreneurs approach the game.
The Great Entrepreneurial Wealth Delusion
Let's start with some uncomfortable math. According to various studies, roughly 90% of startups fail. Of the 10% that survive, only a small fraction ever generate significant wealth for their founders. We're talking lottery-ticket odds, but with the minor difference that you're working 80-hour weeks for years instead of just buying a ticket at 7-Eleven.
When I first started building small businesses, I was seduced by the success stories – the college dropouts who built billion-dollar empires from their dorm rooms, the side hustlers who replaced their corporate salaries in six months. What I didn't see were the thousands of equally smart, equally hardworking entrepreneurs who ended up with nothing but debt and burnout.
The reality is brutally simple: entrepreneurship is probably the highest-risk, most stress-inducing, relationship-straining path you could possibly choose to build wealth. It's the financial equivalent of trying to get to your destination by first jumping out of an airplane and attempting to build a parachute on the way down.
"But what about [insert famous billionaire]?" Sure, the outliers exist. They're also about as statistically relevant to your life as lottery winners.
The "Get Rich" Entrepreneurs Who Stay Poor
I've noticed a distinct pattern among failed entrepreneurs, a type I call the "get rich" entrepreneur. These people are easy to spot because they:
· Jump from business model to business model, chasing whatever seems hottest
· Spend more time designing their business cards than understanding their customers
· Talk incessantly about "crushing it" and "massive passive income"
· Treat business ideas like lottery tickets – if this one doesn't hit, they'll just try another
The fundamental problem with this approach is that it misunderstands what a business actually is. A business isn't a wealth-generation machine you build to make yourself rich. It's an organization that solves problems for others in exchange for money.
Every successful business I've either built or observed has started with this simple formula: find a problem that bothers people enough that they'll pay for a solution, then deliver that solution better/faster/cheaper than alternatives. The wealth is a byproduct, not the purpose.
I once talked to a young entrepreneur who cycled through four different business ideas in a single year – dropshipping, then an app, then consulting, then an e-commerce store. When I asked what his target customer's main problems were for each business, he stared at me blankly. "I don't know, I just saw people were making good money in these niches."
He's now working at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Nothing wrong with that, but probably not the "financial freedom" he was chasing.
The Entrepreneurial Curse: Mistaking Activity for Progress
Another disease that afflicts wealth-seeking entrepreneurs is the constant pursuit of "busy." They confuse motion with progress.
These are the people who:
· Create elaborate business plans but never talk to potential customers
· Spend weeks designing the perfect logo before having a single paying client
· Get buried in administrative tasks that feel like business but generate zero revenue
· Network endlessly with other startup founders but not with potential customers
I fell into this trap myself with my first serious venture. I spent three months building what I thought was the perfect website, crafting mission statements, and designing business processes... all before getting a single person to say they'd actually pay for my service. When I finally started pitching to real customers, I discovered that my core assumption about what they wanted was completely wrong. Three months of work down the drain.
Real entrepreneurship isn't about looking busy or feeling important. It's about single-mindedly focusing on creating value that someone else will pay for, and ruthlessly eliminating everything else.
If You Actually Want to Be Rich, Consider These Paths Instead
If accumulating wealth is genuinely your primary goal (and there's nothing wrong with that), here are paths that statistically offer better risk-adjusted returns than starting a business:
The Unsexy Career Path
High-income professional careers remain one of the most reliable paths to wealth. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and corporate executives routinely build seven-figure net worths through the revolutionary strategy of "earning a good salary and not spending all of it."
Is becoming a corporate tax attorney as exciting as launching a disruptive tech startup? Maybe not. Will it more reliably make you wealthy? Absolutely.
The math is brutally simple. A professional making $200,000-$300,000 annually who saves aggressively and invests intelligently will almost certainly become a multi-millionaire over a 20-30 year career. The odds of an entrepreneur achieving the same wealth through a new venture are dramatically lower.
I have a friend who spent ten years building a software company that eventually failed. During that same decade, his college roommate became a somewhat bored but very well-paid Oracle database administrator. Guess which one now owns a vacation home and which one is rebuilding his retirement savings from scratch at 45?
The Skill Arbitrage Game
One of the most overlooked paths to wealth is what I call "skill arbitrage" – developing specialized skills that are:
1. In high demand
2. Short in supply
3. Difficult to outsource or automate
4. Valuable to businesses with money to spend
These skills don't require you to start a company, but they can generate entrepreneur-level income without entrepreneur-level risk.
Consider specialized programmers, direct response copywriters, high-ticket sales closers, or AI prompt engineers. Top performers in these fields often earn $300,000+ annually as consultants, freelancers, or employees, with almost none of the downsides of running a business.
Even better, these paths let you start generating significant income almost immediately rather than enduring years of startup poverty hoping for a future payday that statistically will never arrive.
The Boring Wealth Formula That Actually Works
Another wealth-building approach that beats entrepreneurship for most people is what I call "intentional capitalism" – systematically acquiring assets that appreciate and/or generate income.
This includes:
· Methodically investing in index funds
· Strategically acquiring rental properties
· Building dividend portfolios
· Buying small businesses that already have proven cash flow
What these approaches lack in excitement, they make up for in reliability. A disciplined investor who consistently acquires income-producing assets over decades almost always builds significant wealth.
The data is clear on this: the average long-term real estate investor or systematic stock market investor has built far more reliable wealth than the average entrepreneur.
The Wealth-Building Strategy No One Wants to Hear About
Want the single most powerful strategy for building wealth? Control your spending.
I know, I know. Boooooring. Where are the lambos? Where's the passive income beach lifestyle?
But here's the financial equation no one can escape:
Wealth = What You Earn - What You Spend
You can attack this equation from either side. Entrepreneurs obsess over the earning side while often developing lifestyle inflation that negates their income growth. Meanwhile, I know multiple "millionaire next door" types who built seven-figure portfolios on modest incomes simply by living well below their means and investing the difference.
When I started earning good money from my online businesses, I immediately upgraded my apartment, car, and wardrobe. Classic entrepreneurial mistake. My wealth didn't start seriously growing until I got my spending under control and broke the cycle of lifestyle inflation with each income increase.
The most financially successful people I know – whether entrepreneurs, professionals, or investors – typically live on 50-70% of their income, regardless of how high that income grows. This creates an ever-widening gap between income and expenses that, when invested, builds wealth almost automatically.
Who Should Actually Become an Entrepreneur?
After all this entrepreneurial doom and gloom, you might wonder if anyone should start a business. The answer is yes – but for the right reasons.
You should consider entrepreneurship if:
You're Pathologically Unemployable
Some people are simply wired in a way that makes them terrible employees. They question everything, hate being told what to do, and feel physically ill when forced to participate in corporate politics.
If this describes you to the point where you'd rather live in poverty than work for someone else, entrepreneurship might be your path – not because it'll make you rich, but because it's the only way you'll be able to function in society.
I reluctantly admit I fall into this category. My last "real job" ended after I submitted a 15-page document detailing all the inefficiencies in the company's processes. I thought I was being helpful. My boss thought I was being insubordinate. We were both right.
You're Obsessed With a Problem That Needs Solving
The entrepreneurs who succeed are typically obsessed with solving a specific problem, often one they've experienced personally.
Elon Musk didn't start Tesla because he wanted to get rich – he was already wealthy from PayPal. He started it because he was obsessed with accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy. The wealth was a byproduct of solving a problem he cared deeply about.
On a smaller scale, I know a woman who built a seven-figure business teaching pet owners how to train aggressive dogs after spending years figuring out how to help her own troubled rescue pit bull. Her wealth came from her obsession with solving a specific problem, not from a generic desire to "be rich."
You Have a Unique Advantage That's Hard to Replicate
Successful entrepreneurs often have some unfair advantage – specialized knowledge, rare skills, valuable connections, or access to resources others don't have.
If you genuinely have such an advantage in a valuable market, entrepreneurship might make sense. But be brutally honest with yourself. "I'm really passionate and hardworking" is not an unfair advantage – it's the bare minimum.
I built my most successful online business in a niche where I had deep specialized knowledge that few others possessed. This allowed me to create content and products that others couldn't easily replicate. Without that advantage, I would have been just another me-too entrepreneur struggling to stand out.
The Psychological Wealth Trap
There's a deeper issue at play when people equate entrepreneurship with getting rich: they're often chasing wealth for the wrong reasons.
Many aspiring entrepreneurs are attracted to wealth not for the money itself, but for what they think it will give them:
· Freedom from having to answer to others
· Respect and admiration from peers
· A sense of security and control
· Validation of their worth and intelligence
Here's the cruel irony: entrepreneurship temporarily takes all of these things away. As a startup founder, you answer to customers, investors, and market forces far more demanding than any boss. You face constant rejection and criticism. Your financial security evaporates. And you're regularly confronted with your limitations and mistakes.
If you're seeking wealth primarily for psychological reasons, entrepreneurship is likely to make your psychological state worse, not better – at least for many years before any significant financial payoff.
I've watched multiple friends achieve significant financial success through their businesses, only to discover they're still the same insecure, unfulfilled people they were before – just with nicer watches and more expensive therapy.
The Alternative Path: Building Wealth While Keeping Your Sanity
If you're still reading, you might be wondering: "Okay, so what should I actually do if I want to build wealth without the entrepreneurial nightmare?"
Here's a framework that combines the best elements of multiple wealth-building approaches while avoiding the worst pitfalls:
Step 1: Maximize Your Earning Power Within Your Control
Focus first on maximizing your income in ways that don't require you to take enormous risks or sacrifice your entire life:
· Develop rare and valuable skills that command premium compensation
· Position yourself in industries and roles where compensation is naturally high
· Master the art of salary negotiation and strategic job changes
· Create additional income streams that leverage your existing skills and time
The goal is to establish a solid baseline income that funds your wealth-building journey without requiring you to eat ramen for five years hoping for a big payday.
Step 2: Build Your Wealth Snowball
Once you've optimized your income, focus relentlessly on widening the gap between earning and spending:
· Automatically direct a significant portion (aim for 30%+) of income to investments
· Develop a lifestyle that gives you genuine satisfaction without constant inflation
· Create systems that make saving and investing automatic, not decisions you have to repeatedly make
· Focus on acquiring assets that appreciate and/or generate passive income
This isn't glamorous, but it's how real wealth is typically built – one consistent decision at a time, compounded over years.
Step 3: Strategic Entrepreneurship (On Your Terms)
With your financial foundation secure, you can explore entrepreneurship from a position of strength, not desperation:
· Start side projects that could potentially grow without risking your financial stability
· Apply entrepreneurial thinking within your career to create outsized value (and capture some of it)
· Look for business opportunities that leverage your unique skills and knowledge
· Consider acquiring existing profitable businesses rather than starting from zero
This approach allows you to capture the wealth-building potential of entrepreneurship without its binary, all-or-nothing risk profile.
I followed this exact path myself. I built a solid financial foundation through my career, systematically invested a large percentage of my income, and only then started experimenting with business ventures. When one of my side projects showed real promise, I was able to scale it up from a position of financial security, not desperation.
The Actual Secret to Getting Rich (That Most People Ignore)
After years of observing who actually builds wealth and who doesn't, I've noticed a pattern so obvious it's almost ridiculous:
The people who get rich are the ones who focus on becoming the kind of person who can create and capture value, not the ones who focus directly on getting rich.
This isn't some mystical "law of attraction" nonsense. It's simple cause and effect. People who obsess over wealth acquisition tend to:
· Chase shortcuts and get-rich-quick schemes
· Make decisions based on short-term financial gain rather than long-term value
· Fail to develop the skills, knowledge, and character that actually create wealth
· Focus on looking successful instead of being effective
Meanwhile, people who focus on developing rare and valuable capabilities, solving meaningful problems, and creating systems that work while they sleep tend to naturally accumulate wealth – even when that's not their primary goal.
Warren Buffett didn't become one of the world's richest men by setting out to be a billionaire. He became wealthy by becoming the world's best allocator of capital. The wealth followed the capability.
On a more modest scale, every genuinely wealthy person I know followed a similar path. They became exceptionally good at something valuable, systematically captured some of the value they created, and consistently transformed income into assets over time.
What Actually Determines If You'll Be Rich
After all my ranting about entrepreneurship not being the path to wealth, you might be wondering what actually does determine financial outcomes. Based on both data and observation, these factors have far more predictive power than whether or not you start a business:
Your Saving Rate
The percentage of your income that you save and invest is perhaps the single most powerful predictor of future wealth. Someone who saves and invests 50% of their income will almost inevitably become wealthy, regardless of whether they're an entrepreneur or employee. Someone who saves 5% likely won't, no matter how impressive their job title.
When I look at my wealthiest friends versus those who struggle financially, the difference rarely comes down to raw income. It's almost always about the gap between earning and spending.
Your Ability to Defer Gratification
Closely related to saving rate is the psychological ability to delay gratification – to consistently choose future benefits over immediate pleasures.
This manifests in every aspect of wealth building:
· Investing money instead of spending it on status symbols
· Developing valuable skills rather than pursuing quick paydays
· Building systems and assets that pay off over time
· Choosing the steady compounding of index funds over the excitement of day trading
Nearly every financial decision comes down to choosing between present pleasure and future benefit. Those who consistently choose the latter tend to become wealthy almost as an inevitable side effect.
Who You Spend Time With
This factor sounds like fluffy self-help advice but is actually backed by significant research: your financial habits, expectations, and behaviors tend to mirror those of your five closest associates.
If you spend time with people who save aggressively, invest regularly, and think long-term about money, you'll likely develop similar habits. If your social circle values immediate consumption, status spending, and financial YOLO, you'll struggle to build wealth regardless of your income.
I've watched my own financial habits shift dramatically depending on my peer group. When I spent time with startup founders obsessed with fund-raising and "growth at all costs," I made terrible financial decisions. When I started spending more time with quiet wealth builders focused on cash flow and asset accumulation, my net worth growth accelerated dramatically.
The Entrepreneur's Paradox: When Building a Business Actually Makes Sense
After all this criticism of entrepreneurship as a wealth-building strategy, I should acknowledge the paradoxical flipside: for certain people in certain situations, building a business actually is the most logical path to financial success.
This is typically true when:
You've Hit an Income Ceiling in Your Field
Some careers have natural compensation caps. If you've reached that ceiling and have wealth goals beyond what your salary will support, entrepreneurship might be a logical next step – not as a lottery ticket, but as a deliberate ceiling-breaking strategy.
I have a friend who reached the top of the corporate ladder in his field by his late 30s. His compensation was excellent but unlikely to increase significantly in the future. He strategically launched a consulting business in the same industry, leveraging his expertise and connections, and doubled his income within two years while working fewer hours.
You Have Valuable Knowledge That Can Scale Without You
If you've developed expertise or intellectual property that can be scaled without a proportional increase in your time and effort, a business vehicle might be the most efficient way to capture that value.
This is why experts write books, consultants create courses, and specialists build software products. These business models allow knowledge to generate wealth while breaking the time-for-money constraint of traditional employment.
You See a Clear Market Inefficiency You Can Exploit
Sometimes you genuinely do see opportunities that others miss – inefficiencies in the market that can be exploited profitably with reasonable risk.
These are typically found in areas where you have deep domain knowledge and can recognize patterns or opportunities that would be invisible to outsiders. This isn't about "disrupting" entire industries – it's about identifying specific, concrete problems you're uniquely positioned to solve.
The Unsexy Truth About How Wealth Really Happens
After all the myths and misconceptions are cleared away, here's how wealth typically happens for most people who achieve it:
1. They develop valuable skills and knowledge that allow them to earn significantly above average incomes
2. They consistently live well below their means, creating a large gap between income and expenses
3. They systematically convert this gap into ownership of appreciating assets
4. They maintain this pattern for decades, allowing compounding to work its magic
5. They avoid major financial mistakes that would derail their progress
That's it. No secrets, no shortcuts, no entrepreneurial lottery tickets – just consistent execution of fundamentally sound principles over a long period of time.
When you understand this, you realize that entrepreneurship is neither necessary nor sufficient for building wealth. It's simply one potential path among many, with higher risks and potentially higher rewards than alternatives.
The wealthiest person I know personally isn't a tech founder or venture capitalist. He's a dentist who:
· Built a successful practice
· Lived on less than half his income
· Systematically invested in index funds and rental properties
· Maintained this pattern for 30+ years
He's worth over $15 million today with a lifestyle that's comfortable but far from lavish. No one would make a Netflix documentary about his path to wealth, but it worked spectacularly well.
So Why Do People Still Chase Entrepreneurial Wealth?
Given everything I've said about the low probability of entrepreneurial success, why do so many people still view it as the path to riches?
The Visibility Bias
We see and remember spectacular successes while ignoring countless failures. Every billionaire founder gets magazine covers and TV interviews. The thousands who failed are invisible.
This creates a massively distorted perception of the actual probabilities. It's like concluding that acting is a reliable path to wealth because you can name dozens of movie stars, while ignoring the vast majority of actors who struggle to pay rent.
The Human Need for Agency
Most wealth-building strategies involve some degree of patience and surrender to forces beyond our control. Index investing works but requires decades of waiting. Building a career involves depending on employers and market conditions.
Entrepreneurship, by contrast, creates the illusion of complete control over your financial destiny. This psychological appeal is powerful even when the actual probabilities don't support it.
The Allure of the Narrative
Let's be honest: "I saved 40% of my income for 25 years and now I'm rich" makes for a lousy story. "I risked everything on a wild idea everyone rejected and now I'm a billionaire" is the stuff of movies.
Human beings are storytelling creatures. We're drawn to compelling narratives, even when they represent extremely unlikely outcomes. The entrepreneurial wealth story is simply more exciting than the wealth-through-saving story, regardless of which is more likely to work for any given person.
If You Must Be an Entrepreneur, Do It This Way
If after all this, you still feel compelled to pursue entrepreneurship, here's how to do it without completely sabotaging your wealth-building journey:
Build Your Financial Runway First
Before launching into entrepreneurship, build a solid financial foundation:
· Eliminate high-interest debt
· Create a substantial emergency fund (12+ months of expenses)
· Develop marketable skills that can provide income if needed
· Start with side projects that don't require quitting your day job
This approach means you're building your entrepreneurial plane with a safety net, not jumping off a cliff hoping to build wings on the way down.
Focus on Cash Flow, Not Valuations
The healthiest businesses generate actual profit and positive cash flow from early stages. They might grow more slowly than venture-backed startups, but they're far more likely to create sustainable wealth for their founders.
I've watched numerous friends chase the Silicon Valley dream of building for acquisition or IPO, only to end up with nothing after years of work. Meanwhile, the entrepreneurs I know who built profitable businesses from day one may not be billionaires, but many are comfortably wealthy and actually enjoy their work.
Build Systems That Don't Depend on You
The most valuable businesses are those that can function without their founders. From day one, focus on creating systems, processes, and teams that don't require your constant presence.
This not only makes your business more valuable to potential acquirers but also gives you the freedom that likely attracted you to entrepreneurship in the first place.
Final Thoughts: The Path That's Right for You
The core message here isn't that entrepreneurship is bad or that you shouldn't start a business. It's that you should be clear-eyed about your primary goals and choose the path most likely to achieve them.
If your primary goal is accumulating wealth with the highest probability of success and the lowest risk, traditional entrepreneurship probably isn't your best bet. You're likely better served by maximizing your earning power, living well below your means, and systematically investing the difference.
If your primary goal is solving a problem you're passionate about, creating something new in the world, or escaping the constraints of traditional employment, entrepreneurship might make perfect sense – even if it's not the most reliable path to wealth.
The key is honest self-assessment. Are you drawn to entrepreneurship because you genuinely have something valuable to contribute, or because you've bought into a cultural myth about startups and quick riches?
The wealthiest and most fulfilled people I know are those who aligned their path with their authentic goals and strengths, rather than following someone else's script for success. Whether that path leads to entrepreneurship or elsewhere, that alignment is where true prosperity lies.
After all, the ultimate form of wealth isn't in your bank account – it's in building a life where your daily activities reflect your genuine values and strengths. Sometimes that means starting a business. Often, it doesn't.
Choose wisely.
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