I’ve always been interested in entrepreneurship and like a lot of people have echoed in this sub, despite the long hours, the stress, and the dark days, I’d way rather work towards building something that lasts a lifetime rather than show up lifeless everyday to a 9-5 job with a secure paycheck and then retire by 65.
But with that being said, I just need to rant a bit about YouTubers / “Gurus”.
The way they paint the process of running a business as so glamorous and full of sunshine, rainbows, and instant financial freedom is terrible for the mindset of anybody looking to get into business.
You’ll see a drop shipping YouTuber showing you screenshots of $100,000 revenue months, but you won’t see that the same product that is being sold is rated 2.8 stars on Amazon because it’s cheap Chinese garbage, so therefore you aren’t being told how many customer return requests there are or how razor thin the margins are after ad costs, shipping, fulfillment agents, and other OPEX.
It’s the same fluff with AI agents. The whole promise is minimal effort (“get started in a day”) and boom, you have a $50,000 a month business.
I’m not saying that there is no potential for success using any of these mediums – but rather there is soooo much work, research, and understanding of the customer that goes into forming a successful, and more importantly, lasting business.
There’s a reason why there are more 9-5 workers than business owners. A tale as old as time: “If it were easy, everyone would do it”.
Therefore, if you are trying to rush things because you are feeling left out of the “AI gold rush” or whatever the new “big opportunity” is, just remember business is a marathon, not a sprint as it portrayed so much on the internet today by people simply trying to sell you on a course.
Nobody in their right mind putting up those big numbers is going to have the time or energy to start a course and make 3 hour long YouTube videos about it. Remember that.
Correct me if I’m wrong on any of this but over the past 5ish years of trial, error, and observation, that has been my understanding.
The get rich quick messaging of YouTubers and gurus is awful
byu/Substantial_Sock5427 inEntrepreneur
Posted by Substantial_Sock5427
6 Comments
Ignore anything by Lopez, hormozi, jt foxx and cardone
All.notorious liars and grifters
I listen to a few people online that are legit and run legit businesses. That’s a very small minority.
Most I see are outright liars, frauds, and scam artists. Those screenshots are fake. They get paid by selling you a course.
Businessmen sell products. Social Media sells hope and Parasocial Relationships
A lot of it is that most successful entrepreneurs work in the b2b space. Their products, solutions, and/or services are valuable but aren’t sexy on YouTube. Much of their success is a result of past experience, strategy, exposure, passion/motivation/grit, and relationships rather than “the hustle”. They have good years and bad years. They don’t flaunt their cash/wealth. They likely drive a Prius and take their kids to soccer practice etc. they don’t really get much of a hard on from referring to themselves as an entrepreneur, business owner, ceo etc.
100.0% of the content from gurus and YouTubers is total garbage. Any insights that they may have are almost certainly recycled or stolen from other sources they’ve consumed last minute before making a new episode.
My pet peeve right now is ai slop gurus. They’ll post screenshots of millions of views and thousands of dollars but will never back it up with a channel link. Ever.
There was this one ai guru who had an image of 16k in YouTube analytics and the view count was like 11M or something like that and they said “ai shorts are making a killing! Comment ‘Shorts’ and blah blah blah”
I called them out on it because my shorts consistently get millions of views and I know the math. That was NOT a real screencap. Of course they hid my comment.
Anyway, I pretty much focus on providing as much evidence as I can for my course like ‘here’s my results, heres my channel, go look for yourself, if you want to learn how i make my shorts, take my course’
Not in those words but you know what I mean. Everything sucks so bad these days you cant trust anyone.. and now, companies are making Ai UGC ads!?
Like fake people talking about how they use their product. Not actors, not influencers, and definitely not real customers. Just Ai. I hope some day the hammer drops and every business that made Ai UGC ads unethically (meaning not disclosed ai) gets publicly shamed.
Sorry. I did not expect this rant to come out.
All that said, some of the people ive learned the most from are called ‘gurus’
Like Hormozi. I have his books. Man I have learned so much from those damn things. Russell Brunson too.
Some people start to get tired of the content these advice givers put out because they say ‘its all the same shit!’ And they’re right. When people like that start to sound repetitive, it means youre done learning what they have to say.
As someone whos been called a Youtube Guru, Ive been accused of saying the same thing over and over and it was true. Either because new youtubers would ask me the same questions on livestreams, or because theres only so much advice to give. The talking points dont change very often.
Anyway, this comment got away from me. When I get tired of someone’s advice, I stop watching. It doesnt mean they dont have anything valuable to offer though.
Thanks for saying this, man. That last line is the key, the real builders are too busy to make 3 hour videos.