School for Startups Minutes

Hosted by jim@schoolforstartups.com (Jim Beach)

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300

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Aug 2026

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About the show

The short vignettes are taken from School for Startups Radio. We release a quick thought to motivate or educate you about a different facet of entrepreneurship every day.

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60 recent

August 17, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1144:Sleep

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. We have been talking this week about what successful entrepreneurs do differently from everyone else. The question is, can you learn from this and emulate these people and become more like them? I believe strongly that you can. You can slowly, over time, adjust your personality to become more like this. Start with copying from others. Look for an idea to copy, and then your journey has begun. I have one more thing to point out about successful entrepreneurs. I'll do that right after this. Rest and sleep. Successful entrepreneurs plan in their sleep time, plan in their vacation time, and they take it religiously because they understand how important rest is to success. If you don't have downtime, eventually you will crash.

August 17, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1143: Boring

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. This week, we are talking about what successful entrepreneurs do differently from all of the rest of us. I've already suggested this week that they are much more willing to steal good ideas from other people and improve on them. Of course, it's not stealing copyrights, trademarks, or patents, but it's borrowing their idea and making it better. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. 93% of new business ideas come from existing business ideas. In other words, that's the way good entrepreneurs do it. I have another interesting thing to suggest about this group right after this. The media loves to point to the flashy tech entrepreneurs, but in fact, most of the rich do boring things that add up slowly over time. In the paving business or the pantyhose business, things like that - slow, boring, consistent earners over time.

August 17, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1142: Borrow

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. Every week, a new topic, and the topic this week is how successful entrepreneurs are different from everybody else. I've already suggested that they obsess over systems and not goals and that they embrace rejection because they learn from it. I have another thing to suggest they do differently right after this. Successful serial entrepreneurs do one thing more differently than anyone else, and that is borrowing things. That's right Great entrepreneurs see business ideas all around them. They figure out how to make them a little bit better and steal the original idea. Of course, they don't steal any copyrights, trademarks, or patents, but great entrepreneurs are always looking for ideas to copy and improve. Picasso said, "Good artists copy; great artists steal."

August 17, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1141: Embrace Rejection

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. This week, we are talking about how successful entrepreneurs are different from everyone else. I've already suggested that they rely on systems to an extreme degree. It allows for much more predictable results. That's in their personal life: systems for success, systems for sleep, all of those sorts of things, and in their business life. They have systems that automate the business. So when they're not there, they still make money. Today, I'm going to go over another thing that they do dramatically differently right after this. Entrepreneurs embrace rejection because they learn from it. Each data point is a new way to improve and try better next time, and to persevere and fight on. Remember what Thomas Edison said about the light bulb. He had to have 1,000 rejections before one yes.

August 17, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1140: Systems

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. I think we could all agree that successful entrepreneurs do something differently. There's just something different about their mind, their actions, their beliefs that allows them to be so very successful. This week, we're going to go through five of those things and discuss things that entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs, do differently. I'll give you my first one right after this. You may think that successful entrepreneurs love goals. They do, but they're more obsessed with systems. Both systems in their life and systems in their business. In their life, they design daily rituals that make results inevitable. And in their business, they love the systems that automate things that make it possible for the business to run without them there all of the time. Successful entrepreneurs love systems.

August 10, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1049: Opportunity

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. This week, I've been trying to present a happy message that counters what we see in the world today. It is very scary right now, with our 401(k)s going up and down. The stock market is crazy. The price of oil, inflation. We all know the problems that we are facing. But I've tried to share the message that good things are happening as well. For example, AI is going to give you an opportunity to level up. Learn it now, and your salary will go up quite a bit because of that. So many positive things. I want to share another one with you in just a second. All of the news media make more money when there is bad news. In fact, bad news is the business model. So we have to remember that people who win are the ones that see opportunity out there when other people see fear.

August 10, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1048: Speed

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. This week, we are looking at the world from a little bit further away. Instead of getting up close and personal in the microanalysis, we're doing a macro 40,000-foot analysis, trying to show you that the world is actually getting better. Despite all of the bad things we see, despite the wars and inflation and the stock market going up and down, good things are happening. I'll give you an example right after this. One of the big advantages that we have as small business owners, or just as individuals, is that we have more speed. Big companies are slow. They have committees and approvals and layers of management, whereas us entrepreneurs can progress with one decision. Click open. We can move that fast. And that's why we entrepreneurs have an incredible speed advantage in today's world. Use it. Think about it.

August 10, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1047: Gate Keepers Gone

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. I am arguing this week that the world is better than we all think and feel, and that there's never been more opportunity. There are great things happening at the macro level. And I know it's hard to accept because the micro level of the war, the taxes, the inflation, my job being cut, all of that is so scary. But I'll tell you, at the macro level, good things are happening. And I'll tell you one of those right after this. So here's the good news. The gatekeepers are gone. You do not need to ask for permission anymore. If you want to do a podcast, write a book, create a movie, get a job, all of those can be done without asking anyone's permission. So the lesson is very profound. Start today. Success today starts the minute you raise your hand and start doing it yourself. The gatekeepers aren't gonna stop you.

August 10, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1046: AI will create jobs

Welcome to the School for Startups Minute with Jim Beach. These are scary times right now. We have elections coming up, and the other guys are already stealing it. We have a war going on that I don't think any of us really want. The market's going up and down like an NCAA basketball, and my team is not winning, and it's a scary time. And then they throw AI at us. I want to share another way to look at it right after this. So let me tell you what's going to happen with AI. Every major technology shift has not eliminated work. It does, though, shift who gets paid the most. The people who learn the tool early now become the new winners. AI is not replacing entrepreneurs. It is replacing entrepreneurs who refuse to adapt. The question is not whether AI will take your job. The question is whether you will be able to use it before the competitor does.

August 10, 20261 min

SFS Minute 1045: Systems Work

This week, I want to talk about some things that will make you happy and feel a little more content. You know, every day right now, it feels like the world is falling apart. We have wars, elections, markets going up and down. Your 401(k) is like a basketball. You turn on the news, and you only hear bad stuff. There's something that they don't tell you, though. And this week, I'm going to focus on that. I'll be right back with my first example. What they don't tell us is that most of the systems actually work. Our life is more stable than ever before. Supply chains are better. Medicine is better. Information is better and instant, but the machine keeps working. Crisis gets attention. Stability does not. If you build your business or your life based on headlines, you will fail and panic. If you build your life and business on a long-term trend, you will win. The opportunity has never been greater.