From 8 Failed Businesses to $25 Million: The System That Actually Works
Shaan Puri spent his twenties failing at eight businesses in eight years. He was grinding, sleeping at the office 240 days a year, doing everything conventional wisdom said he should do. The result? Getting nowhere fast.
Then everything changed when he discovered a different playbook from people who had actually built wealth. These weren’t geniuses or lucky lottery winners. They simply followed a proven system.
If you have less than $1 million in liquid assets and want to stop worrying about money forever, this guide breaks down the exact framework Shaan used to reach his first million at age 30 and build a net worth of $25 million just a few years later.
The Core Philosophy: Money is a Skill, Not Luck
“Money is like swimming,” Shaan explains. “Either you learn how to do it, or you’re just going to be thrashing around, getting nowhere, until you finally give up.”
This fundamental mindset shift separates those who build wealth from those who struggle their entire lives. Money isn’t magic. It’s not reserved for geniuses or trust fund kids. It’s a learnable skill with specific rules.
Here are the four money rules that form the complete system:
Rule 1: Master ONE Money-Making Skill
The Four Real Money-Making Skills
Forget what you studied in college. When it comes to building actual wealth, there are only four core money-making skills worth mastering:
1. Selling — Persuading, marketing, and closing deals
2. Making — Creating products, apps, videos, books, or software
3. Designing — Developing taste, understanding form and function (the Steve Jobs approach)
4. Hunting — Spotting opportunities, deals, and investments
The mistake most people make is trying to be mediocre at everything. Instead, pick one skill and become exceptional at it.
How to Actually Master Your Chosen Skill
Mastery isn’t about attending weekend seminars or reading a few books. It requires systematic, deliberate practice:
During Work Hours:
- Find the highest-velocity company in your chosen field
- Identify the top performer in that company
- Double their input level
- If the top salesperson makes 100 calls, you make 200
- Shadow them relentlessly and study their techniques
During Off Hours:
- Read every book on your craft
- Watch educational videos obsessively
- Practice deliberately, focusing on improvement
Real-World Example: MrBeast’s Path to Mastery
MrBeast decided at age 12 that his skill would be making YouTube videos. His practice regimen was intense and unconventional:
- Every day, he’d flip to random dictionary words
- He forced himself to create 20 video ideas from each word
- Each day, he improved one aspect of his videos: thumbnails, lighting, sound, pacing
- It took him over 150 videos to reach just 10,000 subscribers
Today, MrBeast is the biggest YouTuber on the planet, proving that systematic skill development beats natural talent.
The Billion-Dollar Combination
Master one skill and you have a path to millions. Master two complementary skills and you have a path to billions.
The secret? You don’t need to be in the top 1% of anything. Just be in the top 20% of two skills that aren’t commonly combined:
- Steve Jobs: Design + Selling
- Elon Musk: Making + Selling
- Warren Buffett: Hunting (investing) mastered to an extreme degree
Warren Buffett used to read the entire Moody’s Manual, all 4,000 pages of corporate financials, cover to cover, searching for mispriced stocks. After analyzing hundreds of thousands of stocks throughout his career, he credits his success to just 12 good investing decisions.
Rule 2: Don’t Rent Out Your Time—Own Equity
The Corporate Ladder Trap
Here’s where most skilled people go wrong. They develop a valuable skill, get hired for it, climb the corporate ladder, receive raises, and think they’re winning.
They’re moving in the wrong direction.
“The two most addictive things in the world are heroin and a monthly salary,” says Nassim Taleb. A salary creates the illusion of security while keeping you trapped on the treadmill.
The Two Paths to Equity Ownership
If you want to build real wealth, you need to own equity. There are only two ways to do this:
- Start a business
- Invest in one
If you don’t have cash to invest yet, start something. Use your skill and turn it into a business that serves customers while you sleep.
Three Proven Models: Code, Content, Capital
The Code Path:
Build websites, apps, or software products. Shaan’s designer friend quit his $200,000 job to create Shopify themes. He applied the same design skill but changed the model. Now he sells one theme to 2,000 customers while he sleeps, generating $2 million per year.
The Content Path:
Create videos, books, courses, or educational materials. Alex Hormozi took his selling skill and transformed it into content. His last book launch sold 3 million copies and generated $100 million in one weekend.
The Capital Path:
Use your skill for investing and deal-making. Shaan’s cousin spent two years learning the art of “hunting” multifamily real estate opportunities. In his first year doing his own deals, he purchased $40 million in real estate using other people’s money.
The Bottom Line on Equity
If you only rent out your time, you’ll never escape the treadmill. Equity ownership is your only exit from trading hours for dollars.
Rule 3: Be Impatient With Action, Patient With Results
The Paradox of Patience and Urgency
This is the hardest rule for most people to internalize. You don’t plant a seed and dig it up the next day screaming, “Why aren’t you growing?!”
If you’ve followed Rules 1 and 2, getting rich becomes inevitable. But inevitable doesn’t mean instantaneous.
The Secret Formula:
- Move fast on execution
- Wait patiently for results
The Bad News: It takes trial and error. It can take years before you see significant returns.
The Good News: You only need to get rich once in your lifetime.
Steve Martin’s 40-Year Plan
Steve Martin wanted to learn the banjo but wasn’t naturally gifted. His approach was simple but powerful: he decided to practice for 40 years until he got good.
He didn’t need the full 40 years. Within a decade of dedicated practice, he became so skilled at banjo that he won multiple Grammy awards. His persistence made it unreasonable for him to fail.
Making Failure Unreasonable
“The best advice in the world is to take actions that make it unreasonable for you to fail,” Shaan explains.
When you combine massive action with patient persistence, you create a compound effect that makes success nearly inevitable. The question isn’t if you’ll succeed, but when.
Rule 4: Proximity Is Power
Your Environment Determines Your Trajectory
Even though building wealth takes time, you can dramatically accelerate the process. The secret? Move. Literally change your physical location.
- Want to be in tech? Move to San Francisco
- Want to make movies? Move to Los Angeles
- Want to build wealth? Get around people who are already doing it
“If you want to change your life, change your zip code,” Shaan advises.
Beyond Geography: Living With Ambitious People
Moving to the right city is just the first step. The real accelerant is moving into a house or living situation with as many smart, ambitious, like-minded people as possible.
The cliché “you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with” is actually scientifically accurate. Your peer group shapes your beliefs, standards, and actions more than any other factor.
Learning Through Osmosis
You absorb knowledge, habits, and mindsets from your environment automatically:
- Hang around broke complainers, and you become one
- Hang around high performers, and you level up automatically
Shaan’s Proximity Decision
At 24, Shaan was in Australia trying to start a company. He attended a founder meetup where organizers asked him to give a keynote speech.
Instead of feeling flattered, he was horrified. “If I’m the smartest guy in the room, I’m in the wrong room,” he realized.
The next week, he bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco with no plan and no place to stay. That single decision to change his proximity changed everything.
What Happens When You Follow These Rules
When you implement all four money rules together, something remarkable happens. You flip the odds from 90% failure to 90% success.
Here’s the complete system in action:
- You master a money-making skill through deliberate practice and high-volume repetition
- You turn that skill into equity ownership instead of accepting a job
- You stay patient while taking massive action on a daily basis
- You move closer to where the action is and surround yourself with high performers
The result isn’t guaranteed overnight success. But it is guaranteed learning, growth, and forward momentum.
Why Startups Fail But Founders Don’t
Here’s the final mindset shift that makes everything work: Startups fail. Founders don’t.
When you keep your rate of learning high, failure becomes impossible because every attempt teaches you something valuable. Each “failed” business is actually a stepping stone to the one that works.
Shaan’s eight failed businesses in eight years weren’t wasted time. They were his education, bought with sweat equity instead of tuition.
Your Next Move: Making Success Unreasonable to Avoid
These aren’t untested theories or motivational fluff. This is the actual playbook Shaan used to go from broke to his first million at age 30, then to $25 million just a few years later.
The system works. The only question is: Will you work the system?
Getting Started Today
You don’t need to implement everything perfectly on day one. Start with one rule:
This Week:
- Choose which of the four money-making skills aligns best with your strengths
- Identify the top three companies or people excelling in that skill
- Make one concrete move toward proximity (join a community, attend an event, or reach out to someone)
This Month:
- Begin your systematic practice routine
- Research how to turn your skill into equity (business model research)
- Make one significant change to your environment or peer group
This Year:
- Commit to mastering your chosen skill
- Launch your first equity-building venture (however small)
- Relocate or dramatically upgrade your proximity if needed
The Wealth-Building Mindset
Money is a skill, not luck. Not magic. It’s not reserved for geniuses or trust fund kids.
These four rules form a complete system that anyone can follow. The path requires dedication, patience with results, and urgency with action. But it works.
Your financial transformation starts with a simple decision: to stop renting out your time and start building equity in something that can grow while you sleep.
The best time to start was ten years ago. The second-best time is today.
Want more money wisdom and founder insights? Subscribe to Shaan Puri’s podcast, My First Million, where he breaks down wealth-building strategies, interviews successful entrepreneurs, and shares tactical advice for building businesses.
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