Neil Patel on Keys to Success and Earning Money on the Web

HK; Let me start by asking this; why did you start your career as an entrepreneur?

Neil Patel (NP); I started as entrepreneur because I just wanted to figure out how to make more money. I don’t work for someone else, because when I was young I realized that working for someone else only leads to so much money.

HK; That’s really interesting. Not many people say so. Can I ask your definition of success?

NP; My definition of success is quite a bit different from a lot of people; it’s not necessarily how much money you’ve made or anything like that. It’s, are you happy in life and comfortable? If you’re happy with where you are in life, and you’re not looking for more, then you’re successful, right? Not everyone needs more money to become happy.

HK; What is the key element to earn money on the web?

NP; The key elements to making money on the web are to really do something that solves a problem, not just to try to get rich quick. Getting rich quick doesn’t mean all that much these days, and in many cases it never happens. But if you find a problem that people are having, that you can solve, and if you solve it and you’re better at doing it than other companies out there, then you are going to make money, it’s just a question of when and how you can market the product. But the first key step is, can you actually solve a problem, and a problem that people are experiencing right now, not necessarily a problem that people are going to experience from now, or two years from now?

HK; That’s interesting, as the internet becomes more and more ubiquitous, do you think that achieving success is becoming easier?

NP; I don’t know if it’s necessarily easier. With a bad economy, some could actually say it’s getting tougher, but it really just depends on what your definition of success is, right? If you can get where you’re happy with where you are in life, then it can be easier or hard, the same a few years ago or whenever it may be.

HK; True. I noticed that you have been focusing on business since you’re very young. And I guess you’ve got many experiences in the field of business. Could you give me your advice for young people to be successful entrepreneurs?

NP; The big advantage if you’re young is, you have more time to spend because a lot of people fail, especially first-time entrepreneurs. And when you’re young, you usually don’t have to worry about the car payments, you don’t have to look after family or anything like that. So by being young, if you fail, you can pick yourself up and try another venture when you’re older. Now, with that in mind, there are also disadvantages to being a young entrepreneur, but the biggest way that young entrepreneurs can be successful in my mind, is trying to go out there and spot trends. In many cases, because they’re in crowds, before other older people, you can end up figuring out what’s going to change on the web.

HK; How do you think young people and old people can collaborate better?

NP; In many cases older people understand business much better than young people, because they’re more experienced. And in many cases, the young people understand the technology and the way of the web, and where the trend is going. If you combine forces, the older generation can help get the business and the younger generation can help get the ideas.

HK; Wonderful opinion. Do you think education is a primary thing to achieve success in business?

NP It’s not required, there are a lot of people out there like Bill Gates who’ve made billions of dollars without education. It’s good to have, it’s a good backup, but it’s not required.

HK; Can I ask your advice to achieve success, not in terms of business, but in terms of general life?

NP; In general life, the way you can achieve success, and what I like to do is, figure out how you want to be remembered in life, you just have to decide how you remembered. Based on that, that’s how you should live your life, because if you can live your life and achieve that goal, you’ll be pretty happy.