Jess Mah - Entrepreneurship Lessons from a Unicorn Breeder

May 1, 2023

Entrepreneurship lessons from Jess Mah, founder of billion-dollar businesses. Starting young, seeking mentors, and embracing challenges. Insights on mindset, growth, and optimism in the competitive entrepreneurial world. Exploring future innovations in longevity and biosciences, rapid progress in medical advancements, and the impact of outsiders on industries. Optimistic outlook on America's future highlighted.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Early Entrepreneurial Hustle

Jess started her entrepreneurial journey at 13 by building a web hosting business from her bedroom.
She juggled school and customer calls, making more money than her teachers but feeling constant stress.

ANECDOTE

Self-Taught and Stressed Entrepreneur

Jess learned entrepreneurship from books at Barnes & Noble with no mentors or friends in business.
She felt isolated, stressed, and unpopular but these challenges propelled her to build bigger, sustainable businesses.

INSIGHT

Scaling Simplifies Business

Businesses often get easier to manage as they scale bigger, opposite to what many fear.
Small scale demands more direct effort, while large businesses benefit from systems and delegation.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Jess is the founder and executive chairman of inDinero, a business that runs thousands of companies' tax, accounting, and finance operations. She is also the Co-Founder and Chair of Astonishing Labs and founding partner of MahWay. This venture builder creates innovative, industry-changing billion-dollar businesses that improve the world. She earned her Associate of Arts from Bard College and her Bachelor's in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She is in the Harvard Business School President’s Program and a Young President’s Organization (YPO) member. She enjoys flying her commercial multi-engine pilot's license in her spare time with an instrument rating. She started her first business in high school and was has been on the cover of Inc Magazine and was recognized on both Inc. and Forbes Magazine's "30 under 30" superstar entrepreneurs. Her combined companies have a value of over one billion dollars.

Show Notes:

Jess's entrepreneurial journey started at 13 because she knew she "did not want to work for anyone else."
She started a business to solve her own problem and then used it to solve others.
Barnes and Noble was her first mentor as she was pulling books off the shelve to learn about business. She realized early how important it was to learn and grow and later get mentors and coaches to help her build her business.
(11:45) Business got easier as it got larger and scaled. The hardships of the early days will not last forever.
(14:30) Don't compare yourself to others...you are in competition with yourself. Focus on your "next step" and your journey!
Jess likes the ratio of focusing 80% on the next 45 days, 10% on the next quarter, and 10% on the next one to five years out.
(15:50) "People consistently overestimate what they can get done in the next 30 days but underestimate what they can achieve in five to ten years."
(17:15) Entrepreneur communities are super important to support each other on your journey.
(18:45) The real challenge is our mindset and attitude. Most entrepreneurs have an understanding of what needs to happen next.
(24:25) The greatest growth comes from taking advantage of the latest trends! How are you going to leverage AI?
(26:10) Time blocking is a productivity hack that people can use to accomplish more. Elon Musk does this.
(30:00) What is the difference between the entrepreneurial vs. employee mindset? First, the biggest difference is you have to have a sense of ownership. Everything starts and ends with you. Second, you have to be optimistic at all times. This also bleeds over to your personal life. Third, you need to grow yourself constantly. How do you evolve as a person and leader?
(32:15) "There is no such thing as work-life balance. As an entrepreneur, your business is part of you. You don't have spouse life or child life balance...they are a part of your life."
(37:00) How do you have an optimistic attitude when things are going wrong and during a crisis?
(41:00) If you have never taken a leap in your career or life, you are probably not pushing the boundaries enough.
(43:00) When Jess moved from software to biotech, she knew it would be a ten-year investment and she had to be willing to be uncomfortable and start all over. Being an outsider allows you to see things that others may miss, push the boundaries, and be innovative.
"The more you learn, the more you are able to learn new stuff and it becomes exponential." Examples are Steve Jobs and Elon Musk
(48:00) Jess gives insights she has about the future based on her research and investments.
(51:45) If Jess had the ability to give a State of the Union Address to the American people what would she say?

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on Apple or Spotify and give us a review. That would be greatly appreciated!