20 and trying to figure out what to actually do with my 20s
20M
I’m in a pretty fortunate position financially and have a family safety net, so I’m not really under pressure to get a job just to pay the bills.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I actually want to do long term. I don’t really care about making a few hundred thousands a year or having a comfortable business. If I’m going to spend 10–20 years building something, I’d rather take a serious shot at building something big.
Right now I keep going back and forth between boring businesses like industrial equipment, infrastructure, manufacturing, export/import, agriculture, etc. I’m not particularly interested in the whole startup/VC/personal-brand thing.
I also don’t love businesses where your entire life becomes finding customers and selling. I’d much rather build something where operations, capital, assets, contracts, financing and eventually acquisitions matter more.
The problem is that at 20 I obviously don’t know what I don’t know.
So I’m curious about people here who’ve actually built businesses or made serious money:
If you were 20 again, with some money behind you but basically no real business experience, what would you do?
Would you start something immediately, work for someone first, buy a small existing business, or something else?
And more importantly, what did you think was a good business when you were younger that you later realised was actually shit?
Not looking for motivational advice. Just genuinely curious what someone who’s already been through it would do differently.