You are listening to the 10 Minute Entrepreneur podcast with host, Sean Castrina.

All right, this is the Friday issue of Ask Sean. The question I have for today is, what

can I do? What are the biggest mistakes? Where are the major things to avoid when starting

a business? All right, I don't know. This might last three minutes. My last 10 might

last 15, but the three biggest mistakes that you will typically make, and I've started

more than 20 companies, and I've made every one of these mistakes, but I don't make

them twice. The first one is, you spend money on something that does not generate sales.

You buy that nice computer, and then you buy your secretary of one, and then you bring

a family member in, and you make sure they all have nice desks and all this nonsense.

Cash is oxygen in business. You don't spend a dime that doesn't make two dimes. Everything

you spend in business has to generate a sale. In the first year, you're going to think

you need to look better than you need to look, and you just need to put money in marketing

and sales. That's the first mistake. The second mistake is you want to expand too quickly,

but the problem with that is you haven't built the infrastructure, the foundation of the

very business you started. All these shiny objects, hey, they look great, but does it build

your core business? My core business, I would tell you, if you to ask me in college, would

be the business I would own, if you lined up a thousand businesses, this would not be

the one that I would own. I just didn't work out that way. My passion is golf, tennis,

fitness, and all that, but I'll tell you what, I don't know anybody paying me $10 to

watch my golf game. That is not a good business model. I could expand into things that we would

say are my passion projects, but passion projects rarely make you money. You don't want to expand

your business just because something else looks new, something else looks exciting, or

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