Neil Patel: From Crushing Failures to Building a Global Marketing Empire | E68
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A lot of people say like, oh, you need to go to Harvard to do well or you need to grow up with money. Well, I think it's just as powerful to not have those things.
Neil Patel, entrepreneur, marketing guru, been recognized by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, even President Obama and the United Nations. Like, come on.
My first job was cleaning restrooms and picking up trash because that was the circumstances I was dealt.
You've helped companies like Amazon, NBC, HP, and more in marketing and growth.
I honestly believe entrepreneurship is one of the hardest things to do. I've done marketing for so many businesses and so many different verticals. You kind of figure out what works. I'm not saying because I'm smart or anything like that. I'm not saying because I'm a better marketer. You just learn what works and what doesn't by just doing something long enough and making enough mistakes. You can be in the biggest industry ever, and if you suck at whatever you're doing and you don't enjoy it, it's going to be hard to make money.
What do you think is something that built you to what we're seeing today?
I think one of the things that's built me is...
Neil Patel, entrepreneur, marketing guru, been recognized by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, even President Obama and the United Nations. Like, come on. You've helped companies like Amazon, NBC, HP, and more in marketing and growth. And you've seen yourself 10 million visitors a month from 180 countries on your site. And you're helping others do the same through your agency and Ubersuggest. But in your book, Hustle, You want to show that success is for everyone, not just the rich club, not just the Harvard graduates. Why is this important for you, Neil?
A lot of people believe that you need to start from a certain area to do well, like going to a good college or having parents who have money. And don't get me wrong, going to Stanford or Harvard does help because it opens up networking. even potential money. I have a friend who created a hedge fund right out of graduating from Harvard Law School because his buddies went to Harvard as well and a lot of them had rich parents and were in finance. And his fund did extremely well. This was before the dot-com boom. He cashed out right before the dot-com crash and he retired. And if having rich parents also helps because you can end up getting cash to start a business or maybe they open up their network. But you don't have to have any of that to do well. A lot of the entrepreneurs out there have started from very little and have done well. A great example of this, Steve Jobs, didn't come from much.
Elon Musk, don't get me wrong, smart kid, but it's not like he grew up with a dad who has hundreds of millions of dollars or anything like that. A lot of it was self-earned. And you have countless examples of this Mark Andreessen, right? The creator of the internet or Netscape, not really the internet, but he was early on when it came to browsing. AOL, I believe, was the one who bought his company back in the day. It's not like he went to Harvard or Stanford and grew up with really wealthy parents. Now, for all of those examples, I have countless examples of people who have also done well, who went to Harvard or Stanford. And funny enough, Elon did go to Stanford. But I also have examples on both sides. And it doesn't make or break you.
My mom was a teacher. My dad worked for a bank, not as executive as a bank. He worked as a loan processor and started at the bottom and never really got anywhere to the top, never even to middle management. And I did okay. You know, I'm living in Los Angeles, California in a nice affluent neighborhood. And my first job was cleaning restrooms and picking up trash because that was the circumstances I was dealt.
To me, that's really important. Like you said, there's going to be people that ticked all the boxes and studied in every university possible and they're stuck. And there's going to be people that came from nothing and look what they built. So there's both. But for me, I love what you said in your book, Hustle, that is you can do whatever you want. And it's really more about the hustle.
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