Build Your Own Damn Business

At some point in your career, you will think: maybe I should start my own business?

And then you remembered all the reasons not to. Your mortgage. Health insurance. Family obligations. Stable income. And your lifestyle. Adam Albrecht calls these "The Stoppers" - the intimidating questions that kill entrepreneurial dreams before you can even begin.

In Build Your Own Damn Business, Albrecht lays out what he wishes he'd known before he finally stepped away from his comfortable C-Suite role to start his own advertising agency with no clients, no employees, and no name. In his first year, he landed ten clients, without a logo or a website. Ten years later, The Weaponry has a team of rockstars, multiple offices, and clients across the country.

Written for mid-career professionals and aspiring founders, he tackles practical questions like setting up your legal entity, hiring an accountant, landing your first paying customer, calculating your minimum income - alongside advice you won't find in an MBA school syllabus:

• Start looking in the garbage. Opportunity is cheapest where nobody else is looking for it.
• The cure for disappointment is getting back to work. Nothing fixes a failure like the next success.
• Don't be the cheapest, be the best. A superior offering, as well as likability and trust, beat a lower price nearly every time.
• Feeling comfortable should make you uncomfortable. Comfort trades your ambition for mediocrity and convinces you it was a fair deal.
• Early to bed. Early to rise. Work like hell. And advertise. Do as much as you can, then do it again tomorrow.

Each short chapter ends with a Pep talk to help you keep momentum even on the days when it seems like nothing is working.

You don't have to feel ready, you just need to be committed. The rest, you'll learn once you start.

Adam Albrecht is the author of Build Your Own Damn Business and What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? He is the Founder and CEO of the advertising and ideas agency The Weaponry, which he founded in 2016 after a career working on iconic brands at renowned agencies Cramer-Krasselt, Engauge, and Moxie, in roles ranging from copywriter to Chief Creative Officer. He is a sought-after keynote speaker and writes regularly at adamalbrecht.blog and on Substack. He publishes Adam's Good Newsletter. He lives in Mequon, Wisconsin with his wife, Dawn, and their three kids. The first thing he does every day is put a smile on his face.