---
title: Why Successful Entrepreneurs Have to Think Two Steps Ahead
description: A key lesson entrepreneurs and small business owners can learn from 1-percenters is that it's not enough to have a product people love.
authors:
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published: '2015-09-22T14:55:27.000Z'
modified: '2015-09-22T14:55:27.000Z'
section: Business
tags:
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  - entrepreneurship
  - getting rich
  - one percent
  - sam wilkin
  - Small Business
  - startup
  - video
  - wealth secrets
  - work for yourself
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![Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 4.44.04 PM](https://img.money.com/2015/09/screen-shot-2015-09-21-at-4-44-04-pm.png)

To be really successful, entrepreneurs need to think two steps ahead, says Sam Wilkin, economist and author of [*Wealth Secrets of the One Percent*](http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Secrets-One-Percent-Marvelously/dp/0316378933).

The average entrepreneur tends to start out thinking, "How can I make a product people will love?" but doesn't go much further than that.

For big and lasting success, you have to think like people such as Bill Gates, who not only came up with a product people wanted and needed, but found a way to keep others from duplicating his success. Successful entrepreneurs are thinking not only about how they can do something people will like, says Wilkin; they're also thinking, he says, "How can I do something and then no one will be able to follow me?"

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