Happy Birthday, America! I hope everyone has a fantastic long weekend as we celebrate the 250th birthday of our great country, the semiquincentennial birthday. I hope you all have a safe holiday. This week, we've been talking about why America is the greatest country on Earth for business. I have one more reason to share with you right after this.

People ask why America has produced so many great companies. The answer is not that we are smarter. The answer is much simpler. We have freedom, and freedom creates experimentation, which leads to innovation and new ideas. We are free to fail. We are free to improve. Most businesses don't become billion-dollar businesses, but that's okay because we don't need them to. Innovation will help small companies too. That's what makes us great. Happy birthday, America.

Happy birthday, America. Two hundred fifty years is an incredible accomplishment, your semiquincentennial. Happy birthday. I am going to talk all this week about why America is such a great country, the greatest country on Earth to do business in, and every day I've given you another reason. I'll do that again right after this.

There is no country on Earth that has the collection of small businesses that America does. America was truly built one small business at a time. Our general stores, our machine shops, family farms, construction companies, neighborhood restaurants, independent manufacturers, digital design companies, and thousands of ordinary entrepreneurs quietly built America. Those entrepreneurs give back to our charities, our Little League teams, and the things that make America great. Thank you, small businesses.

Happy 250th birthday, America. Your semiquincentennial. If you want to learn to say that, it's easy. It's semiquincentennial, semiquincentennial birthday. It is an amazing accomplishment. This week, we are talking about why America is so great to be an entrepreneur, and I will give you one of the reasons why right after this.

One of the great things about America is that we buy based on our desires, not on what the government tells us to buy or what a committee tells us to buy. We go out there and buy products that we like, that are at a great price, and it's the most non-bigoted marketplace in the world. We don't care who is selling it or what their demographics are. All we care about is a great product at a great price, and that's what makes America great. We, the customers, are in charge.

This week in America, we celebrate the semiquincentennial birthday, our 250th birthday. Happy Birthday, America! We have made it this far. Do you think we can do it for another 250 years? One of the reasons we will probably succeed is that America is a great place to be an entrepreneur. It is by far the greatest country on Earth to start a business. This week, I am showing you different reasons why. I'll give you another reason right after this.

One of the greatest things about America is that you can have a business failure and still get back up and try again. In Japan, it's the exact opposite: one business bankruptcy, and you are done. But in America, we can have second acts. We have many successful entrepreneurs who had failures first, and that's one of the reasons America is such a great place to be an entrepreneur.

This week, we are celebrating the semi-quincentennial birthday of America. That's right, the 250th birthday. I want to talk this week about why America is such a great place to be an entrepreneur. It's by far the best place to start a business. I'll give you a reason right after this.

One of the great things about America isn't that everyone succeeds. It is that anyone can try, no matter what your position. You can start a business for probably under $100, depending on the state. You can get your federal EIN number and a state license in under a day, and you can be off and running, starting your business. There are no other qualifications. Look at other countries around the world, and you'll find that it is very difficult in most countries to start a business. Here, you can do it in a day.

This week, we have been talking about the first customer and all of the impact that it has on your business. Obviously, it's revenue, but it's also confidence, education, validation, and so many other things. It's also going to create one more thing that we haven't talked about yet. I'll do that right after this.

This week, I have alluded to the summer camp that I started when I was 24 at Stanford and MIT, and I was telling you about how we got our very first customer and our second customer and the things we learned from them. I'll tell you the end of the story now. In that first year, we got 96 paying customers over four weeks at Stanford and MIT and considered it a huge success. The great thing, though, that it gave us was opportunity, because the next year we expanded to Georgetown, SMU, UCLA, and Emory because we were on a roll. Success will give you opportunity.

This week, we are talking about the importance of the first customer to your new business and how it just changes everything. Today, I want to talk about a very important lesson that you learn from your customers. I'll do that right after this.

I started my first business when I was 24. It was a summer camp at Stanford and MIT. I stood there every evening, giving the children back to their parents, and I was talking to the parents and learning what they thought was going on. It was very different from what I thought they should be hearing. I was hoping they would be hearing about the great education that we were providing and the fun water balloon fight that we had had. No, they were talking about their children smiling for the first time, and I realized that we had found something very important. Our kids were very unhappy, and we were making them happy for the first time ever, and that's what we were really doing. We weren't really running a summer camp; we were making kids happy.

This week, we are talking about how the first customer changes everything for your business. Yesterday, I was talking about how important it is to learn what your customers will tell you. They will tell you what business you are really in, and they will tell you what they really want to pay for. It's so absolutely critical that you talk to them and find out what they are looking for and what they saw in you that made you their choice to give you their money. I want to take this a step further and talk about the confidence this gives, right after this.

One of the hardest parts of entrepreneurship is uncertainty. You wonder if the idea will work, you wonder if your price is too high, and then a customer buys. Suddenly, the conversation changes. You stop asking, "Will anyone buy?" and start asking, "How many people will buy at this price, and how do I get to them?" It's such a different question, and it creates such incredible confidence in you.

This week, we are talking about how our first customer as a new business changes absolutely everything. Yesterday, I talked about getting my first check in the mail. It took 42 trips until I finally got a check in the post office box, and it changed my life forever. I want to talk about something that could be even more important, though. Right after this.

Maybe it was just a fluke; maybe they felt sorry for you. But when the second person buys, now a pattern may be forming, and then a third and a fourth. At some point, you stop selling to individuals and start discovering a market, and that's a huge transition. The goal isn't just one customer; the goal is repeatability. Can you do it again and again and again? That's when you have a real business.

This week, we are talking about a very particular part of the entrepreneurial journey: the first customer. It absolutely changes everything. You think you know what you're doing. You've written an incredible business plan, you've put all of the things in place, the website is there, and the product is ready. Your market research proves that you're going to be successful, but you don't know. I'll tell you what happens next.

Something absolutely magical happens. I remember going to the post office box 42 times, and it being absolutely empty. The 43rd time, there was an envelope in there with a check. It proved that I was not crazy. Someone else had reached into their wallet and given me money because they thought my product was going to work, and that changed everything. It changed everything at home with my parents; it changed everything with my family.