In his 99U talk, Alexis Ohanian talked about “Sucking is the First Step to Being Sorta Good at Something” and advised entrepreneurs or anyone building anything to embrace sucking or, simply put, “Not knowing what you are doing” in the early days.

The truth is that except you are not trying something new, you will never figure everything out at the start. Building a venture is like being a sportsman; no one starts as a star. First, you start as a rookie and then walk your way up to stardom through sweat and consistency.

For years, Steve Jobs didn’t know how to run a board meeting (In fact, history has it that he was once excused from a board meeting for putting his leg on the table), Elon Musk knew nothing about Rockets in the early days of SpaceX, Mark Zuckerberg knew nothing about building venture-backed companies in the early days of Facebook until Sean Parker showed up.

Your goal as an entrepreneur is to consistently learn and build yourself and your knowledge base as you build your ventures. So if you think you are starting off as a rookie, we are here to tell you you are not alone. The entrepreneurs you look up to started as rookies, too, and most are still figuring things out…

Here are five ways to suck.

• Be ready to fail (or make mistakes).

• Be unapologetic about your weaknesses but willing to learn and convert them to strengths.

• Read hard, learn fast - Books, blogs, whitepapers, read everything that matters to the industry where you are building.

• Join networks of other founders - Never Build Alone.

• Take structures learning - Take a short course, learn finance, learn marketing.

So what are you building, and what do you currently suck at?

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