18-Year-Old Who Started Oil Company Shares The Best Advice Every Young Entrepreneurs Should Hear (Video)

Among the many hurdles that come in the way of founding a startup, youth and inexperience can rank high on any entrepreneurs list. That being said, there might be no better individual to provide insight on these challenges than an accomplished young entrepreneur.

Max Gouchan is one such person.

In 2012, when he was just 18 years old, the youthful businessman co-founded ClickLift AS, a company has is developing safer lifting solutions for the offshore oil industry. Gouchan, who spoke at a TEDx event in October, says that founding of the company came as a result of him choosing the right path at a crossroads.

Those crossroads are what he describes as the first challenge people, not just entrepreneurs, face at crucial moments that could provide the difference between them achieving their dreams and not doing so.

That challenge is conquering the simple act of showing up, saying yes to people even when it feels like you wouldn't want to be bothered, a challenge that Gouchan says has been conquered by the most successful of businessmen.

"Bill Fernandez had an awesome friend called Steve Jobs and one evening he says 'hey Steve, I want you to meet a friend of mine, do you want to hang out tonight?'," Gouchan says, as he provides a case study to support his argument. "[Did] Steve Jobs go 'nah, I'm going to do some homework, I'm going to relax, I'm gonna sit on the sofa and watch TV.' That wasn't Steve Jobs. He said yes of course let's meet him."

The young Norwegian entrepreneur says that simply taking the time put yourself out there, and going out of your comfort zone to meet new people — even those you might have reasons to avoid — can be the key to your success, as it was for Jobs.

"That yes and that meeting resulted in him meeting Steve Wozniak. And together they formed Apple and changed the world, you know the story. That shows how important it is to say yes rather than no."

And while Gouchan says a "yes" moment led to his meeting an eventual co-founder, the teen entrepreneur places the most emphasis on conquering time.

Though he had four part-time jobs, four "political" positions and classes to finish as a student, the young businessman went ahead and started his company. Why? Because of life.

"Life is so limited and after this, we're gone. But what I think is that when you're getting closer to the end, you will reflect on life. 'What on earth did I do with it?' And I want to sit there and think, I did what I really wanted to do. I followed my dreams and I really did what I wanted to do. I don't want to regret what I spent my life in, because it's so limited and it's going so fast."

Top Photo Courtesy: Facebook