Building a company is hard. There’s so much you don’t know that you have to try to figure out. I recently connected with a founder who’s building his second venture capital–backed startup. He raised over $100 million from investors for his first company and scaled quickly. During our conversation, it was clear that he’d learned a ton and planned to apply that knowledge to this new company.

A lot of people are interested in entrepreneurship but wait on the sidelines until they think they’re on to something that could be massive. Nothing’s wrong with this approach, and it works well for some people. I do think there’s another approach, though, that can increase your long-term chances of being a successful founder. Start working on building a company around a problem you’re passionate about. If the market ends up being smaller than you hoped for or customers won’t pay for your solution, that’s okay. Regardless of the outcome, you’ll gain valuable knowledge that will help you in your next entrepreneurial endeavor. That knowledge will help you avoid mistakes and save you tons of time the next go-around.

Being a founder is about learning as much as anything else. If you want to be a founder, put yourself in position to start learning as soon as you can. The more you learn and the earlier you learn, the more you increase your odds of succeeding . . . if not this time, next time.