The Mongol Empire was the largest continuous land empire the world has ever seen. Starting from Central Asia, the Mongol Empire grew rapidly and eventually stretched all the way from the Sea of Japan, through China to Central Europe, North into Siberia and South through Iran to the Persian Gulf.
In the 13th century, the Mongol’s conquered the Chinese, the Muslim empires in the middle east and the Christian kingdoms in Europe. During their short reign they were a formidable and unstoppable force.
There are many things that we can learn about entrepreneurship from the Mongols. In particular from the rise of Temujin (later known as Genghis Khan) from a poor and orphaned son of a murdered chief to unifier of the clans of the steppe and eventually to ruler of most of the known (and unknown) world.
- Surround yourself with the best people.
Genghis Khan’s rise to power was a direct result of his leadership and his incredible ability to identify and surround himself with talented people. His generals were the most gifted, hardworking and honourable leaders that he could find — it didn’t matter if they were of royal blood or even whether they came from his allies or not.
Following a successful battle against a rival clan, Genghis Khan asks the defeated and captured soldiers which one of them fired the arrow that had hit his horse in the neck. Despite expecting certain death, one man voluntarily confessed and said that if his life were spared he would serve the great Khan loyalty. Genghis, valuing his honesty saved him, pulled him into his ranks and eventually appointed him – his former enemy – as one of his most senior generals.
Surrounding himself with great generals allowed Genghis’ army to occupy many fronts at the same time and gave him the ability to expand his reach without physically being present on all the front lines.

Genghis Khan
2. Always identify useful talent at all ranks.
Genghis Khan and his men were renowned for recruiting (voluntarily or not) siege engineers, accountants and people with other useful skills whenever they captured and spared a town or city.
This approach allowed him to excel on the native flat lands where his people grew up and also gave the Mongols the ability to adapt to attacking castles and walled in armies to his East and West. It also gave the Khans the expertise to govern and tax the cities they captured.
3. Implement processes for efficiency, not bureaucracy.
As the Mongol Empire was growing the Khans implemented a postal / courier service to speed-up communication across vast distances. Postal stations with additional horses were positioned every 50 km or so to allow riders to rapidly move messages to and from the front lines.
The Chinese at the same time — living in large cities behind fortified walls — were renowned for their bureaucratic policies about how civil servants should conduct and record their operations. The processes of the Mongols were less bureaucratic and allowed the generals and soldiers to make day-to-day decisions, move faster and be more efficient.

4. Go for speed, discipline, training and teamwork.
The Mongol soldiers were highly efficient and well trained. While on galloping horseback they were able to shoot birds in flight with their bows and arrows — only releasing the arrow when all 4 of the horse’s hooves were in the air for stability.
What’s more, they fought in absolute teamwork. Swarming like bees around the enemy they created chaos, panic and destruction, all the while staying perfectly in order and in communication with each other.
This incredible ability was the result of continuous training that allowed them to master their weapons, know exactly where they needed to be when and how to move quickly as a unit.
5. Promote the message that helps you achieve your goals.
It is hard to describe how horrific and barbaric the Mongols were. There were many instances where they would brutally and unhesitantly kill everyone in a city that they raided.
The Khans promoted the stories of Mongol terror and horror and used them to aid their ambition of world domination. Arriving at a City they would often give the inhabitants a choice: surrender or fight. Very often, having heard the stories, the inhabitants would surrender. Sometimes this would even save their lives.
6. Aim for the obstacles.
In the 12th Century, the Chinese empires were considered to be largely unbeatable, but they were beaten. The same is said about the Muslim empires in the Middle East and the Christian forces in Europe — both of which were hardened by the crusades.
The Mongols took these unbeatable challenges and were richly rewarded for their efforts.
Before one of the invasions of the Russian kingdom, the Khans waited for winter to set in. This cold — which was partly the cause of the downfall of Napoleon and Hitler — made fighting hard (especially for those attacking buildings). The freezing of the lakes, rivers and marshlands, on the other hand, removed those barriers and created a highway for the Mongol horses to move on. The obstacle of winter allowed the Mongols to cover more ground and engage the enemy in more places in very short spaces of time.

The Mongols caught the world by surprise. Like a technology startup taking on a large corporate incumbent, they rose out of seemingly nowhere to defeat some of the greatest armies and the most well-guarded civilisations man had ever seen.
They were able to do this because they were quicker, nimbler, bolder and more aggressive than anyone else at the time. These traits allowed them to fielded a modern and innovative army in a time of old-fashioned knights and conventional face-to-face warfare.
As an entrepreneur, act like a Mongol.