“The best thing for somebody is to be totally unemployable,” Wick Allison, the founder and owner of D Magazine, began.

“I graduated from UT with a degree in American Studies,” Allison said. “What does that mean in practical terms? It means I was totally unemployable. And since no one was going to hire me for a job, I had to create one.”

Allison spoke in front of aspiring entrepreneurs in George’s Auditorium of the Cox School of Business on Thursday night, at an event hosted by the SMU Entrepreneurship Club.

Allison, who pursued his passion to launch D Magazine while studying at Cox, attributes his success to “pure luck, the power of ideas and the people who have some strange compulsion to finance them.”

The fifth-generation Texan gave a history of D Magazine and laid down some “dos and don’ts” of the business.

“I’m trying to start a business, and without [Allison’s] advice, I would have made a ton of mistakes,” said SMU Entrepreneurship Club member Michael Tran.

Allison says the best piece of advice he ever received came from “the old curmudgeon,” a man he describes as an icon in the industry, who only wore Bermuda shorts and sandals, and “never said a positive thing to anyone about anything.”

“Never do anything original,” Allison said. Though he initially considered this the “stupidest thing he ever heard,” he later realized the old curmudgeon was right.

“Steve Jobs didn’t invent the computer and Facebook wasn’t the first social media site,” Allison said. He explained the commonality between the two is that they are the biggest and the best of their kind.

“If it’s a good idea, improve on it,” Allison said.

Allison’s last two rules prove that he certainly is always thinking one step ahead.

“If you’re in business two years and you haven’t fired all your employees, you’re in deep trouble,” Allison said.

“Think about it: a start-up company attracts the least competent employers, so if you’re doing your job, you’re going to attract more competent individuals.”

Finally, Allison asked students to please remember that, “If five years into your business you’re working 12-hour days, you should fire yourself, because you are incompetent.” He explained that his job as an entrepreneur is to strategize, a skill that he learned early on in the business, after once working long days and before “firing himself” – which he considers his “best lesson ever.”