Below are my professional insights for fellow entrepreneurs, collected over years of succeeding, failing, learning and improving. Thank you to all the great people around me !
Feel free to add more insights to the list.
– Team: Your partner will be one of the people closest to you in the coming year, before you enter into contract with him – spend some time with him and see how he reacts to things, of course there are no guarantees but this can minimize your risk of failure.
– Listen to your intuition – Sometimes it’s hard, even for you, to pinpoint what’s wrong in a situation or in a person, but it’s a sign, listen to your gut, it’s not all mathematical.
– Focus on being best and don’t think of success or failure along the way – Don’t let your fears get to you – Just focus every day and do your best for the company.
– Sometimes meeting a person once isn’t enough to decide wether you can work together – Interact more, or, in case of an employee, allow for a trial period.
– Ask yourself the important questions – What problems are you solving at your business, use your insights to continue improving your product.
– Always remember your clients are lazy – You need to give them a product that is easy to use and requires the absolute minimal time and effort.
– Make your company’s pitch short and clear – Make sure you show it to many people, who are not from your sector, before you publish it.
– Always do what’s in the best interest for the company – Never put your own private interests before the company’s.
– Lawyers can kill your business or support your growth – Choose lawyers that understand you’re taking risks and know how to warn you without killing your dreams by only seeing risks.
– Choose lawyers with great emotional intelligence – Lawyers that can sit with you, your customers and yours potential partners and can help you close deals!
– Motivate your team, – Show them the dream and always make sure everyone feels they’re part of it.
– Office space and employees are a large investment – Try managing without them, at least at the very beginning.
– Be good to your team – Allow working from home from time to time, give options, etc…
– Ask your clients what they think about your product – Validate new features, don’t assume what you think is good would work best for everyone. It’s all -about testing and validation.
– Show your clients the results – While presenting the product, showcase the end results, don’t just talk about the functionality.
– Each one of us need a mentor – Someone that has a helicopter view of our situation.
– Have gray haired people around and also students – You can gain valuable insight from the least expected sources.
– If you have kids, share your challenges with them – It’s good to educate and prepare them for entrepreneurship. You might be surprised by their great ideas.
– Work hard – The ones that give more then 100% have the best chances to succeed.
– Be happy – It’s a long and hard journey that can break you. Remember to be happy and to always do your best.
– Communicate with your investors – Always, on a regular basis, they can stay with you and take part in your next projects in the years to come.
– Focus – its very easy to go out of focus and fine new need for your product, yes you can always be open to shift or make changes but not on a regal baisic
– Be prepared – Start securing new investors a few month before your company needs the added investment.
– Try new markets – For a start, try markets that are easier to penetrate.
– Make sure the first team gets along very well with each other – It’s important that they can laugh together and work well together even if the work is hard and the hours are long.
– Get people who are better than you – We all have strengths and weaknesses; Find people who can do the work better than you would have.
– If you have problems with a partner – Get a middleman you both agree upon and let him work at your business for a while – not fixing a problem can make it worse and kill your company.
– Walking management – Walk, talk, walk between your colleagues, you will discover things that you can use and leverage for the good of your business.
– Don’t let your advisors talk between themselves, always be involved – they can increase your bill and they can take it to other direction you don’t want
– Always do something meaningful, besides your start-up – Even if it’s only for one hour a week. We always need to support others that need our strength somewhere.
– Be organized, make good plans – Long term plans, weekly and daily tasks. Being well organized leads to success.
– Sit with your team from time to time and listen to them – Show them you care what’s on their hearts.
– Read about whats happening in your sector – Do this every day or two.
– If you outsource anything, make sure you structure it well – Take advice and make sure there are no conflicts of interests.
– It’s better to have smart investors if you have the choice – You will reach your goals faster and do it better.
– Don’t let rejection let you down – If an investor declines, this is a chance to improve yourself and proceed to the next step smarter and stronger.
– Don’t assign blame – You are the one that makes all the choices.
– Before you hire people – Ask them what motivates them and from where they draw strength.
– Be present – Try to talk in panels and to be present both on social media and in events
– Think one step ahead – How is your product useful in the future? What do you need to develop and where should you focus your efforts?
– Look at your competition and learn from them – Do this on a monthly basis.
– Forgive yourself if you make mistakes – As long you make them only once.
– Be alone for a few hours a week at the beach or doing sports – You need time for yourself to reflect on the past days to better analyze where you are and where you want to be.
– Have at least one woman on your team – And at least one man. Diversification is an important value.