Tips for Startup Success

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 Everyone has to start somewhere. Whether he or she works for the largest corporation or the hottest start-up, every entrepreneur starts at square one. Though many paths lead to success, some are more direct and have fewer bumps along the way. No one, of course, finds success without encountering a few obstacles.

Below are three tips to help your startup process and find success.

Dream big and map it out.

When you are contemplating making the entrepreneurial leap, remember this: It doesn’t take any more effort to dream big than it does to dream small.

Perhaps you doubt your ability to make great things happen. Maybe you don’t want to appear greedy or materialistic. Or, you may feel that you don’t deserve all that being an entrepreneur has to offer. Regardless of the reason, you can’t listen to that voice in your head telling you to play it safe and not dream big.

With a big dream motivating you, it is easy to want to go all-in right now. However, before you quit your job, develop a detailed plan for your business. Most entrepreneurs are visionaries with the drive to get things started. But they are easily bored and quick to move on to their next project. By creating a detailed plan for your dream, you learn to hold yourself accountable to yourself and that accountability brings progress. Without a plan, your big dream is just a day dream. With it, it becomes a reality.

Identify your priorities, but be flexible.

As you put your plan together, you'll find it obvious what tasks contribute the most to your business’s success. These are the tasks that must be pursued relentlessly.

One reason entrepreneurs fail is that they fail to properly prioritize their work. By separating the good from the best, you create the focus that would not exist if you pursued everything asking for your time and attention.

As you begin building your business, take time to identify the essential pieces of your business that will sustain your venture and provide the necessary cash flow.

Also, be aware that if you do not prioritize correctly, you run the risk of taking on too much and doing nothing well. Every venture has critical pieces that create the successful outcome. It is when you focus more on the support tasks than the critical ones that you begin watering down your best work.

Designing eye-catching packaging for your product, for example, that will help you stand out from the competition, but if you have neglected the necessary legwork to get your product on the shelves in the first place, your efforts will all be for naught.

Fail fast and fail often.

Most entrepreneurs are not risk adverse. If they were, they would still be playing it “safe” in their 9-to-5 jobs. However, in order to be successful, you need to experiment and take chances that may frighten you at first.

If you are reading this in the hopes of not making any mistakes, then you’ve already made your first one. Do not look at mistakes as something to be avoided at all costs, but as unique learning opportunities custom-tailored to you, your circumstances and your business. The more lessons you can learn from in the quickest amount of time, the more you can shorten your learning curve and place yourself in a position to grow your business.

By adopting the mindset of “fail fast and fail often,” you'll begin to leverage the power of iteration -- the process of repeating and refining a process in order to meet a goal.

The ultimate goal for your business is to stay alive and ultimately to thrive. In order to accomplish this goal, you must iterate until you find the “breakthrough” that makes your business a self-sustaining entity.

When you are starting a business, speed is critical for success. The more tightly you can run experiments and the faster you can iterate the more chances you will provide yourself to find that winning combination. It is that winning combination that helps you become scalable. And scalability is what allows you to realize your big dream.

So, do not be afraid of making mistakes. You have to try, make mistakes, learn and try again. If you try, make a mistake and give up, you will never be the success you could have been.

Original Article Written by Michael Noice

Culled From Entrepreneur.com

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1. Do what others aren’t willing to do.

Many entrepreneurs might stop after a few calls or drag them out over long periods of time instead of focusing on them in every spare minute or instead of pursuing business minutiae that doesn’t add value. If you want to be successful, you have to get out of your comfort zone and relentlessly pursue the types of activities that lead to growth.  

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1. Excuses: There’s a saying that goes you can have excuses or you can have results, but you can’t have both. Successful people know that there are a million and one reasons you can come up with to not do something if you want to find the excuse, but if you want to find results, you have to find the solution and push ahead.

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1. Chasing the wrong success

If you are not careful, you can fall into the trap of believing that certain material items make you "successful." That a certain lifestyle is what success looks like. Often, people try to buy their way to success and happiness, only to find out that they don’t even want what they were pursuing.

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1. Determine what you’d like to do.

Some people call this finding your passion, but it’s more than that. Think about your skills, abilities and experience. Consider what you can realistically see yourself doing for hours each day, for weeks and years.

2. Think about what others will pay for.

A viable business is the intersection between what you’d like to do and what others will pay for.

3. Interview ideal customers.

Find a few people that you think would be your ideal clients. Ask them about their biggest needs, fears and aspirations related to the business idea you plan to pursue. Are the benefits of your product or service in line with their real needs? Also, make a note of the words they use, as they’ll eventually help make your marketing more authentic.

4. Design your marketing and business plans.

Marketing involves content creation, social media, email outreach and more. Make sure you know how you’ll approach each of these alternatives to introduce your idea to customers. At the same time, lay out a business plan that details how you intend your business to function. It doesn’t need to be super formal, but it does need to cover your operating structure, product, delivery systems and expansion plans.

5. Set up your business on a small scale.

If you can, test your company idea by launching on a small scale on the side, while still working your day job. This gives you a no-risk opportunity to test your ideas, get your first clients and see if the business will hold up over time before you leave the security of your current position.

6. Assess feedback and adjust.

Running a small-scale operation will help you determine which parts of your idea are great and which ones need adjusting. Take  customer feedback seriously and make any necessary changes before you begin scaling up.

7. Assemble a team.

If your idea seems viable, determine who you’ll want on your business leadership team when you eventually launch full time. Depending on your personal experience, you may need help in areas such as finance, marketing, customer service and production.

8. Set up the structure of your company.

At the same time, you’ll also want to decide what kind of company structure to register. Do you want to incorporate, form an LLC or create a partnership? Get this taken care of legally and carefully define the roles and investment of each of your leadership team members.

9. Leave your job.

When you’re ready, leave your day job. This may feel like an amazing relief after all the work you already put in, but trust me, more work awaits. Although it may be tempting, be sure  as you leave, keep a good relationship with your bosses and colleagues,  you never know when you’ll encounter former bosses and colleagues again, and you may need to work with them in the future.

10. Set up a working budget.

With your full-time schedule now devoted to your business, set up a company budget. This should include payments for marketing expenses, salaries and other important purchases. Just be sure not to waste money on frivolous expenses.        

11. Scale up your business according to your marketing plan.

Finally, all that’s left to do is to work the plans you’ve carefully laid out for yourself. Of course, that plan may change over time as you encounter and overcome obstacles. But, this is it -- you’re a full-fledged entrepreneur. Congratulations!

As you can see, becoming an entrepreneur requires a lot of work before you even consider quitting your day job. However, if you follow each of the steps listed above and your idea still seems viable, you can leave your life as an employee and become an entrepreneur instead.

There are still many challenges you’ll face, but for most entrepreneurs, the benefits of meaningful work and self-direction are much more important.

source: entrepreneurship.com

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