There is a big misconception that entrepreneurs run around, hang out all the time, go to events around the country and don’t have any structure to their life. People think that the entrepreneurial lifestyle is doing what you want, when you want. While there is some truth to it in the sense that entrepreneurs are always on the go, hustling to make things happen; successful entrepreneurs will tell you that structure is an essential part of the success for your company.
Will Corrente, a successful entrepreneur from S. Florida, once told me that a good entrepreneur doesn’t need to pull all-nighters constantly or work 23-hour days. Yes, there will be long days when things have to get done, but with an organized plan, you can work 9-5 and be successful. While most entrepreneurs say that they work 24/7, it is worth noting that they spend those hours caught up in the entrepreneurial lifestyle of running from event to event, constant meetings and various conferences, which causes them to have those crazy hours. But no matter how many events you attend or meetings you run to, creating structure in your business will not only help you manage and grow your company, but provide structure for your team.
Here are some tips that can help you give your startup structure even while you are running around being an entrepreneur:
- Set daily, weekly and monthly goals: It is very easy to get caught up in projects, ideas and meetings. By setting goals for yourself, you give yourself Read more…
One of the biggest challenges facing an entrepreneur, especially those first timers, is balancing their job that pays the bills with their desire to start a company or business. Unfortunately the reality is that starting a company costs money and bills need to be paid. This is why most people never actually get their idea beyond the idea stage. But for those who do, many need to continue in their nine to five job to support the development of their idea. The biggest question with this is not if you should do it, but how you can work both 9 to 5 and 5 to 9 and balance the two.
Starting a company is difficult. It requires a lot of research, dedication and hard work. Most people feel like they are married to their company, at least for the first few years. But when working at an office, it is very hard to keep that passion alive without causing any issues. Below are a few of the issues and suggestions for dealing with this.
Don’t bring your work to work – Most people have an initial reaction that they will bring the work from their startup to the other office and do it in their downtime. While this may be a great way to get work done and stay entertained, it is also a great way to get fired. Reality is that most startups don’t make it so Read more…
Most startups, at least in their really early stages, do not have the infrastructure or even an office in which to build a team. It is often too early to go out and hire staff because much of the required work is research related and there is no money to pay employees. Research, social media postings and data entry generally don’t require much experience and can easily be outsourced on sites like Odesk.com or with services like NoonDalton. However we are seeing more and more people look for interns for their startup, specifically for social media.
One of the key reasons for this is that many students can’t find jobs and are desperate to do anything that gives them experience and may lead to a job. Another key reason is that there is such a push towards entrepreneurship that everyone wants to be part of the next Facebook. With this mindset, there is tremendous opportunity for companies and interns if done correctly.
Finding an intern is easier than it has ever been. There are incredible internship website such as Urban Interns that not only make it easy to find interns, but they allow you to get a feel for the interns’ schedule and talents and communicate with them in a formal yet informal nature. Additionally with the abundance Read more…
One theme that you will probably see recurring in all of my posts is the importance of building a cohesive team that compliments each other. Each company will have its own process for this such as attending “find a co-founder” events, asking your network, posting on entrepreneurial job boards or even just emailing people whose profiles match your needs on LinkedIn. But the big challenge for a startup is putting a team together or hiring staff with little to no capital. In the regular business world, hiring with no money is unheard of. But as all entrepreneurs can tell you, not only is it the norm in the entrepreneurial community, but an accepted practice.
The first step in the process is identifying your essential needs as a company. This may be your developer to build the website or a CEO type, both roles that will shape the vision of the company. Once you have moved beyond the essential parties, the ideas guy and the developer, it gets a bit tricky. There are many services that a startup will need in advance of or immediately after the launch which are essential to the company. These include legal work, marketing/PR and social media amongst others. The management team must decide what is worth bringing in house vs. hiring a company to do on a per project basis. I recently heard Justin Smith, VP at Zillow.com, talk about how having a marketing plan may be the most essential part of launching a startup. But it is up to the team to determine if they need a marketing person or they can hire a marketing firm for strategy.
Building a team around your needs as a company is essential to your success. If you don’t have any cash flow for 3 months, there is no need to hire an Read more…
Linsanity has taken over New York and slowly spread across the nation. Jeremy Lin has saved the Knicks, who had become a laughingstock, and the NBA, which never fully recovered from the lockout. His rise from last man on the bench to the savior of the Knicks is an extremely inspirational story and while everyone tries to paint this story as the American dream, there are a lot of real life lessons that can be learned from his story. Below are some of the ones that came to my mind.
Be prepared – You never know when your shot will come. You can get passed up, beat down and even sent packing, but all it takes is one call to get things started. But it is what you do in advance of that call that will often determine your success. As entrepreneurs, we are always one phone call away from something great happening. But we need to be prepared for that call. Have your elevator pitch perfected, work on your slide deck, and most importantly, have a plan to get people excited about your product and more importantly, yourself. Research your competition, know the industry and be able to take a call and give over the information needed at a moment’s notice. You never know when the opportunity will present itself. But as the saying goes, failure to prepare is preparing to fail. But now, once you have prepared, seize the day!
Seize the day – It is not every day that you get an opportunity that can change your career or business. Jeremy Lin was a guy who was passed over, passed around and was the 5th choice for point guard for the Knicks. Various things all happened at the same time and he found himself as the starting point guard for the Knicks. It is a matter of him being in the right place at the right time and getting the opportunity of a lifetime, and he seized it. He worked hard to prepare for that moment and gave it all that he had and he has since turned that simple opportunity into a worldwide phenomenon.
As entrepreneurs, we often find ourselves trying to connect with angel investors, VCs, media outlets like TechCrunch, Mashable and Tech Cocktail to get Read more…
When starting a company, entrepreneurs are usually in cost savings mode, which generally means, trying to minimize how much debt they take on personally. Even with friends and family or seed money, the initial investment goes quickly with expenses such as developers, designers, legal costs and other miscellaneous expenses. So it is extremely important that the service providers you choose provide you maximum value for your dollar.
The biggest cost for a startup is often design and development of the website. There are three avenues that are available to entrepreneurs to a developer, a technical co-founder or hiring a developer full time or hiring an outsider service provider that does web development and design. In the first two cases, you are building your company and team and you can be sure you will get maximum value from those individuals. But when choosing or hiring an outside person to do you work, it is essential that there is a relationship other than “deliver and get paid.”
There are a few essentials entrepreneurs should consider in choosing a service provider including who referred them to you or their references, price, how they work with entrepreneurs and their value add.
References are essential. You want to know that the company or individual will do quality work but more importantly, that you can work with them. I have seen many entrepreneurs hire web designers oversees because they are cheaper only to spend more in the long run because the language barrier and way that the service provider works made the process much more difficult than it really is. I also know those that spent a lot of money and never launched their site because Read more…
Over my short “career” as an entrepreneur, there are two traits that seem to play an important role in the success of a startup. The first of these is the track record and network of the founder and the second being a great team. The former is about traction and your Klout. If you have successfully exited a company or founded a company that is well known, the people you engage with in real life and social media are those with a large sphere of influence and can help you expand the reach of your company rather quickly. For instance, when a VC leaves to start a company, he has a much easier time raising funds and getting to launch because his circle already includes those that would fund him and publicize his company.
However, in my eyes, having a great team is more important and has a longer lasting impact on your company and more importantly, you as an entrepreneur. There is no one person that knows everything about business or starting a business. Some people are idea people and others are more process and execution Read more…
Whether your company is successful or not, it is exciting to tell people that you are a founder of a startup. The fact that you actually started something is more than most people can say and gives you some credibility as an entrepreneur. But the fun part comes when you need to make your business cards and you start “handing out” the titles that you will use. The titles of CEO, Chairman, Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and other big name positions are always fun to give out. But what do they mean, especially when you are first building your product, and how can they affect the company in the long run.
One of the cool things about being a founder is that you will always be the founder. No one can ever take that away from you and it is a part of the company’s history. However, every other position is negotiable and very often, the founders find that they are not right for those jobs. This may not occur at the outset, but often that is because everyone wears multiple hats and works to get everything done together. In the early stages of a company, there is very little separation of Read more…
Gary Whitehill, founder of Entrepreneur Week, once told me that one of the hardest things to understand in life is that you’re not what you are, but what you’re perceived to be. In this day and age of social media, I think this is one of the most important things for people to remember. First impressions last a lifetime and in today’s day and age, our first impression is made with the information that people see about us online. Let’s be honest, when we connect with a person at a meeting or are introduced through a mutual contact, the first thing we do is go to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to learn more about this person. If the individual has no information available or a spotty resume on these sites, part of the excitement of the initial introduction is lost immediately. The person will now have to overcome this void in order to make a great first impression.
In today’s age of the internet, you are your own brand and how you market and sell that brand will make you a success. According to Forbes, personal brand-building in the digital era requires topic expertise, audience engagement and scalable support systems. You need to take an active role in building that brand so Read more…
