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 accountability and something to measure. A simple spreadsheet listing your tasks and giving them deadlines or breaking them down into daily, weekly and monthly tasks will allow you to know what you need to complete before you are done for the day. I have seen people keep this as a spreadsheet, a printout in a folder they always carry or in Google docs, where they can access it anytime. If you don’t accomplish a goal or task, it should roll over to the next period with a note as to why you weren’t able to accomplish it. This can be as sophisticated as you want and could include a priority rating system, color-coding or by area. But no matter what method you choose, use this list to ensure that you are accomplishing what you set out to.

• Use the cloud: Cloud computing is an incredible tool. Google docs, dropbox and now even Microsoft Office have created a platform that allows you to take your work with you wherever you go. By keeping your documents on the cloud, you can work on them anywhere and anytime, eliminating downtime or wasted time. I often see people working on documents through dropbox on their Ipad on the subway, which makes their travel time to the meetings more productive. While this may or may not be for you, it goes to show how using the cloud could help you turn downtime waiting for someone into an opportunity to get your work done so you don’t need to stay up all night.

•  An office or desk to work at: Have a place that you can call your office. Whether it is at home, a Starbucks or a co-working space, this will give you a sense of “working” and a refuge from all the distractions out there. When you are at that desk it is your time to work uninterrupted. A simple place that you can call your office will give you a boost in your productivity and allow you to focus on your tasks. It also lets people around you know that you are working and busy and that you should not be disturbed.

• Set a schedule: Everyone has a crazy schedule and entrepreneurs tend to be on the phone, meeting others and at events more than most people. Create a basic schedule for yourself so you have your meeting days, blocks of time for calls and your event nights. This will give you a chance to be more productive. Knowing that all of Tuesday is meetings and every day from 2-4 are phone calls; you can allot your time to your tasks more appropriately and be more productive in the time that you set for work. Sites like Tungle.me, which allow for you to set a schedule and people to request meetings work great.

These are just a few tips that can help create a sense of organization in a seemingly un-organized world. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean that you need to be working 24/7, but rather it means that there is no one else holding you accountable for your work and time. Founding an organization, starting a team, and turning your ideas into reality means being a leader; In order to effectively lead you must begin with yourself. Making yourself accountable for your own goals will help grow your organization and instill structure and accountability in your team and their work as your startup grows into a real company.

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 you need to keep yourself in a position of being hirable. You need to use your time at your job to perform your job and use downtime like your lunch break or after hours to do your other work. For those that work better in that office environment, go in 1-2 hours early to work on your startup or idea before the workday starts.

Keep it on the down low – Many people get very excited with their startup and idea and have a hard time keeping it to themselves. It is very easy for someone to tell the co-worker they confide in. Everyone has that one co-worker to whom they bash their boss or complain how unfair the office is. People are always tempted to say that they have an idea that will be their way out of that office. People like to talk and often have another co-worker they chat with and confide in as well. As the saying goes, loose lips sink ships and all it takes is one person to let the word slip to a boss or human resources and you will find yourself working full time on your startup a lot sooner than you hoped for.

Don’t use company resources for your business – Your company’s supplies belong to your company, not your startup. Many people like to sneak mail into their company’s postage machine or take supplies home for personal use. This is not only unethical but can raise red flags. A company will tend to look the other way for a few personal letters but once you are using it for businesses, especially one that could potentially distract you from doing your job at 100% capacity, they will not look so kind on that. Additionally, resources are not just physical resources, but intellectual property as well. If you idea is in a similar space as the company you work for, be extra careful not to use proprietary research or data as you plan your company, as you will raise a lot of red flags, especially when you tell them that you are leaving to start your own company.

Establish milestones that will dictate when you quit you job or quit your idea – The easiest mistake to make when starting a business is quitting your job too soon and realizing after 4-5 months that your new startup is not ready for launch or not able to pay your bills. People save up money for a few months to allow them to leave work and have that “income” while they work on a startup and plan to have a salary or money from the startup after that to keep it going. What many people forget is that most of the money a startup makes in the first few months goes into development and other expenses like web hosting. Very rarely does a company have enough money in 3-4 months to have someone draw a salary. Founders must establish milestones that allow them to monitor when they are really ready to leave and have their company support them or find a co-founder who can handle the day to day. One specific instance I have seen recently is the 2 founders became roommates and one works full time so the other can quit their job and run the company full time. They work like a married couple, but after all, isn’t that what co-founders are?

It’s not easy being an entrepreneur while working at a 9 to 5 for someone else. It takes a lot of discipline to make sure that your dreams and vision don’t cloud your better judgment. Being out of a job with no money won’t get your startup going. But if you can find a way to balance the two jobs and use one as a means to support the other, you will head down a path that many other successful entrepreneurs have travelled.

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 of students looking for a job, a quick call to your alma matter or any local college campus will usually result in a lot of resumes being sent your way. The truth is, the hardest part of the intern process is being able to find the right one for your company. As many start-up don’t have a brick-and-mortar site, many interns work remotely; being able to keep them engaged is key since compensation, if any, is minimal.

Remembering back to my college days, everyone talked to friends or their parents friends about finding a job for a few hours a week just to have something to put on a resume. The description of the job and the tasks are taken by the career development office and beefed up to what “employers want to see.” Students are coached on how to interview and are told exactly what to do in response to each part of the interview from the handshake to the follow up letter.

So when I find an intern and want to “interview” them, I don’t ask for a resume or cover letter, I don’t do a formal meeting and don’t have a specific set of questions. College students have no idea what they want but they have an idea of what path they want their career to start on. I find the best way to interview and hire is by having a casual conversation, finding out what they like and don’t like doing. The most important thing is to make sure that they can be taught and are willing and able to learn and grow. Your job as an employer is to teach and guide the intern to help them with their future employment by you or elsewhere. The intern’s job is to find an employer that can teach them. Make the interview a conversation and make sure it works for everyone. Once you find someone you like, make sure to get him or her on board quickly and integrate them into your team.

It is fairly simple to offer an intern a job if it is a salaried position and the hours and pay are set. However, in many cases, if the internship is for credit or just for experience (no pay) there are certain steps that should be taken to protect both employers and intern from wasting each other’s time. Some of these issues that I have seen employers face include how to compensate your intern, delegating work, learning how to manage an intern remotely, and how to handle the end of the internship.

Most of the challenges that people have with interns is working with them remotely and around their college schedule. Employers often forget that the purpose of an intern is not just cheap labor, but for the student to learn and gain experience that will help them with their career. It is an easy trap to fall into to just send over research tasks that require minimum supervision, but if that is all the intern will do, be upfront about it. Key things that should be discussed upfront to ensure that the internship is effective are what is the schedule of the intern, how much time can they devote to work, a set day and time for a weekly call or Skype to discuss the work done and new tasks, a preferred method of communication (email or phone) and the best way to share the documents (Dropbox is an excellent way for all teams to collaborate). This will set the parameters to make the workflow effective.

Sites like Dropbox, basecamp or even just google docs, make it super simple for teams to work together, no matter where the team members are located. By creating a way to have interns work remotely, it not only gives you a wider net in which you can find a great intern but it allows you to potentially expand the reach of the company by leveraging your intern, their school and their friends/social media. But in order for it to work, both employer and intern must be serious about making it work. Keep the intern in the loop with other employees, company news and all updates and news via email to ensure that no matter where they are working from, they feel like part of the team. Using some of the steps mentioned above will allow you to make it work effectively.

The hardest part of the process of hiring an intern is how you will compensate them. There are many schools that allow students to obtain credit for their internship with no out-of-pocket expense for the employer. This is an ideal situation as everyone is receiving some benefit and the student is gaining not only experience, but college credit as well. However in cases where there is no credit involved, most startups have no money to offer the intern. What I have found is that in today’s economic climate, when there are no paying internships available, most students understand this and are willing to work for experience. In some cases they want to get paid but this can often be negotiated as a one-time stipend, off the books payment or through some other means. It is important to remember that despite the internship being beneficial to them, no one wants to work for free. If you can’t pay them, be upfront and discuss it with them so that you are all on the same page and no one has unrealistic expectations. Treat your intern as you would want an employee to treat you and most often everyone will be happy. And in the case that you can’t afford to pay them, make sure to do something special for them or get them a gift as a thank you. Something like a gift card or iPad goes a long way as a thank you for 4 months of hard work. They will appreciate it more than any paycheck because it is unexpected.

Once an internship period is completed, it is essential to have a meeting or call with the intern just like an exit interview for any employee. This exit interview serves a few purposes such as giving the intern feedback on their work and internship, giving them things to work on to help them to succeed in their next job, learning how they perceived you as a boss and what you can do better, and if they did a good job, gauging their interest in potentially working for you and your startup in the future. The first two items really focus on the intern and it is appropriate to give critical feedback. Many people try to sugar coat it since it is just an internship, but that is not helping them grow professionally and it ultimately is a disservice to the intern. The latter two points are essential for your professional growth. Just because you are the founder of a company, it does not qualify you to be a CEO and doesn’t make you a good leader. Taking feedback, even from your intern, will let you know the skills you need to be a better manager of your employees. Asking the intern if they would work for your company when they graduate allows you to get feedback on not only would they work for you and your team, but gives you an outsider’s perspective on where they think the company is headed. This should open a discussion about ideas, your business, etc… You will be amazed at what you can learn from an intern. Also make sure to provide a letter of recommendation or evaluation of the interns work so that they can use it in the future when looking for a job.

While much of the information in this post may seem to be common sense, many startups view interns as free labor and often confuse that term with “slave labor” as well. At the early stages of your company, treat an intern as you would any employee and not only will they work harder, they will become an essential part of your team that can grow with your company.

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 accountant. Additionally, many times you can find people that have multiple areas of expertise allowing you to save money. A web developer that also does graphic design may streamline the development process and save you money.

Once you have identified the talent that you need and want to hire, with little to no money, how do you pay them, especially when you are at the idea or development stage? There are quite a few options and this process is easier than you think.

1. The first and probably most popular practice is “hiring” or “obtaining” a co-founder. Most people start a company with an idea and then look to find a technical co-founder, who will be responsible for design and development of the site and actually building your product. They come in as a co-founder and get a piece of equity in the company and you work hand in hand with them to develop the product and strategy. In rare cases, I have seen people bring in non-technical co-founders for their expertise, but very often this can be accomplished through making them an advisor or board member, where you can gain their expertise without giving up any equity. It is also easier than ever to find a co-founder with many “find a co-founder” events popping up all over the place. I recently came across a new company founded by Jessica Alter called Founder Dating, which creates ways for people to meet their co-founders online and offline.

2. The second option relates more to non-founder positions where a startup may bring a service provider into the company as a partner. This makes sense in certain cases where the service provided is needed on a recurring basis. However, many entrepreneurs, in an effort to kick start their company, will make this offer without thinking of the long term effect on the company itself. Making an equity commitment to a service provider not only ties you to that provider but also dilutes your available equity, which may better be served to hire new employees. One thing to clear in advance of the commitment is that if they become an equity partner, it is not just for this job, but there is a written understanding of all the services that they will provide you and the duration of the commitment. Add a vesting schedule tied to this performance to cover your own ass as well.

3. The third option is used for companies that are in pre-launch and have some money in place. They hire employees at a set salary but they pay them only a percentage of that salary until funding is obtained. It works like a bridge loan in the sense that these employees see the vision, add value and want to be part of the bigger picture. They take anywhere from around 40-50% of the agreed upon salary and receive shares or options in return. They work and help the company obtain funding and once funded, they receive their agreed upon salary.

4. The last option is the hybrid. This is becoming a more popular option, where you pay a service provider a small percentage of the project and give them equity as well. KAYWEB Angels uses this model to invest in startups that need development. A big advantage to this is that not only are they covering their cost with your payments, but they are incentivized to be a bigger part of the overall project and help grow it into a big company from the earliest stage.

No matter what you choose, make sure that it is in the best interest of your company and you have written documentation regarding scope and payment terms before any money or equity changes hands. Protect yourself, your vision and your company.  Make sure you are thinking about the long term growth and success of your company and don’t get blinded by your immediate needs. Build towards the future and you will be primed for success.

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 5^th 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 our name out. More often than not, you get told that the idea isn’t good, you will never get funding or just a simple “we aren’t interested.” But the opportunities will come, whether it is pitching at a pitch event or a chance to meet the right person at a networking event. It is how we prepare for that moment that will turn it into something that will make your idea a reality or get passed over again like in the past. Use that opportunity to create a buzz, the kind of buzz that makes people talk about how upset they are for passing you over. Once you get that traction going, it won’t stop until you give them a reason to.

Leadership and success are contagious – When you look at the New York Knicks over the last two weeks, everyone’s first thought is that Jeremy Lin saved their season. They should not have won 6 games in a row. When you have a leader like Jeremy Lin, everyone starts playing better and others start contributing in big ways.

Over the last year we have seen this phenomenon twice in sports, first with Tim Tebow and now with Jeremy Lin. People want to attribute it to god or religion or some outside power, but the reality is they are able to do what they do because of the position they are in. Both play positions that make them the leader of the team. They both call the plays, have the ball in their hands and are responsible for deciding where it will go, who to pass it to and maintaining the pace of the game and their team. In both cases, they lead by example and gave their team the belief that they can succeed, no matter who they play against. Their leadership skills single handedly picked up their team and made them believe. A good leader does that and makes his employees better just through the excitement he creates. That excitement leads to better meetings, better phone calls and more productivity. These factors make the average employee an above average employee. A good leader will take that and keep it going, whether through direct involvement, meetings or other means to continue to pick their employees up and put them in situations that will lead to success.

Success leads to more success – As leaders put their employees and co-workers in situations that allow them to excel, they are able to create a chain of successes and not just a one-day surge. A leader’s job is to help maintain this, but many times it happens on its own. Success is like an avalanche; it gets bigger and bigger as it goes down the mountain. One success motivates employees to go after the next one. It is an opportunity to sell clients on the past success and it keeps going as long as that motivation is in front of them. Human nature is to sit back and celebrate/enjoy a success for a day or two but most entrepreneurs use the success to work harder. Remember that the avalanche has to stop at a certain point because there is a bottom of the mountain but you can make that avalanche as big as you want on its way down. Ride the wave and watch it grow on its way down.

It’s all about the right fit – The argument over Jeremy Lin’s long term viability as a point guard really comes down to one main issue, does the coach’s system make him a great player or is he a great player regardless of the system. While he definitely is not a system guy, Lin is most likely this good because the system plays to his strengths, but at the same time, he is talented and good at what he does.
A CEO or salesman may be great in whatever field they work in, but hiring them without having them prove themselves first is dangerous. You need to make sure that the people on your team are the right fit for both your company/team and industry. A fashion designer may have built a huge brand but that may not translate to a technology company. Or you may hire a great manager for the company, but if their management style is very corporate and you believe in a more open environment, that won’t work either. You need to find people with talent that fits your system, only then will you truly excel.

Obviously, basketball and starting a company are very different. But out of every story, there are great lessons that can be learned and carried over to all aspects of a business and how you run the company. Each of us may have learned different lessons from the Jeremy Lin story and we would love to hear yours in the comments below. There are also some great lessons on Next Web, which is worth a read.

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 the quality of the work was so bad that they couldn’t create a minimum viable product. Brightmap, which was recently launched by Graham Lawlor, is a great way for people to get qualified introductions to service providers. But regardless of who refers you, do your due diligence now, meet the provider, make sure the products and services being offered meet what you are looking for, so it is less painful later on.

Pricing for service providers is always an issue. Entrepreneurs generally run on a shoestring budget if they have one at all. But when looking to hire, you must balance the price versus quality and make sure that you can get a minimum viable product that works, looks good and is scalable. But remember, price isn’t everything! Using a cheaper option, especially overseas, will cause a lot of language barriers, cultural barriers and will take away much of the control of your product from you. These need to be balanced against the cost savings in your final decision.

Hand in hand with pricing is have they worked with startups before, and if so, do they have a unique structure for entrepreneurs. If you go to enough startup and entrepreneurial events, you will often find service providers who work with startups specifically and have created programs that work with the budget and timing of an entrepreneur. For instance, my company works with one of the top 5 law firms in the world, which generally means high billable hours and large bills. While that is true, the partner who handles our account works with entrepreneurs and allows us to work on a payment plan so we get the best service possible while not breaking the bank at launch. Other providers such as the Corporate Tax Network, a national accounting firm, have a special unique pricing structure made to give entrepreneurs tax consulting and tax prep at a fixed fee that varies by startup. Service providers that are already involved in this entrepreneurial community will often offer you more value and more manageable payment terms.

While the provider you chose is giving you a quality product at a price you can pay, very often your provider can offer more. Lawyers who work with startups and VC firms may provide additional value and connections that need to be factored into the selection process. Maybe they can work in an advisory capacity as well. These additional things are important to consider as they will allow you to get the most bang for your buck and help you launch and grow your company.

Finding the right service provider takes a lot of research and a lot of luck, but if done right with the proper due diligence, you will be adding a value to your team and your company that will help you with a successful launch.

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 oriented. Some people are great leaders and others can be great employees. Some people are great at design and structure and some are great at programming. Very rarely will two people have a similar set of traits from top to bottom. It is figuring out how to match these skill sets together that make a team successful.

The expression goes “know what you know, but more importantly, know what you don’t know.”  I would say that 75% of building a team is understanding this concept and being able to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Most founders of companies have limited, if any, technical knowledge on how to actually design and develop their website or product. They go out and have to find someone who knows what they don’t and start building a team.  As I wrote about in a previous blog post, just because you found a company or have an idea for one, it does not qualify you to be the CEO. Maybe you are a marketing person or a PR person. In those cases, you need to find a salesman and programmer.

Building a team is not just about compensating for missing skills sets; it is about identifying the traits that all team members must have as that will be the glue that holds you together. Maybe it is a love of travel for a new travel website or religious beliefs that you share that create some connection. Whatever it may be, this commonality is your 75% that hold you together and the combined skill sets make up the last 25%. How you assemble this team and use the collective talents will be what makes or breaks your company in the long run and define you as a leader. The team you assemble will be part of the company and set its culture for years to come.

Big reach and access to VC money based on your inner circle gets you to launch. But if your team can’t put out a great product or leverage its collective knowledge and resources to build the company beyond launch, your company will not have a chance to make it to the next level.

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 duties and tasks; everyone pitches in wherever they are needed. But as the company grows, management must grow into their roles and this is when it is essential to know your strengths and weaknesses.

It is also important to remember that you can give yourself whatever title you want at the onset, but that can easily be stripped from you as your company grows. When you grow the company and take on investors, part of the due diligence they perform will be focused on the management team in place. While you may think you are right for the job of CEO because you are the founder of the company, the investment may come with you being replaced by the VC’s own CEO. Getting fired from your own company is not a pleasant experience or something that anyone ever wants, but at the end of the day, it may be essential to your company’s growth.

Knowing your role and what you do well are essential. There is a tremendous difference between having an idea and executing on it. While title and roles in the company don’t matter much at the onset, they should still be real and something that you are capable of handling and growing into as your business expands. Outsiders and clients will view you in this capacity and you always want to put the best foot forward by being able to handle your job. And there is nothing wrong with just calling yourself the founder until you have time to figure it out. At least that way you will save some money on business card printing!

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 that when you do meet someone you are prepared and give off a great first impression. Some of the ways this can be accomplished are:

• Start a blog about your industry – Portray yourself as knowledgeable and people will listen to you and ask for your advice. This will give you a lot of credibility.
• Learn the industry – Make sure you know the names of the key companies and players in the industry. You don’t want to look dumbfounded when these individuals’ names are mentioned.
• Network – Build up a network of contacts in your field and related fields so that you can leverage their knowledge. Attend industry events and roundtables so that you can be more visible and be an active participant so that people know who you are.
• Learn how to make a great first impression – Make sure you know how to attract someone’s attention when you meet them. People have short attention spans so make sure you know how to get engage them from the first moment. You only have one chance at a first impression!

This is an especially important lesson for entrepreneurs. Very often entrepreneurs are young and have no track record. The only information people have about you is what they can find online. When you are going out to raise capital or to sell your product, people want to know who you are, what you stand for and what kind of person you are. You need to use all the tools available to you to create a certain perception of yourself in the eyes of others. This perception can often be the difference between getting the funding you need or the potential investors having no faith in you. You are the most important thing that you are selling so make sure you are perceived that way.