17 Things You Should Know When Starting A Business.

Our goal has always been to provide you with more clarity on what you should expect on your journey to success.

Starting A Business is Not for Everyone

Starting a business is not for everyone.  Some people possess a particular set of traits which just fit better with the entrepreneurial template than others.

You can be happy and successful by working for someone else. It all depends on who you are as a person Do you believe you’re destined to be an entrepreneur and looking to start a business.

Talk is Cheap, Action Matters

Nobody cares about what you’re planning to do until you do it.  Even among your friends, we’re sure that at least a couple of them say they plan on starting a new project and even give you a glimpse into what that would look like.

How many of them actually did anything about it?  We can answer that 1  in 60 people for every 60 people that say they plan on starting a business, only one actually does it.

The rest just talk about something they’ll never end up doing. Most people will find excuses saying it’s not the right time or whatever reason they find, but the result is always the same.

The world doesn’t care about what you plan on doing. The world doesn’t run on wishful thinking. No matter how many times you read the secret, the world works on people getting things done.

Talk is cheap. Instead, Let your work speak for you.

An Idea Isn’t Worth Anything Before It Yields Results.

An idea is worth a million dollars on Lee after it makes $1 million. Ideas are free. Everyone has ideas, tons of them. Actually, they’re not that special. Talk to anyone around you, and they can immediately bring up five ideas of businesses or projects.

But as we’ve mentioned in the previous point since everyone has multiple ideas, there is an abundance of them.

Most of them are actually good ideas, but that doesn’t mean they’re worth anything. Ideas are worthless unless they’re paired with the right execution.

Let me put it this way. A good idea with poor execution. Not only will it not yield any positive results, it’ll end up consuming.

Resource is and time. Meanwhile, a mediocre idea with a great execution will become a viable business. It’s very rare that good ideas and great execution meat and they almost never happen both in the early stages.

You start with a simple idea, which in time could evolve into a good one. But execution is everything. Just because an idea sounds great to you doesn’t mean the world will think so as well.

We recommend you find unbiased opinions. Don’t listen to your friends and family because they care about you and they’ll sing your praises. If you want a real feedback on your idea, ask people to front you the money.

You’ll find out that everybody says an idea is good and they’ll pay for something like that until you actually ask them to put their money where their mouth is. Don’t be protective of your idea. It’s not that special. It all depends on your ability to execute.

Also, you don’t need a revolutionary idea to get rich. You don’t have to re-invent sliced bread to have a successful bakery.

Facebook wasn’t the first social network, and delivering food to customers is not revolutionary. You just need to execute it better than your competitors.

Nobody Cares About Your Business More Than You, And They Never Will.

No matter how much money you throw with them, your business is the product of your dreams, your desires and your need to materialize something you truly believe in. You might inspire people to join your cause, but nobody will ever want this business to succeed as much as you do.

This is something really important to consider in the very early stages, especially if the business has multiple founders.

If you partner with other people in order to build it, every single one of these members needs to wanted as bad as you do and be willing to give whatever it takes. So many times we see best friends teaming up in order to start a business on Lee to realize six months in that one of them really isn’t that passionate about the idea and wants to move on to something else.

You Don’t Need Money to Start A Business.

You are the business in the beginning. This is one of those things that stop people from starting out. They all think you need a ton of money to get started.

This is because most people look at the final stage of the company, the part where you have a ton of employees, marketing teams, multiple products to raw materials and registered intellectual property.

That’s not how businesses are started. They start with one person, you hustling your butt off and growing.

As the journey progresses, you can start a business with under $100. If you don’t even have $100 to start with, get a one-month job or add value to people in any way you can so they can pay you the small amount.

What you need to understand is that in the beginning you have a lot of time. That is your main resource. You will convert your time into money and use that money to get more. Resource is, it’s pretty  straightforward if you think about it.

Be Ready to Make Sacrifices,

Something most people don’t realize when starting a business is the amount of work and sacrifices which are needed to turn this into a success.

Most people start a business because they don’t want to work for a boss. They want to be the boss. They despise having to work the 9 to 5, so they do something about it.

It doesn’t take long to realize that instead of working eight hours a day, you’re now working 16 hours a day every day, including the weekends, and you can barely sleep at night because you worry so much about the future.

Yes, creating a successful company leads to a way better life you would have had otherwise. But those rewards don’t come for free. The moment you start a business, it needs to become priority number one If you want to have a shot at success, your social circle is gone. Your family will see you less.

It will take a toll on your health. And that’s just the beginning.

Build smart from the beginning.

If the foundation of the company is crippled, it doesn’t matter how high you plan on going. It’s bound to fail. This is something you should definitely consider when starting out a smart business will check at least some of the following pints

• One it doesn’t have a demand ceiling, which means that as you grow, you will always have customers. This used to be a problem with some small, specialized shops in locked areas. If you were the only one selling blue hats to a small town at one point, you would reach a certain ceiling where sales cannot be increased anymore. People only need one blue hat, and at some point, in time you will sell one to every person in town. No more growth.
• every part of your business is replaceable, which means the business can survive if one of your future employees or one of your suppliers decides to leave.
• Your business can scale. You have a clear plan on how you can increase production as the demand increases.
• There is a clear direction for the business. Both you and your employees understand what you’re working toward.

Free Up Your Time So You Can Focus on Your Strengths.

Don’t be an employee in your own business. One of the most common mistakes people make is they trade their job for another one, this time in their own company.

When you’re starting out, you are the first employee you need to get your hands dirty, so you understand, optimize and perfect the system. At the previous point, we talked about building a smart business, which means once you have your entire process figured out, break it into smaller, interconnected systems, then find people onto which you can unload that specific part of the chain.

Your employees are here to make sure that the engine is running while you’re holding onto the steering wheel Getting everyone to the promised land.

The founder should be in charge of innovation and business growth. Your job as the founder is to figure out ways this business can grow, so everyone who works for you gets paid. That’s your job.

Their job is to make sure they take care of the day today so you can focus on your job. In the early stage, you’ll feel the need to micromanage everything, but this keeps you away from the most important task you have, which is growth.

Every individual who moves into entrepreneurship has some traits they can use to their advantage. These are your strengths.

Identify them and put them to work Use them to get the biggest return on your time

Fail Fast and Adapt Quickly.

Be ready for things to not go according to plan. You are a novice at this, so you need to keep in mind that there are many things that you have yet to learn.

They’re going to be plenty of bumps in the road. But if you’re serious about this being your life, you need to keep going.

You need to rethink the way you look at failure and what failure actually is for us. Failure is not achieving our dream life. Everything else is just a part of the game.

Think about your journey as gathering data so you can make a more educated decision on the future. Eight out of 10 businesses fail in the 1st 18 months.

This is because one they hit a bump so big, they decided to call it quits. And two, they failed to adapt to their new found reality.

A great example is Nokia, for those of you don’t know the history of the brand. They used to be a rubber manufacturer before moving into technology. There, rubber factories were struggling, so they adapted to a newfound opportunity.

A few years later, they failed to adapt to the changing environment of the smartphone and almost bankrupted the company.

This giant that once dominated a space is now fighting for bread crumbs left by those willing to fail faster and adapt quicker.

Long Term Success Depends on Your Ability to Manage Your Resources.

Life is a lot like a strategy game. You have several resources at your disposal, your time, your willpower, your ability to work, maybe some money and some people you know, this is the hand you’ve been dealt. It’s time to make the most out of it.

Don’t complain about not having enough to begin with. Yes, there are other players. You’ve been dealt a better hand, but you have your own story line. You have your own journey, and your challenge is to make the most with the resources you have.

Many people undervalue time. Time is a resource We’ve all been dealt equally. You have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyonce’s or Elon Musk. It’s up to you to use them wisely.

The best players are those who are strategic with the way they make use of everything they have at their disposal. If you’re disciplined enough, you can get out of any hole and start building yourself a ladder towards the sky.

The Right Mentor is Worth 10 Years of Struggles.

They’ve walked the road you’re on right now. They know where the potholes are. They know what’s up ahead, and you’d be a fool not to leverage their knowledge in your journey. You need people who inspire you that have done the things you’re about to do.

Analyze them, study them, see what nuggets of gold you can extract from their experiences. If you are lucky enough, serious enough proved that you’re worthy enough.One of them might become your mentor.

Think of mentors like power ups. Things get so much easier when you have won.The mistake new entrepreneurs usually make is they try to get a mentor to early when they just have an idea.  Please remember the first two items on this list.

Talk is cheap and ideas are worthless without action, a good mentor will want to see the results First.

They’re not going to waste their own time and resources betting on a horse they’ve never seen run before. That’s why it’s important for you to get a bit of traction, to have some experience so they can see what they’re getting themselves into.

There are No Shortcuts to any Place Worth Going.

Don’t try to cheat the game because it’s hard were fascinated by people who jump from business to business from shiny thing too shiny thing because they’re looking to get rich quick, even if they settle on a business they never put in the work.

Instead, they spend most of their time looking for shortcuts for loopholes. Real value comes from building a solid foundation and laying brick next to brick until you put together your dream.

You can easily see this on social media. There are so many instagram profiles with millions of followers, which only get a few 100 likes and several comments per post.

People want the cake, but they’re not willing to learn the recipe and how to bake one when the others offer them a cardboard cutout of a cake

They take it because they don’t understand what a rial cake is. If you’re trying to cheat the game, you’re just cheating yourself.

Keeping Your Head Down and Grinding Is What Will Make or Break You.

The only thing you are in complete control over is yourself. It’s easy to see some initial results and let it get to your head.  There’s a difference between winning a battle and winning the war.

You should be playing the long game. Sure, celebrate your winds, but the next day it’s back in the trenches, day in and day out, until you have achieved the life you started all of this for.

We can’t stress enough how important self-discipline is, especially when you’re building your life. Success is the sum of small actions repeated every day for extended periods of time. That’s why you need to keep grinding, keep learning, stay humble and keep your eyes on that goal.

Sales Solve All of Your Problems.

Sales are the gas to your machinery. Without it, you’re just left with a pile of scrap metal. As a new entrepreneur, it’s easy to get sidetracked into marketing, branding, social media presence.

They all help, but that’s not what keeps the lights on. Your job is to bring money from the marketplace into your company and use it to grow.

Remember the saying money makes the world go round? Well, without it, your business isn’t going anywhere.

It’s shocking to us how many people leave the sales part out of their business for later. They have no idea how they’re going to make money or if people are actually willing to pay.

You need better equipment, get more sales. You need better marketing, get more sales. You need a better accountant, get more sales so you can afford one.

There are very few problems which sales cannot solve in a business, and that’s why getting paid should be your number one priority.

Raise Capital from Investors only When You Can’t Do it by Yourselves,

Mark Cuban has a great saying, and it goes something like this the first time you raise money. That’s the first time you lost because you were unable to do it organically.

We have a lot of acquaintances in the technology space, and they all celebrate their funding rounds like they won. What did you win?

You just gave away 40% of your company in exchange for a little bit of cash, which you would waste in less than 12 months.

Don’t get us wrong.

Having access to capital is amazing, but it’s not something that should be your main focus. We know entrepreneurs who spend more time trying to raise money than actually working on their product and business.

But instead, if you spend all your energy improving your product and getting sales, you wouldn’t need an investor taking a large chunk of your business or at least get a better valuation.

There are strategic moments when a business can no longer grow or survive without external capital, but this should not be something a new company is dealing with.

Do it yourself, figure it out, bootstrap and get creative it’ll teach you more about your business than anything else.

Business Without an Endgame Is Headed Nowhere.

Why are you building this? When do you know you’ve made it? What is the goal of the company? What are your personal goals related to this company?  Will this company be sold at some point?  Do you wish to maintain this as a company business?

These are all questions you should be able to answer even at day one of your business because it puts everything else into perspective.

All your actions you will take from this point forward should align with this goal. You need a game plan without it, you’re just going to be shooting in the dark. Businesses where the founder knows what the end game is ,Not only have a better shot at success, but evolve quicker.

It will take you less time to get to wherever it is. You’re going because you know what to measure for and focus all of your energy on checking off those boxes.

Now, these are just some of the things most aged entrepreneurs would have wanted to know when they were starting out.

If you’re planning on being a multi-millionaire or even a billionaire. These 15 should become a part of your mindset as much as your goal has

Don’t Worry About the Legal Part.

In the beginning, you’ll figure it out as you grow. Legal and finance are both important in the long run, but to be honest, you don’t need to worry about any of that at the beginning. Most people don’t start a business because they believe they have to go through so much paperwork that it’s better to just quit before even getting started.

You should try out your business idea first, experiment with it, see if you can get anyone interested enough to become a client of your product or service.

You should incorporate start, formal company only When things are getting serious or you want to play the game for real, think of your early days like a trial period where you get to experience what a business might look like without all the add on.

You’ll know when the business is ready for a complete package Hopefully, things will move fast for you and you’ll quickly understand why it is better to form a certain type of company versus another.