Things you must know before you start a business

Those Things No One Tells You Before You Start a Business
BY JESSICA STILLMAN

One brave founder shares the things she'd wished she'd known before starting up 

START UP

 

Sometimes the best gift others can give us is their mistakes and misconceptions.

 We're all hesitant to share our screw-ups and embarrassing moments,

 but if we can bring ourselves to be honest about what we failed to understand,

 we can help others avoid those pitfalls (though only, of course, to encounter a

 few unique ones of their own).

It's this willingness to share the less than spectacular aspects of starting up that

 sets a new post by entrepreneur Stephanie St.Claire apart. The super entertaining

 style in which it's written definitely recommends it too. In the Medium post

 she offers an unvarnished picture of the hurdles she faced starting her business

 and shares the things she didn't know at the outset but wishes someone had told her.

 The honest and funny post is worth a complete read, but here's a sampling

 of what St. Claire has learned.

1. You'll only spend 15% of your time doing what you love.

Starting a business because you love baking cupcakes or helping clients

 solve problems? Brace yourself, most of your day will not be spent

 doing those things.

"You will spend 15% of the time doing what you love

 (your gift... in my case coaching and writing) and 85% of the

 time marketing, administrating, selling, strategizing your business, and answering

 a sh**load of email. Survival will totally hinge on how quickly you adopt this role

 of Business Owner first, creator of pretty things, second," she writes, adding

 that "this sucked for me because I wanted nothing to do with running a business."

2. It won't happen faster for you than for everyone else. 

No matter how special you think you are, you won't beat the usual time frame for 

starting a business. "I was confident I could do it in six months. I believed with every

 fiber of my glittery, go-gettin' heart that my work ethic (15-hour days/7 days a week),

 along with my talent, skills, and personal magic, I could rip a path to accelerated 

success because also, this was A Leap of Faith and I was Living in My Divine

 Authenticity and that was worth some express lane juju points from Heaven," 

St. Claire confesses. The reality: nope, it took just as long for her as for 

everybody’s else.

3. You'll probably run out of money at some point. 

Yes, even if you are prepared sensibly, have a loan, or secure investment.

 "Running out of money is a common part of the journey. You won't expect it, 

because you prepared for the long haul," she writes, "but then all of the sudden, midst the puffy clouds and blue skies, your little twin engine Entreprenairplane will sputter, 

the needle on the gas gauge unexpectedly plummeting to zero, and you will have 

only one choice... land your plane on the wild, abandoned air strip called

 Bank Balance: Fourteen Dollars."

But fret not. It is possible to get through this experience and come out the 

other side much stronger for it, St. Claire insists: "This is a rite of passage 

that will launch you into the League of Business Badassery in which, once 

you are out of the money hellhole, you will be unstoppable," thanks to having

 confronted your fears and stuck to your dreams.

4. You will be your biggest challenge.

Sure, as we just discussed, cash flow is hard and so are things like acquiring 

customers and hiring, but not as hard as facing your own self-doubt, according to

 St. Claire. "The biggest challenge you will deal with in running a business is your 

own resistance. Period, end of story," she declares before recommending prospective

 entrepreneurs pick up a copy of Steven Pressfield's Do the Work to help them deal 

with this reality.

5. Marketing isn't optional. 

Not entirely comfortable with self-promotion? Tough, says St. Claire. There's no

 way to make it without marketing. None at all. "This was my biggest weakness

 when I started because I thought marketing = slimy sales letters with big arrows 

and opt-in boxes and I couldn't! I wouldn't! So I put my head in magical fairyland 

sand, stubbornly insisting that my customers would be tractor-beamed into my budding

 practice," she writes, "And then I ate canned food and spaghetti for a long, long time."

To avoid getting overly familiar with Chef Boyardee yourself, she recommends that you

 "learn what way you like to market and stick to that and do it consistently and often. 

Even if you hire a pro, you will be doing some marketing yourself. Keeping your

 website fresh and current is essential in your marketing, so learn how to work 

Word Press and learn some HTML code."

10 Startup lesson you won't learn in school

10 Startup Lessons You Won't Learn in School

BY JEFF HADEN  

Sooner or later, every entrepreneur learns a few of the same things.

 

It's incredibly tough to get accepted to a top business school. But that's okay, since the best startup school is the School of Hard Knocks, the institution where every applicant gets accepted (and no one ever truly graduates because there are always more lessons to be learned.)

Here are ten lessons Danielle Newnham learned from interviewing dozens of tech entrepreneurs for her book,Mad Men of Mobile:

1. Tell everyone about your idea. Entrepreneurs are notoriously paranoid. You may think that talking about your business idea on social networks will result in your competitors stealing your idea, but that won't happen. Work on something that isn't easy to replicate and ensure you have the right team to build it. Value is in the execution, not the idea.

2. Ignore advice. The number of people who talk about starting a business far outweighs the number who actually start a business. That's because somewhere along the line they get their high energy optimism knocked out of them by a so-called reality check from well-meaning friends, family and colleagues: "You're too young/old," "You have no experience," "You have no capital..."

The truth is no one understands your business or drive better than you. Go with your gut. Trust your instinct and start something.

You'll soon find out whether your business is viable.

3. Go with an early launch date. There is nothing that gets a team working better or harder than facing an urgent deadline. If you have too long to prepare your product you will find endless reasons to delay getting it out there. No product is perfect, but every product can be refined with time and use and feedback.

4. Choose co-founders the way you would choose a spouse. The reality is that you will, at least in the early days, spend far more time with your co-founders than your partner--which is probably why such a high number of entrepreneurs end up divorced (here's to keep that from happening to you.) Ensure you pick co-founders who not only complement your skills, experience, andpersonality but who you will also enjoy spending huge amounts of time with.

A great founding team is the single most important factor in ensuring your business succeeds. It will take all your team has in order to get there.

5. Be annoying. The key ingredient to making any business work is loving it so passionately that it consumes your every breathing moment. You will talk about it all day and dream about making it better at night. Nothing else will matter. It's that annoyingly determined drive that will get through the tough times, of which there will be plenty.

Chris Barton, co-founder of Shazam, sums it up well when he says, "The number one determinant of entrepreneurial success is persistence. If you are not prepared to go to super human levels that are beyond rationality to realize your dream, then your chance of finding success is virtually zero."

6. It's not about the money. Of all the entrepreneurs I have met, not one built their company in order to sell it. That doesn't mean they didn't sell; selling just wasn't their goal. If your eyes are on the exit you will never find it. Build the kind of company where you would be happy to work for many years to come. In the process you will build a team of loyal and passionate team players that will help you achieve success because they will all be on your side, rooting for you.

7. Don't simply hire the smartest kid in the room. Recruiting is one of the most difficult, time consuming and costly parts of running a startup. What you need is a team of entrepreneur-like minds who will work with you to achieve your vision, even if it means working long hours for less pay.

While you might think you need the genius that graduated top of her class, you actually need the kid who has an abnormal amount of drive, is willing to take risks, and has a hunger to help you succeed--so they can too.

8. Every employee is replaceable. You need to be able to do the job of every member of staff. You should know every aspect of what is required to run your business. Never be left vulnerable if the finance guy decides to jack it in, or your co-founder has a hissy fit and decides to walk out one day.

Start your business by doing every job yourself. It's the only way to learn what you need and who will then be best able to do it for you.

9. Failure is good. American culture is far better at embracing failure compared to Europe, where a business going under is seen as an embarrassment. The fact is that if you try you will sometimes fail. It's the nature of the beast. However, if you never try, you will undoubtedly kick yourself when you see your company built by someone else. In order to succeed, you should make mistakes--failing is a great way to learn how to succeed.

10. You only get one chance. Most entrepreneurs find that building a great business takes an extraordinary amount of skill and team effort, and finding the right ingredients again isn't always possible.

Of course there are some who seem to get it right time and time again, but still, make sure you enjoy the startup journey. Take time out once in a while to smile at the company you built from nothing but an idea.

Leaders have to have friendly out look

Carlos Brito: "You Have to Treat People in Different Ways"

Anheuser-Busch CEO says a people-friendly company is a successful company.

Carlos Brito is the man who engineered the surprise 2008 buyout of Anheuser-Busch and its iconic American brands and brought them under the umbrella of Brazil’s InBev. A Stanford MBA, the Brazilian-born Brito worked for Shell Oil and Daimler-Benz before joining Brahma, a beer and soft drinks company. Over the years, Brahma merged with other companies in Brazil and Brito’s career grew with it. He became CEO of InBev in late 2005 and CEO of the combined Anheuser-Busch InBev following the merger.

It’s almost a cliché to say that “people are the most important factor in a company.” Brito says that too, but he’s no pushover; he has a reputation as a tough-minded cost-cutter who does not sugarcoat bad news or a deficient performance. Addressing Stanford Graduate School of Business students at a View from the Top talk in November 2013, Brito outlined his formula for making a people-friendly company a successful company.

Be fair

Being fair to your employees doesn’t mean that everyone should be treated alike, says Brito. “Our definition of fairness is that you have to treat different people in different ways. That’s being fair. If you treat everybody the same, that’s unfair.” A business should be a meritocracy, and if that means sharp, young employees outperform their seniors, they will be promoted at Anheuser-Busch InBev. “That’s fair,” he says.

Be informal

Informality, says Brito, goes beyond casual Fridays and wearing jeans to work. It’s about creating structures that facilitate communication across traditional corporate boundaries. Instead of working in his own office, Brito sits at a large table with his direct reports close at hand. Other Anheuser-Busch executives follow suit. Why configure offices that way? “Because information flows. People can speak up. You don’t need to be booking meetings all the time,” says Brito.

Be candid

It’s not always easy to be straightforward with an employee, but talented people want to know where they stand, says Brito. At Anheuser-Busch InBev, Brito evaluates his employees twice a year, and in the same one-on-one, 90-minute meetings they evaluate him. Hesitating to tell an employee how to improve is a mistake; what’s more, it’s patronizing. “You have to tell what’s good, what’s bad, and how you can help him recover and get back on track.” That’s candor, he says.

Build a culture of ownership

Professionals are just trying to build their resume; owners are trying to build the company. For example, a U.S. company Anheuser-Busch InBev acquired had a three-year vesting period. “We said, ‘Forget it.’ That’s short term.” Brito increased the vesting period by two years. “If they’re going to be here for 30 years, what’s five years?” says Brito.

Reward success, not just strong efforts

Business is not a place where everyone gets a gold star just for showing up. Efforts should be recognized, but results are what should be rewarded. Normally, great results come with great efforts but the two are not necessarily the same, says Brito. Customers are only interested in what you deliver. Some companies that don’t produce high-quality results still pay bonuses; they still celebrate. “And that’s the beginning of the end,” he says.

Avoid executive status symbols

Brito flies commercial and stays in the same hotels his team stays at. He doesn’t have a company car or a driver or an office. Status symbols destroy the idea of an engaged group, he says.

Don’t sugarcoat bad news

No company really has a “feel good department,” but for Brito it’s a metaphor for reluctance to confront bad news openly and honestly. Some companies will take bad news and rebrand it as good news for the sake of morale. If a company has a “feel good department,” he says, kill it.