Inside The Entrepreneur’s Head (Part 2: The Elements)

I’ve learned through my experience, by observing my family’s experiences and through working with our clients, that there are five must-have elements for success as an entrepreneur. There are other variables that play into your success or failure, but I can guarantee that these are absolute necessities:

1. Willingness to sacrifice your social life. There is no way around the fact that starting your own business requires putting in grunt hours. I don’t care if you’re starting a technology company, restaurant or retail store, it’s going to require hard work to see your business get off the ground. If you don’t like working your tail off….don’t quit your day job. You can’t win with hard work alone, but you will certainly fail without it.
2. Compatible Partnership. Don’t go into business with family or close personal friends. You may develop a great friendship with your partner/partners, but I don’t recommend starting a business with a close friend or family member. Personal relationships lead to clouded judgment. Often times, decisions are made thinking about the personal relationship instead of what is best for the business. Not to mention, I’ve seen the end of friendships and the severing of family ties due to business. Keep your friends as friends and your family as family. Establish business partnerships with people you respect and who have complimentary skill sets to you. Look at me and Daniel: we have different strengths and weaknesses which make us a very good team. We often look at things from different perspectives, but we trust each other’s judgment. We are good friends now, but we first evaluated each other objectively as partners. Being business partners first allowed us to enter into a partnership without any previous personal experiences clouding our perception or judgment.
3. Thorough and objective evaluation of your business plan. If you’re giving yourself the hard sell, you’re screwed. It’s easy to tilt all of the numbers in your favor, ignore constructive criticism and exaggerate the potential of an idea. Doing this is a recipe for disaster. Don’t lie to yourself because you’re just delaying the inevitable. It’s fine to ignore cynicism if the numbers back up your plan, but if everyone you speak with is doubtful, the numbers don’t add up and you catch yourself exaggerating the potential, it’s time to seriously reconsider your business plan. Being objective will save you money, time and give you the opportunity to adjust and conquer with a better plan.
4. A solid product with a clear brand position. Are you the cheapest, are you the best, are you the most innovative, do you have a niche market, etc? You must have a product that provides something of benefit to the user and you must be able to clearly define the user. Your business will most likely twist and turn through countless changes, but you need to launch with a clear vision of your product position and target consumer. Otherwise, you’ll waste lots of time and money trying to market to everyone and not land anyone. Example: Harvest offers brand development, web development and point-of-sale design services to established businesses. We work with startups and small companies, but we clearly know our target consumer is established corporations who understand the value in the product we provide and the efficient manor in which we provide it to them.
5. Quality people. If you want your business to grow you’re eventually going to have to hire people. The importance of employees can’t be understated. Do what it takes to find and keep talented employees. Find people with exceptional talent and put them in a position to succeed. If for some reason an employee doesn’t fit in your organization, let them go and start searching for someone who does fit. The longer you carry extra weight, the further you’re going to get behind.

Again, these five elements aren’t everything you need to know, but they’re a good start.

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