The start of your entrepreneurial adventure is often the most challenging part. Not that the rest is easy, but when all you have an idea, you have everything on your plate. To survive the starting ordeal, you’ll need to know as much as you can. Below, Victor Mitchell, successful businessman and life-long entrepreneur sheds light on a few of the best practices you can use to bring your idea to life:
1. Work with an Advertising Agency
Discovery and marketing are often the most difficult parts of making a successful startup, making it a good idea to offload that work to someone else. Working with an advertising agency can be expensive, but it does give you something valuable in exchange – time. Designing and running a marketing campaign yourself comes with tremendous opportunity costs, so hire a great team instead.
There are a few things to remember when working with an agency. Make sure to develop a strong relationship with them. Get to know the people working with you, and stay in constant communication with them. Your startup will run fast and furious. Plans will change, so make sure you and the agency remain on the same page.
2. Get Things Done
There is a difference between being busy and being productive. Both eat your time and energy, but only the latter has something good come out of it. It’s surprisingly easy to get stuck on busywork, considering how much will be on your plate. You must learn how much time to dedicate to specific tasks, and often that comes down to “good enough.”
“Good enough” are not words you’ll want used to describe your startup, but it is what will get you away from menial tasks. There’s always more to do; the secret is being able to let go of smaller tasks when they’re done well enough so you can focus on more impactful efforts. Once you’ve got that down, you’ll start to see returns on your time investment.
3. Be Wary of Negativity
There’s room in your startup for criticism. Hearing positive things all the time won’t help you become a better entrepreneur, but there is such a thing as taking something too far. That’s when people are negative.
These people are fond of finding problems for every solution put forth. To them, nothing is going to succeed, and they’ve made it their mission to make everyone believe that. These people are not worth your time, and they have no room in your startup.
4. Go with the Best People You Can Find
As a startup and an entrepreneur, you’re not likely to get the cream of the crop. Job security is low, stress is high at a new company, and people know that. Most great employees won’t go for your job offer. However, that doesn’t mean you should settle for anyone that walks into an interview. You still need as strong a team as possible.
Use what reputation you have to generate buzz for your company. The more exciting it is, the more candidates you’ll attract. “Focus on getting people with the right skills who fit your envisioned company culture. Don’t forget to tap into the networks of you and your employees to find more talent,” stated Victor Mitchell.
5. Learn to Identify Important Tasks
You’re going to have a lot on your plate as an entrepreneur, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to deal with them all. To get everything done, you’ll need to delegate and prioritize. Focus on doing important tasks and delegating the rest, and you’ll get through that list.
That also goes for opportunities. Not all things that you’ll come across are worth your time. If it’s not exciting or if it doesn’t offer enough, say no.
6. Learn to Take Breaks and Vacations
Startups are exciting adventures that can lead you toward financial independence and wealth. However, they’re also stressful and time-consuming. It doesn’t matter how excited or passionate you are. If you don’t take breaks or vacations, you will eventually burn out.
Except in particularly urgent situations, you should make sure to get enough rest and sleep. That might feel counterintuitive, especially considering the amount of competition present regardless of industry, but losing sleep and rest will cost you more down the line. You’ll get sick easier, you’ll have memory problems, and you might even become depressed.
Transitioning from a mere idea to an actual startup can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. All you need to do is to approach it correctly. Do so, and you’ll be an entrepreneur in no time.
About Victor Mitchell:
Victor Mitchell is the founder and CEO of Lead Funding, a specialty lending organization that provides innovative private financing solutions for homebuilders and developers, reducing their red tape and speeding up loan decisions.
Victor Mitchell around the web:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%40_VictorMitchell+
https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-mitchell-17b20910a/
https://www.crunchbase.com/person/victor-mitchell
https://gazette.com/news/after-trump-republican-victor-mitchell-calls-out-walker-stapleton-too/article_6cd15318-a71f-11e8-badc-ebb7bfbf712f.html
https://votesmart.org/candidate/biography/66275/victor-mitchell#.XE498M9KjfY
https://ballotpedia.org/Victor_Mitchell
http://www.castlepinesconnection.com/news-2017/meet-victor-mitchell-entrepreneur-family-man-and-political-candidate