From the Kauffman Foundation’s Sketchbook – Three Things!

This week we are celebrating the 3rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Week, started by our hometown Kauffman Foundation.  With all the focus on generating great ideas and starting up businesses, I wanted to pass along some great advice from business owners and entrepreneurs who made their jump in the last few years.

Making that jump to start your own business takes a lot of guts and the more you can learn from those who have done it, the better off you’ll be. To that end, I did an informal interview with a few of my Peer Group Advisory Boards and asked them simply:

“What’s the best advice you would give someone who’s planning to start a business now?”

Here’s the summary of their responses in no particular order.

1. Enjoy the upside to owning your own business – you’re in charge and you get the freedom and control to do what you want to do. Additionally you have the opportunity to build something that’s all yours.
2. Building a business is complex and you aren’t going to be an expert in everything – don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way.
3. Find a mentor. Someone you can bounce ideas off of, who can help you get perspective and hold you accountable.
4. You’ve got to be flexible…the market will change and your understanding of the market and your business will change as well. Be prepared to adjust your course.
5. Do what you can to find multiple revenue streams, more ways to generate money. If you only have one product or service, it’s likely you’ll get stuck and it’s good to have something to fall back on.
6. Even though you’re in a hurry to get started, take the time up front to really plan things out. Your upfront costs and decisions can make or break you.  Take the time to make sure it’s money well spent.
7. Understand your financials and get accounting and payroll help as soon as you can afford it.
8. Have patience, things will take longer and cost more than you think
9. Make sure you have enough financial runway so you’re not panicked or have to shut down if things take longer than you expect to get off the ground.
10. Whatever business you’re in, you’re in the business of marketing first – if you can’t position and market your product / service effectively not much else matters.
11. Make it your focus to add value with every contact you have (clients, networking contacts, pretty much everyone).
12. Be clear on what you’re getting into when you start a business:  Long hours, challenges outside of your comfort zone and a lonely path. It’s a tough challenge (but worth it when you succeed).
13. Get comfortable with risk and uncertainty.  It will be a while before you can count on a regular paycheck (like possibly 12 to 18 months).
14. Make sure you’ve got family support and they’re excited about what you’re doing.
15. Build connections (real relationships) – networking and building the right win-win relationships is crucial to long term success.
16. Give yourself a clear go / no-go date to help you manage the bumps in the road. If you have a bad month early on, you still have time to recover because you haven’t hit your date yet.
17. Be clear on why you want to create your business…if you’re not excited about what you’re doing, no one else will be either.
18. Make sure you create and work off of a written business plan (can be as simple as a couple of pages, but a plan that covers where the money comes from and where it’s going).
19. Starting something isn’t easy and it isn’t quick – it takes hard work to succeed.
20. Have faith in yourself, when things get tough you have to push through.
21. Your business has a gestational age…despite your full commitment few will take you seriously until you’ve been around at least 9 months…sometimes much longer.
22. Read the E-Myth and be aware of your mix between Entrepreneur, Manager and Technician (and understand what that means).
23. Setup an advisory board for your business – people you trust who will tell you hard truths and encourage you.
24. Figure out if you have the disposition to be an entrepreneur. Look for clues in your past – if you’ve never taken ownership and pushed to make money independently it will be tough to succeed in your own business.
25. Passion trumps perfection, you can’t wait for it to be just right  you have to get out there and start making things happen.

There’s nothing as challenging or as rewarding as creating your own business. And a big part of that challenge is getting your new business off the ground. It’s not for the faint of heart, but the above advice can help you succeed in the critical first year.

What advice above resonates with you?  What’s the best advice you’ve heard for entrepreneurs?  (Or business owners in general?)  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

  photo by kimrose

In case you weren’t aware, this is Global Entrepreneurship Week, a celebration of all things entrepreneurial – sponsored in part by KC’s own Kauffman Foundation.  Here’s the official blurb on what it’s all about:

For one week (November 15-21), millions of young people around the world join a growing movement of entrepreneurial people, to generate new ideas and to seek better ways of doing things. Countries across six continents come together to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week, an initiative to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity. To think big. To turn their ideas into reality. To make their mark.

Primarily it’s intended to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit in young people, but in my opinion there’s a huge group of experienced workers who are thinking about or are ready to make that same leap into starting their own business.

Read More…

Do you have the make-up of a successful entrepreneur?  You might be surprised at what’s really important if you’re looking to create a long term business.

Brad Johnson of FranchiseSmartKC shared an interesting study in his latest newsletter on the traits that are shared by successful entrepreneurs.  The study was done by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute and was released back in June after they had interviewed over 1100 small business owners with the idea of identifying the traits that make up a success oriented small business owner.

Unfortunately there are no absolute roadmaps to success that would apply to everyone (no silver bullets), but this kind of study cangive you some directional ideas of things you should be thinking about.  Read on and let me know your thoughts.

Read More…

   photo by cloudsoup

Looking for business success?  Here’s some great advice:

- Stick to your strengths…do what you’re really good at.

- Work hard every single day.

- Find partners that get you and work closely with them.

- Be polite and give great service to your customers.

Now this isn’t just any great advice, this is backed up by some amazing statistics – you might have seen an earlier post on Why Businesses Fail with the kind of depressing statistic that more than half of all business start-ups fail within the first 5 years.

However there’s a group that lives by the advice above and their failure rate is about 5% after 5 years!

Read More…

What’s your engine like – you know, the engine on your business?

When you have an engine on your business – a big engine, one that can really crank up the RPMs, you are going to make some noise…and you’re going to create a wake!

With your engine really cranked up, there’s no telling how fast you can get moving and you’ll definitely build up a lot of momentum.  It’s true that you might run the risk of crashing into rocks but having that momentum, that speed, that control over the engine is also what enables you to safely steer the boat.

Think about businesses you might know that don’t have an engine (or don’t use it).  They float around – pushed by the currents, the wakes generated by other boats, even the wind moves them around.  In fact, without an engine, those boats really are at risk for running into the rocks – they don’t have any way to steer and they certainly can’t build up any momentum to run upstream at all!

What’s the engine like on your business?

Read More…