If you’re starting as an entrepreneur to get some quick money and so you don’t have to have a job, I can’t help you.
However, if you want to be an entrepreneur because you believe there are essential things to be done for the world, then you are going to need help.
A group of people did every great thing in the world. Don’t believe all those Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, and Michael Jordan stories of solo-success. We all need help to accomplish what we want. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle.
Don’t underestimate the importance of other people around you to pick you up, give you different perspectives, allow you to focus on your strengths, and fill the gaps that you are missing.
To register a public limited company, you need a minimum of 7 shareholders, and in a private limited company, a minimum of 2 shareholders required.
Working with others is part of life, so you might as well start now:
Get to know your business partners. Don’t rush into picking who you are going to work with (and don’t pick friends just because you feel closer to them).
Don’t obsess about the skills you don’t have; focus more on finding people that are ready to fight with you when things get tough. Good teams are not about matching abilities (you can find all that easily). Prioritise those who have the same fire that you have. Work with those that you know share your mission and passion for seeing it become a reality.
Make sure everyone has their part in the game. Make sure everyone has something to gain and something to lose. Aligning interests is the only way to build trust, the most crucial factor in a good team. Trust is what has to be there so you can pull each other’s hair out and know that you’re both doing it for each other’s benefit.
Tactics, information, skills, money… that’s all easy to find.
The emotional struggles, the lack of clarity, the fear and uncertainty… that’s the hard part. That’s where everyone needs help.
Forget about being an entrepreneur so you can “call the shots” or be “location independent”. Real entrepreneurship is about commitment to your mission and your partners.
If I could give just one single advice, it would probably sound like this:
“Don’t just blindly follow the entrepreneurship hype. Be true to yourself and try to figure out what you want to be/achieve in life. Do you want to be an entrepreneur?”
Most of the times becoming an entrepreneur is incompatible with the things we want to achieve in life. Most of us want a relaxed and chilled experience, not too much to worry about and enough cash to do what we want to do.
If escaping the 9 to 5 treadmill and having a relaxed lifestyle is your goal, becoming an entrepreneur is probably the worst decision you could ever take.
If you’re not 150% committed to your idea, your venture, your project, your product or HECK even becoming an entrepreneur at all, it will kill you over time.
You need to prioritise focus on these three key aspects to turn your private limited company into a successful venture.
Number 1: If you value your time, stop trying to increase your customers
I know this probably flies in the face of what we’re told about the Cost of Sales and Marginal Profit, but if you don’t believe me, sit down and look at your numbers.
Pareto’s 80/20 principle states that 20% of your customers will bring in 80% of the revenue, so what that means is that bringing in more customers will lead to diminishing returns.
And as you begin on your journey, you’ll see this as well — in various ways.
Just after registering a trademark online, not to make any hassle and instead of trying to increase your customers, make your product or service more attractive to your current customers, so that they will order more, and order more frequently. That’s the real “secret”!
Number 2: Being a very busy person, does not make you important
It means that you’re terrible at handling your affairs.
Tim Ferris said something quite profound once, and it went something like, “Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”
Being time-consuming does not make whatever you’re trying to do necessary.
Number 3: Get over it
This one takes a bit of practice, but you have to learn to do it as often as possible or else your brand new business might leave you stuck in a cycle of consequences from bad decisions made a long time ago.
If you fail at something, don’t live in that failure for longer than 5 minutes. Hating to be wrong is the devil. Don’t let the devil take you out.
Unless your job is the weatherman, being wrong isn’t wrong. Don’t hate it.
Your pride is super cheap, so get rid of it and replace it with a sense of humour.
