🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

When you are starting a company, you don't need to decide what you are going to be you should actually focus on what is really going to sell and, can you really add value? In the process, can you learn? It's obvious that you have dreams and aspirations. If they are very big, such as wanting to create a very large company, then focus on finding something very unique that you are going to do. If you...

If you can get a CRM and set that up and then use that to build out send email marketing. That gets further down the road. Start to collect data on each person you are working with. Use that to further conversations and start to realize how you can plant those seeds. Whether they enjoy a local coffee shop or they are a huge foodie. They love an NFL team. Find things that they enjoy and use that da...

Having a really solid business plan and knowing your competition. Doing a competitive analysis. Figuring out every business model. Having strong advisors and having a good team. Those are all really helpful. It's not just an idea; it has to be well thought of before you actually go and spend years and hours of your life in it.

Set up an advisory board of people that you can talk to along the way immediately. Two days after you start your business. In fact, you should probably, before you start your business, get one or two people that you can really trust and run some of your ideas by them. Not that you're going to listen to everything they have to say but having people around you with diverse backgrounds and experience...

Education and research are always key. If there is something you want to learn more of or get on, double down your efforts on the understanding of what it is you are trying to do. I always say that is the best way. Sometimes the right information can be a game-changer. It's out there and, it's about locating it. It's about getting it into your hands and minds to use outwardly. That could be a ment...

I think being a ravenous reader is great. I think that you know I've learned a lot from books on how to build a business, culture, and whatnots. I think really reading a lot, especially about a particular start-up. Or if you are starting up just from people that are in your industry is important. The same part is really putting yourself out there to reach out to people that are in your industry. O...

Invest in yourself. Invest in yourself, whether that is reading a stupid amount of books or hiring a coach. Bring in someone to help and encourage you. This can go along with that last one. Know that you are worth it. You have the ability to do this but there are so many things that you probably don't know. Take some of your funds or set aside some of your funds and invest in yourself.

Get really clear on what it is that you want. I'm in the position now where I work with hundreds of business owners. Most of them have gotten lost on the journey and forgotten why they started in the first place. The truth is that we usually tend to overcomplicate what we are doing. We usually tend to add on more than we want and make it more expensive than it needs to be. If you really get in tou...

That's kind of my struggle. What to do? Whether to stay with my current lifestyle which, I really like. Coaching businesses and maybe writing books and tinkering with things. Or I should switch gears and try to go for it. I am always thinking of Ray Kroc. I think he was 53-54 when he started McDonald's. So maybe it's not too late for me to do this if I really want to. Try to make a huge impact wit...

Get a mentor who already has a lot of experience. When I joined Polar, for example, I got a lot of support and trust from one of the co-founders. I got promoted very fast to a very big position. The thing I learned the most is and would recommend to anyone is to learn a lot and in the best way possible to just get a mentor a see how he or she works.

Think about distribution. Think about who also speaks to my audience and how could I potentially partner with them? How can I find a win-win-win solution for the potential customers, the partner, and myself? Distribution is the shortcut to business growth. For us, we really did not do too much marketing at all. We focused on distribution which got us our early customers and still several customers...

Start small. Be methodical with your purchases. You might think you need XYZ to do your job. How can you go about doing that with what you have? Let's say it's a small business that once to start doing website design. You don't need adobe creative suite. You don't need this five hundred dollar a month piece of equipment to do stuff. How can you figure out how to do it with a text editor? How can y...

Find someone who you admire if you can and, have that person be a guide for you.

Disappointing my customers. So If we get it wrong with our store customers, the ramifications of that are big. Getting it wrong for them can be you, know, it stems from inventory. Do we have the right inventory? Did the inventory come in correctly? We are offshoring so, we don't get to inspect the line and see how things are coming off. We receive it; We pay for it; We put it out there; Yes, there...

Building a little bit of a relationship is always a great thing there as well because you are going to be in the deal with investors for a period of time. They know that too so, they are looking to check you out and, you are looking to check them out. The key is you have to demonstrate the growth story. Step one, you must have a growth story. Step two, you must be able to tell it or articulate it.

Do your research and do it to a level. If you are going to bootstrap anything, you can bootstrap this. Or, if you work in a place that has access to research databases like law firms or consulting firms, you can get this information for free. You need to develop your idea before you even bother stepping out and talking to people about it. Research it to a level where you believe in the idea more t...

I surrounded myself with around six people who I call personal board of advisers. They were basically people who expected nothing from me. They were getting no financial gain for spending time with me. They just wanted me to be successful. Each of them brought to the table a different set of experiences and often compensated for skill sets I did not have or I was developing. I spent time rotating...

Did you know that 50% of companies that raise series A never raise capital again. So if I just focus on that short period of a company which could be a couple of years. There's an enormous amount of complexity. There's a lot of things that go wrong and, there's a lot of things that have to go right. If you are not passionate about that problem you are trying to solve and the solution you are bring...

I think the piece of advice I would give to aspiring entrepreneurs here is basically, build something small, simple real right now. Get it out the door, deliver it and then iterate on top of it. It doesn't need to be perfect now. It won't be perfect ever, in my opinion. Being able to get something out the door quickly to validate that idea is a lot more important than spending hours and hours maki...

It's worth making the investment in people that are really good at their job. You focus on what you are really good at and your expertise. Hire those attorneys, HR professionals, the marketers, whatever holes that you have. Make the investment on the front end because it's going to actually save you time and money down the road vs. you trying to figure it out on your own.

Refine the product. Always work on refining the product, making the product or service the best version of its self. Ultimately that is what's going to bring people through the door and get people interested. Have people wanting to invest or having people buy out your company.

Make sure you love it even when you hate it. I think the thing I often say about starting a company is it's pretty much the hardest thing a person can do. You don't even know if one in a million people has an easy time of it. I think you are completely right. Every single division is so difficult. I think the people I see that aren't successful are people that just think that it is going to be an...

Three things you need essentially. You can get along with one of them barely. If you have two things, it's good. If you have all three, that is great. One thing is you can be an expert. If you are an expert in the field, that's already a great start. You could have the money. If you have a bunch of money, that's already a great start as well. You can buy the expertise. Or you can have the right co...

Clearly having a business plan. And it does not have to be twenty-seven pages long but knowing where you are going to start and some goals or metrics you are going to hit. Even things like what you are going to pay yourself. Try to predict the next twelve months and check some of those things off as you go. If you miss step three or you are missing a third goal, make sure that it is not part of th...

What I mean by getting educated is, know who you can rely on to help you with jump-start the business. But also get better educated around the premise of your idea.