You've got to get some experience first. There are so few and far between of the Mark Zuckerberg or the Bill Gates that drop out and create something amazing. Most people have gone and got whether it's experience working in a start-up or experience working in a big corporate entity, that experience is invaluable. It also starts to build up your network, which also translates into those soft skills that you need to run a business.

So one of the first things we suggest for business owners that are starting to launch and grow is, at a minimum, start paying yourself a salary. That's equal to what you have to pay somebody else to do the job that you are doing. The first starter is to make sure the business is viable. If you had a CEO of a company, and what you need to pay them is 120,000 a year, and you can't pay yourself that, that becomes your first check that the business needs to grow and produce more cash flow.

Be ready to keep trying and keep reformulating. Even though master Yoda says there is no try, only do, it's going to feel like a lot of trying for a while unless you are extremely lucky and/or skilled. If you are not coming at this already from having the full skill set and the full finances and the full social relations that are just going to guarantee your success no matter what. If you come from any background where you have to struggle to make things happen mainly due to financing, then be ready to just keep hanging in there and keep feeling your dream and just trusting that you have a good product.

It's better to try than to talk about it. I have had so many ideas over the years that I never bothered to realize. They could have been great, ahead of their time. Who did not think of the iPhone, or this and that? Yes, everyone had similar things in their mind where they say: oh yeah, this could be great. The difference is always in the execution. So there has to be biased for action. Do it earlier. It does not have to be perfect but do it.

Go work with either Score or the SBA- The small business administration and let them guide you. A great resource that will save you from making tons of mistakes that I had to make starting out thinking you know everything. Go ahead and get some people to help you know it. They are here to assist you. I would say to go and use your resources.

It's just a sense of denial or not even a sense of denial. Being in denial about something very important to the business. And maybe as a founder or entrepreneur, you are not seeing clearly, So finding colleagues that can be brutally honest with you. Whether that's friends, family, business partners, or other partners, it's very important. I think you can kind of self realize every day, but that is a challenge. Having outside accountability is helpful. But constantly questioning yourself and being ok with that. Taking negative feedback or even critical feedback is really valuable and important.

One we are boot-strapped so we are trying to get the most out of every dollar that we can get in the business. For us, we are always trying to look at different ways to market, sell and attract leads. We do the things that we can get the most out of every dollar that we can. We started initially with a digital marketing campaign but our messaging was incorrect. We had to change that. We had to pivot. We had to stop that and come back and move forward. Now we have started putting together some of these sales and marketing items with the right messaging to attract customers. We are getting a great response. We are getting a lot of leads, a lot of meetings, and a lot of feedback. More usage of the product helps us improve what we are doing. It's moving in the right direction.

I would have to say cash. Make sure you really understand your runway. So you know where your money is spent. How long do you have? And aside from cash what is your personal runway? Because there is the money aspect and, there is your personal mental health being. Can I sustain these ups and downs for the next six months without a paycheck? Am I feeling depleted that I need to not be doing this or, I need to take a break? I think it's your personal runway and also your cash. Making sure you spend it wisely because cash is king. If you don't have enough money, you are going to be out and you are done.

When you ask for money, you get advice. When you ask for advice, you get money. When I was doing my research interviews reaching out to centers of influence I was only asking for advice. I was letting people share with me what their feedback was. Those conversations have led me to other connections where if I was reaching out to somebody and said, hey, I am going to be doing this virtual reality event startup and I want you to either invest in me or give me some money. That channels how the person your talking to thinks about their role in it.

The best piece of advice is around time. Time is a constant. You can't mess around with time. Leave it to Elon Musk and Bezos to mess with space. But still, no one can mess with time. With time it's either for you or against you. When you first start, it's really important that you don't want time to be against you. The thought is as a side hustle, nights and weekends you have a salary, you have your health insurance taken care of. But, as soon as you leave your job to focus on this hustle and the hustle is not to the point that it's paying your salary or paying for what you need then, time becomes against you. Be smart about when you make that decision to go full time with a project and how you want to approach it.