🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

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 is quality control but, the size and labeling can have mistakes, and if you don't catch it till it's in a store, that ruins relationships. Disappointing my store customers is probably the biggest deal. That's what I worry about the most.

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 than you believe in yourself.

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 through them and talking to them. Grabbing coffee with them regularly and shared openly where I was at. I would recommend this is one of the most powerful tools that entrepreneurs and people who are joining startups can leverage to really help steer the success of their business and the success of their careers. It's one that I learned so much later in my career than I wish I did. I would just recommend leveraging this powerful tool of boards of advisers.

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 bringing to market to solve that problem then, you will never make it to series A.

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 making it perfect and potentially never launching it.

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 easy pass to be a millionaire. It is not that. There are much easier paths to be a millionaire if you have some patience. If you want something that is going to let you make a mark on the world. And something that is going to respond and give you back what you put into it. That's what a start-up is. It is brutal. Make no mistake; however hard you think it is, it's going to be harder.