🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

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 connections. What is another hugely important piece.

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 that critical foundation that will actually prevent you or set you up for failure in the near future. So really lay out your plan. I will ask people all the time do they have a business plan? They will say no, it's too cumbersome. I will say no, tell me where you are starting. what are you paying yourself? What is success for you? Is it revenue? Is it profit? What's that number? And How are you getting there? What are the goals you're going to hit? So keeping it simple and then trying to stay focused and hit on that track so you don't get super distracted and head in the wrong direction.

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.

Do your homework. Do your home and be realistic. It's not for everybody. Do your homework. Contact these places and talk to people and make sure you understand what's going on. Make sure you understand everything that's out there because there is a lot going on. You can not go into it blindly. You have to do your due diligence.

I guess it depends on what type of small business or start-up they want to start. If they are not sure what they want to do, I personally recommend starting an online business. It is so much cheaper than a brick-and-mortar or retail type of store. Even if they are selling products where they think they might need a store, I still recommend starting online. The overhead is hardly anything. I run all my businesses for under a hundred. I think it is actually sixty a month now.

You have to be confident enough to not be the smartest person in the room. I think there's this societal pressure to be the smartest person in the room. Some of that imposter syndrome like hey, if I've got a lot of smart people around me, I am not going to be able to lead them. Or it will get out that I am not actually as qualified as I think I am. At the end of the day, I really don't think I am the smartest person in the room most of the time. Definitely not the most qualified. But I am able to get in there and build relationships and especially learn from the expertise around me.

Definitely document. Whether it's keeping a schedule for your project and documenting the tasks that you are completing. Or keeping a tracker of the life cycle of your contracts. Whatever it is, spend that little bit of extra time to document the work you are doing. The completion of these tasks. Because in the end, that is going to save you so much effort, time, and money. It's all going to be huge savings and saving the frustration I would say.

Take the first step. If you don't take this step, you will just keep thinking shoulda, woulda, all those kinds of things. I think you have to take the first step but, at the same time after that, you have to be very flexible. You also have to be very persistent. Don't give up. And just keep meandering through because it's a rollercoaster ride. One day you'll feel high. The next day was low cause you were expecting customers to sign up, and they don't sign up. You were expecting investors to invest and, they don't invest, all things like that.

It's called aloha leadership. Aloha, as most folks know, is a way of saying hello. What I learned is that it's a lot more loving. It's a loving way of saying hi. It is a welcoming feeling and vibe. They have always taught us that it's that kind of leadership that actually makes things happen. As an entrepreneur and leader in whatever industry and field. Any artist, creator, entrepreneur, you need that kind of leadership. Because if not, you are going to fail. It does not work any other way. If you don't care about the people that are working for you, they are going to leave. If you don't care about the people working with you, why would they work with you in the first place?

There are two of them. Make sure you've got money, number one. Everybody knows that. But secondly, I think that an example that I can share from what I just shared with dropping the ball and all those opportunities is to remain humble.