🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

Spend as much time on understanding the marketing and sales of your business early on. Marketing can generate demand, but you also have to be able to close the business that comes through the door. That can be investors, customers, or employees. Whatever it is, as a founder, you are selling your ideas, solutions, and vision. The reason why it is really important to get good at that it's just something that you have to do is you gotta get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Sales is usually uncomfortable for a lot of people.

If you have a passion, and you're super passionate about it, and you believe in yourself, don't allow anyone to ever minimize or diminish what you are trying to accomplish and what your overall goal is. Even though that partnership may end your passion and your drive, you will find yourself along the way. It took me five years to get to the point of just filming a documentary. But there will be so many people along the way that will doubt you and probably laugh at you that will say what you're currently doing is making you money why aren't you happy? But, if you believe in yourself and believe in what you are doing, don't allow anyone to take that away from you. Always keep going and push through that.

One, the biggest piece of advice is you are not alone. This is where I found myself after going there. So many entrepreneurs feel they carry this weight on them. I made myself alone, feeling I had to carry this weight so much that it made me contemplate my own life. Don't do that. You are surrounded by amazing individuals, especially in so many cities. When you find your tribe and, people reach out and connect. Don't feel like you have to do it alone because if you bring the right people in, it will really allow you to be; I always say we all rise up when we rise up together. Allow those people into your journey and know it's ok. You don't have to be the best at everything but understand your superpower. Truly when you are starting that company, ask the closest people to you.

Maybe not have the dream crusher in your life. But someone that is going to be real with you and honest about your idea. Not in a negative way but a good sounding board. Looking for that person in your life. I have been incredibly blessed. Because I have a couple of founders that I reached out to on LinkedIn and said: hey, you are where I want to be in the auto space. Can we chat? And they have been great. It's interesting because they are very diametrically opposed founders of companies in their philosophies of growth. But to be honest with you and say that's not a good idea, or that's a great idea and hears why. There are holes that we all have even as multi-time founders, there are things you miss. You have someone else just throw back at you. That would be my advice.

Depends on what problem you are solving. Before thinking about money or investors, what's the product you really want to solve? Make sure there is demand there. At the end of the day, we want to make sure the product is there and there's a market for it. Get that nailed down. Have everything researched and be prepared and, I think you will do well from there.

One of the things I have done consistently in my business and the last twenty years is I have always had a mastermind group. And so, I have always had buddies. These are people who are either at the same level as me or maybe one or two notches ahead of me in business. We meet regularly to support each other and to learn and grow from each other. It's a bit like Devin, you've done this. What did you do when you were faced with this challenge? Oh well, Lindsay, I did blah blah blah. So You can always bounce off these other people. You can say I am thinking of doing this. What do you recommend? Oh, Lindsay, don't that's a stupid idea. Why don't you try this instead? Having those people around me has really helped me learn and grow consistently over twenty years.

I'll advise that person to set really high standards for their team and keep it consistent. It's not the product that matters cause businesses and startups change their products and business model a lot and they experiment with that. But having a great team is key to success.

Rely on other people. Figure out what you are putting into your brain that is going to create the actions you are going to break. Surround yourself with good counsel. With people that you trust. With people that will give you good information. People who are not looking to try and profit from you, but people who are really looking who will build you up and support you. You need a village to make a business. You need individuals and, you have to rely on other people to help you. It's not a weakness. People think that it is a weakness to ask for help and, what I say to them is this the weakness is you are doing it and doing it wrong when you could have asked somebody to help you. That's the weakness. The weakness in asking is not a problem. It's only when you think that you know everything that's the weakness.

Just go out and do it with as minimum investment, both monetary and time, as possible. I think a lot of new entrepreneurs that I see are infatuated with starting the next Facebook. To do that, what they do is they build out this huge idea with all these different layers that they don't know anything about actually doing. But it all sounds great to them so, they pitch that to people. And people maybe like it, maybe don't but tell them it's cool. Then they go out and try to raise money and put together business presentations. I think being prepared can help and, I think raising money can help but, I am a huge advocate in just going out there and doing.

Stick with it. I mean, it is a two to four to five-year process. First of all, I would say today is the day to start a business. Tomorrow is not as good as today. The reason being; I know everybody stuff on their plate but, the older you get, the more responsibilities you have. You have a wife. You have kids. You have all these new responsibilities that are going to make it harder and harder to start a business. Thankfully I started the last company when I did not have a wife and kids. It allowed me to focus all my time, potentially too much time on the business. So I would say start immediately. Then I would say stick with it.