🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

Start do and go for it. People are very I would stay informationally driven. They are reading, and writing blogs, watching videos but, they never are action takers. I would rather people go for it and learn from their mistakes. At least you won't live with regret.

So I really think the idea is to understand your financials more than anything. I think that is going to be the key. When you start talking to people who are going to want to back you, they are going to want to know that you know what you are talking about. It's great to know your idea. It's great that you have a passion for your idea but, if you don't understand the long-term effects of what you're doing. If you don't understand the business that you are in. If you don't understand those basic ideas, then no one is going to want to provide you with money cause they are not going to trust you with it.

Number one is to pick up the phone and have a consultation with an attorney. Most attorneys, including my firm, probably yours too, will have an initial consultation of a certain duration at no cost to the client. To kinda walk them through and ask the right questions and see if a further consultation or services and warrant. A lot of people have the I can do it myself mentality and, that's good up to a point when you actually figure out you don't know what you don't know. I tell everybody if you are preparing your taxes that's not a time to do it yourself and tell your CPA later what you did. You should be consulting with a CPA in that early decision.

Don't give up. No matter how hard it gets and how many lows you have, just get back up, ignore everyone else and keep going. Do not give up ever. No matter what, don't give up.

For me and, I think for most people is understanding who you are, understanding your personality. Understanding what type of things you are going to fit well with. Some people just grind through it. It does not matter what it is they; are just going to outwork and fix it that way. And for me that is torture. I can't imagine just pushing. I don't enjoy that. I am much more of the work smarter, not harder mindset. So really understanding who you are and what fits you well.

People have million-dollar ideas every day. If you don't have the experience, or networking, or the know-how to get it started and up off the ground or maybe even motivation. There are so many times that people have these million-dollar ideas that, I think, it's really valuable to write those down. Then maybe nine months later when your friend texts you and says: hey there are desks for sale or whatever it might be, you can get those off the ground and get running. I think there is a lot of value in not forgetting what some of your ideas are when you are motivated and inspired.

Commit. Commit to what your goals are. Commit to what your visions are. Then find the right partners. Find your right co-founder. Find the right resources because it is very hard to build something alone compared to with a team. I think the chances of success and the timeline gets much shorter when you have a co-founder and a team that complements the skills that you have. That is the number one piece of advice I would give.

Just listening really well. We have an internal rule that if you hear something three times from three different people, three different conversations should peak your interest cause now that not just someone's wants or desire. That might actually become an industry-wide need.

My team and I recently discovered, as a few months ago, called Notion.so. If you are looking for a creative, quick way to store and capture your processes, look into that tool. It is basically a wiki that, unlike Dropbox or google drive. Yes, you can document all of these things. But what I find is you are using some of these platforms, even SharePoint or again google drive, Evernote, tools like that. They're great because it is stored in the cloud. Notion is also a cloud-based app but, it gives you the benefit of being able to see everything. And not have information hidden in folders, and you can quickly search for things.

Be sure of yourself and reframe your thinking to where it's not trial and error but, it's trial and inevitable success. Once you have your focus on what you are doing and your goal for your business or start-up, that conviction will allow you to see whatever error or mistake you make along the road as a lesson to be learned towards that inevitable success. If I was speaking to someone I would let them know that everything is trial and inevitable success. There are no errors or mistakes, only lessons to be learned. Keep progressing, and don't expect perfection.