🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

I would say before you jump in headfirst, ask yourself a question. Do you have the DNA of an entrepreneur? Yes or No? In most cases, the answer is no. To become a successful entrepreneur, it takes a tremendous amount of grit, resilience, and the ability to take the pain and get back up. It will be a very painful journey. You have to know that before you launch yourself. If you ask me right now, I can't prove it scientifically, but by experience, how many people that have what it takes. If you are one of those people, you are the five percent. You are one out of twenty.

If you have a business idea, do the smallest possible next step towards it right away. If you think that you want to start a new social network or something for dog lovers, call up five of your friends that love dogs and ask them what could be better about the social networks they use. If you have an idea for say I want to get into lawyer referrals. Maybe I should call up lawyers and ask them how you can help them out. You really don't need money or some big thing to start a business. It's usually just one step at a time. If you have an idea just, do something. Do something right now about it.

Pick your mentors they are very helpful. One thing that I was fascinated by when I moved to the US was that people are always available to help all you have to do is ask. Don't feel shy, don't feel that you are cool reaching out to a random person and they will ignore you. People talk and like to help, and pay it forward. One of the biggest things I learned from my mentors when I went back to them and said hey, thank you for helping me out. What can I do for you now that I sold my company? They told me three words that have stuck with me,  pay it forward.

I would recommend reading the book "Good To Great" by Jim Collins. I found that really helpful. I was lucky enough to have a Ph.D. advisor that had me read it in grad school which was great. I did not know I would be in a leadership position at the time so I think my thoughts were formed really pure before I had any sense of entitlement. So now that I am in it I can compare myself to my thoughts of myself back then. When there are pain points executives especially me endure the most of it. Take on the headwinds so that people working for you feel less of them.

Don't overthink it. I think we can get in our heads and, we can overthink things. I like to think of myself as a perfectionist and, I have learned in one of the books that I have read it's bad to be looked at as a perfectionist. That's because we are constantly chasing after something that's not real. Perfect is not real. We are driving are selves crazy. People who are looked at to be perfectionists have a higher rate of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders because we are driving ourselves nuts. There is never really a perfect time. People say I have to learn more before I get started. No just go for it you will learn along the way. The only way you are going to learn is by doing it. You can do it. You are a big deal.

Work from what you know. And that is going to give you your edge over everyone else. As Jack Trout says, "differentiate or die." You need to have your product be unique. What sets it apart? If you start with your knowledge, you're different. Everyone is unique, so build that into your product. What do you do that is unique? What is it that sets you apart? Do that for your product. Don't stop there; always put it in front of the customer for feedback. Get it in front of your customers, get feedback and see what they say. When you follow that rule you will have a product that is unique, differentiated, and that customers want.

Keep going. Never ever ever give up. Always keep that fire, keep that passion awake. And always remember what is the purpose. What are you doing here? What is your potential impact? Why you are doing this for real. Keep that passion alive and, it's going to be worth it in the end. Keep going.

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.