The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster
Get real. It’s not a lion—it’s a phone. If you dial it and the other person answers, they can’t eat you. If you stand in front of a small group, they are not going to pillage your village. A good question to ask yourself before doing anything you think you fear is, “If I do this, am I going to die?” If the answer is no, then your fear is made up. READ MORE >>>
Born For This
If plan A fails, remember there are 25 letters left. If the cold pitch doesn’t work as you hoped, go to a referral network. If the referral network doesn’t work, take it to crowdfunding. If the crowdfunding doesn’t work… you get the idea. You have plan B, C, D, E to change tactics. READ MORE >>>
The 7 Day Startup
But 7 days is not long enough! Yes it is. It’s amazing what you can achieve in 7 days. You can’t deliver on your whole grand vision, but you can launch something. When you do, you can start talking to people who are paying you money. This is when you start making sensible business decisions and prepare for the challenges that you see are up ahead. READ MORE >>>
The Barefoot Executive
Building a business will require a rebel attitude and a maverick-type resolve. This is against the status quo, it’s not easy, and not everyone will be supportive of your efforts. That’s okay because you can get some “peer insurance” for those tough times. READ MORE >>>
The Mom Test
They say you shouldn’t ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn’t ask anyone if your business is a good idea. READ MORE >>>
Lost and Founder
Transparency can’t just be a tactic. It has to be a core value that’s consistently followed. If you openly share some things, but hide others, credibility will suffer. Your team will always wonder what you’re not sharing. Your customers, your investors, the press—whomever you interact with—will be trained to mistrust you. READ MORE >>>
Undaunted
Hint Water was far from perfect when Kara launched at Whole Foods. The flavors were good but not as fresh and accurate as they could be. The labels were appealing but sometimes they fell off. The shelf life was about three months, nowhere as long as it needed to go national. But none of those mattered much. READ MORE >>>
Oversubscribed
Being oversubscribed is the way for you to do your best work and spend more time with your existing customers than endlessly chasing new ones. It gives you more downtime to innovate your products rather than running around selling them. Oversubscribed allows you to build your brand rather than blending in with the crowd. READ MORE >>>
The Innovation Stack
If the timing feels right, it is probably too late. Humans feel right when we’re in sync with the rest of the crowd. That means if the innovation feels right for you, chances are it feels right for a thousand other people with the same idea. READ MORE >>>
Always Day One
CEOs are facilitators, than they’re visionaries. Take a look at Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google. Zuckerberg, Bezos, Cook, Nadella and Pichai merely bring the ideas of their employees to life rather than their own. READ MORE >>>
Insanely Simple
If Apple’s success with simplicity is so obvious and financial results are equally obvious, why on earth other technology competitors aren’t simply copying Apple’s methods to achieve the same level of success? The quick answer is that it’s not easy. READ MORE >>>
Unscripted
Free today is better than free time tomorrow. Youthful time sold today by working 5 days a week so you can buy elderly time later retirement in your twilight is a bad idea. Think how ridiculous it is. 5 for 2. Would you accept this rate of return in the financial world? READ MORE >>>
That Will Never Work
Be willing to say no and leave money on the table, to focus on your core competency. Focus is the key weapon of an entrepreneur. The story of Netflix is one of unflinching willingness to abandon parts of the past to make way for the future. READ MORE >>>
The Bezos Letters
In The Bezos Letters, Steve Anderson explains 14 principles rooted in the exponential growth of Amazon over the decade. Whether you are in business for 10 minutes or 10 years, you can learn how Bezos grew his small online bookstore to the multi-billion business. READ MORE >>>
The Millionaire Fastlane
The owner of an idea is not he who imagines it, but he who executes it. Business plans are second. Execution is Key. Business plans are useless until they’re married to execution. VCs never invest in business plans. They invest in people with track records of execution. READ MORE >>>
The Emyth Revisited
We all have an Entrepreneur, a Manager and a Technical inside us. Never assume understanding the technical work of a business means understanding a business that does technical work. READ MORE >>>
Virtual Freedom
Virtual Assistants (VAs) do work for you. They can take on a huge range of tasks from accounting to office management thus allowing entrepreneurs to concentrate on the work they’re best at and what matters most. If you’re struggling to keep afloat in a sea of tasks, virtual freedom may be your life raft. READ MORE >>>
Blitzscaling
The window for action can be tiny and it can close quickly. Even a few months of hesitation can mean the difference between leading and chasing. There’s a rich ecosystem of service providers and outsourcing companies to support rapid growth. Many companies have gone through their own big growth spurts, so there’s lots of examples to learn from. READ MORE >>>
Anything You Want
No business plan survives first contact with customers. Businesses never go as planned. It’s not always necessary to have a vision nor plan. Persistence is taking on the same challenge with different approaches until it works. What you want is feedback. People respond positively, you’re on to a winner. If don’t, either re-invent or ditch it. READ MORE >>>
Shut Up and Listen!
Take the word “No” out of your vocabulary. There are no spare customers. Know the distinction between being unable to do something and choosing not to do something. Offer alternatives if you can’t say yes. READ MORE >>>