Five Important Lessons From A New Entrepreneur
It hasn’t been very long since I decided to take the plunge and become a full time creative entrepreneur. While I haven’t been ‘officially’ at it more than a month (I did consulting as a side gig for four years prior), there are some valuable lessons I’ve learned along the way.
When you’re first starting out assume you know nothing and look for help, guidance and advice from those who’ve gone before you — try to avoid their mistakes, learn from their failures, but also enjoy their successes.
You’ll be in the same position as them at some point, and it’s always comforting to know that you’re not alone on the wild journey of being a business owner.
Here’s a quick and easy run down of what I’ve learned that can help move your entrepreneurial dream to reality.
You have a great idea that you’re just itching to share with the world and you can’t wait to get started. This is why you became an entrepreneur in the first place, right?
While it’s tempting to just jump right in and get started you really want to take the time to put together a business plan and high level budget. Together these documents can help guide your next steps. They provide clarity when you’re in the midst of chaos.
Your plans don’t have to be long and arduous technical documents that take you two months to develop. I’ve used and really like a tool called the business model canvas. It’s a visual planning tool that helps you work through understanding how your business is going to create, capture and deliver value.
It also provides you a chance to work through multiple iterations of your business before you actually try them out in the real world. This is the space where you want to fail fast and fail often — not when you’ve moved your product or service to market and dropped $100k on development.
A budget is ALWAYS a good idea, even if your a small fry working from home on a laptop. You might not be able to project your revenue any farther ahead than a month or two, but you need to know what your expenses are.
Set up a spreadsheet, track where your money is going and decide where you want to invest your working capital (if you have any!). You also need a budget if you plan on applying for loans or credit, so you may as well take the time in the early days to get your financial house in order.
2. Figure out your high value activities
As an new entrepreneur you’re likely a team of one (or maybe two) and there are so many things to do. Aside from working on actual deliverables that make you money, there is a pile of work that goes into setting up and starting your business.
While it might be easy to think that you can do everything, this is a bad habit to get into that will start you off on the wrong foot, and set you up long term for a life of overwhelm.
Let me explain. You want to spend as much of your time as possible focused on the tasks and activities that create the most value. This could be business development, product or service refinement, client meetings, networking or sharpening your skills by taking a course.
Determining your high value activities and focusing on these as much as possible makes good business sense, and you’re likely to see a much bigger return on the investment of your time over the short and long term.
Instead of tinkering away at a website when you have no technical ability or trying to learn the basics of financial accounting late at night, you can spend your time building and sustaining value.
And this brings me to my next point…
3. Outsource what you can
The early days of a startup venture are not the time when you want to spend your money like you’ve got extra cash to burn. If you’ve put together a budget, you’ll understand where your money is going and can then make informed decisions about where to spend and where to save.
One of the key areas where I’ve spent my limited dollars is in outsourcing the stuff that I don’t know anything about, and if I did try to learn it wouldn’t be a good use of my time.
While filing for incorporation I did a bit of research into the process, decided that it was too much for me to take on, and found a company that could take care of the entire process for me online. This included all the background work required by the government, drafting articles of incorporation by a lawyer, and filing the paperwork.
I also paid them to set me up with tax accounts, business numbers and other regulatory pieces that I wasn’t even aware of. While this did cost me a bit more money ($50 for each service), it made my life a lot easier and let me focus on my high value activities.
It meant I wasn’t pouring over government websites trying to figure out the who, what, when and where of getting a business ID number. Who has time for that?
Other things to consider outsourcing are your book keeping and accounting. Aside from the obvious benefits of not trying to do this yourself, you’ll also benefit from the knowledge of a financial professional who knows the ins and outs of business.
After one meeting with my accountant I was set up with a plan on how to maximize both my personal and corporate income tax in my first year of operations and delay paying my taxes for an extra three months. I didn’t know you could do that!
4. Skip the frills
When you’re first starting out you don’t need to be fancy. Don’t think that you need a $10,000 website or a set of embossed business cards in order to really get to work.
Use the space and resources that you already have and remember that nothing has to be perfect. In fact, perfection is your biggest enemy at this stage and it gets in the way of actually getting things done.
Work from your kitchen table or your local coffee shop. Buy a low cost web domain (I spent $20 dollars!) and host it using a cheap (but reliable) service. Build your website using a drag and drop template and only focus on having a great homepage to start. The rest can come later.
There are plenty of online companies that offer logo design and branding services at a fraction of the cost of actually hiring a professional designer to do this work for you. I used Looka (don’t worry, no affiliate relationship) and for $90 dollars walked away with a clean, professional logo and all the digital assets I need to build my brand.
I sourced my business cards through Vistaprint (again, not an affiliate) and paid all of $20 for 100 glossy, double sided color cards.
For less than $500 I have the tools I need to market and manage my business and brand. You might not want or need any of these pieces at the start, but it’s good to know that you can cobble things together on a shoe string when you’re ready.
5. Learn to manage your relationships
The value and importance of relationships can’t be overstated. When you’re first starting out you’re likely to spend a lot of time with your head down pouring over a computer screen. It can be isolating, lonely and a little depressing.
While it’s easy to get caught up in your never ending to-do list, don’t lose sight of your most important asset — people and your relationships.
Ensure that you’re making time to connect with pre-existing contacts and investing in networking. Even if you’re an introvert who hates making small talk, identify opportunities where you can meet others in your local business community.
Also look online and to social media for groups you can join to start building your relationships with people both inside and outside your niche. Go to where your customers are, and also learn from the professionals within your industry.
Make sure you’re returning emails and voicemails within a reasonable period of time and always follow through. Do what you say you will do.
A strong network of valuable contacts is not only a great way to build support for your business, but also one of the fundamental building blocks of your success as an entrepreneur. Manage your relationships and the rest will follow.
The early days of being a new entrepreneur can be exciting, nerve wracking and completely overwhelming. Following these five tips can help ease a bit of that nervous energy and set you up for long term success. You’ve got this.
Five Important Lessons From A New Entrepreneur
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