What it Takes to Succeed as a Start-Up Founder
Author: Nicky J. Davies |
0
Categories: Business Fast Track
It’s not enough just to have a good business idea for you to succeed as a start-up. It also takes great leadership to navigate the many challenges you will face along the way.
There are many different leadership theories out there, and you can probably list as many as I can. You can study the traits and characteristics of great leaders of their time, be aware that different situations require different leadership approaches, change your habits, serve others first, be motivational or even inspirational.
But more important than any of these is your innate leadership capability. You have everything you need within you.
I believe there is a deep knowing within you of what is needed in the moment. When we become disconnected from this, then we are out of integrity, and trust and leadership become hard work.
You can’t operate on your own. You need a team to really get things moving both an internal team of employees but external too – investors, strategic partners, collaborators. And if you are operating from a place that is disconnected from your values, your very core, then these relationships are going to suffer and you lose a valuable resource for your business.
If there is something right at the beginning of your business journey that is out of integrity, it becomes a much bigger problem later on.
Think about Facebook and how it started with very little thought to privacy of people’s information. That has become an even bigger issue more recently, and a costly one at that.
So, you want to be operating from your core, that intuitive wisdom that knows the right thing to do at the right time, throughout the life of your business.
And it starts with your why or the purpose behind your idea.
What’s the story behind why you started this business?
Making lots of money was probably secondary to solving a particular problem. This is what makes you a values-based business. This is what fuels you and inspires your team when times are tough or inspires them to go the extra mile. Never forget it. Write it down and reconnect with that story on a regular basis. It will help keep you and your team on the path of integrity as you grow.
Make sure you build an agile team, connected to the story. Hire people that are better than you and trust them to come up with great ideas and deliver what they say they will do. I remember Steve Jobs, no matter what you think of his leadership style, said that ‘the best ideas have to win, not hierarchy’. You want to encourage a culture of innovation, of ideas.
An agile team is supported by a flat organisational structure, not one of layer upon layer of hierarchy. A flatter organisational structure will provide more flexibility to adapt and change to circumstances, and make quicker decisions.
If there is one key skill to develop further, it is that of learning to listen. And listen without thinking about your response to what the person is saying. Ask questions to clarify and understand better. This will build trust and respect. Your people will feel valued.
Remember that version 1 is better than version none – don’t wait for perfect conditions, or until you’ve got everything right. You can’t possibly predict what’s going to happen when you go out into the market. There are too many variables, too many unknowns. But you don’t want perfectionism to stop you before you get truly started.
You also want to fail faster to succeed – all successful people have failed at some point. Just don’t quit. Persevere. Pivot and make the necessary adjustments, paying attention to the detail. Keep going.
Business is all about problem solving, so if you haven’t got a problem to solve, you definitely have stopped growing as a business. Keep pushing forward and solving problems as they occur.
Question common sense and conventional approaches to problems. Common sense is based on past experience. New ways of thinking are required in order to innovate.
Think about what the opposite approach would look like, view things from a different perspective altogether. This is how Dropbox came about. Two MIT computer science graduates, frustrated with having to share information using USB thumb drives. They were on a bus when one of them realised they’d forgotten their USB thumb-drive. They solved the problem by writing some coding so they could share files over the internet, and this eventually became Dropbox and is used by millions of people around the world today.
One of those common sense approaches that many use in business is to just ‘try harder’. The thing is, if you aren’t getting the results you want, doing more of the same is just going to give you more of what you don’t want. So relax, let go, surrender in the moment. Focus on the end result you are looking for, and the means will evolve as you go along.
A business mentor will really help take things to the next level. Someone who understands first-hand what it takes to build a business from scratch. Someone who knows how to listen, and demonstrates great leadership themselves. Someone that truly wants to see you succeed beyond what they have achieved for themselves.
Let's see how I can help - click on the link to book a FREE call that fits with your diary https://meetme.so/NickyDavies