I’ve started my first (serious) business venture while studying in Uni, I had:
Zero experience
Zero knowledge with online sales
Zero cash
As a 25-year young entrepreneur I made tons of mistakes, they became bigger and bigger as the business grew, yet I was able to overcome the many obstacles to build a successful online business and then founded an eCommerce startup (CrazyLister) and raised VC-funding.
I attribute my (relative) success to 4 elements:
Grit - develop the ability to keep going when things get hard, really hard, extremely fu*** hard. Your passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful motivation will help you get there. I love this illustration about the road to success:
Ben’s quote summarizes it pretty well:
2. Execution - ideas are worth nothing, it’s all about execution. Your idea is no good if you can’t transform it from a thought in your mind to action. The best way to execute is to set due dates for every action item and make sure you complete the tasks on time.
3. Vision - always have the long term plan in the back of your mind, you will be bogged down by the ongoing tasks but remember your north star and aim towards it. Investors must see and understand the vision, and then they have to believe that you know how to get there.
4. Friends/partners - building a business is very very hard, it’s not recommended to go it it alone. I know that there are things I don’t do that well and I’m lucky to have a co-founder who is strong at those things. I wouldn’t be able to do that without him.
To me those are the four things that come to mind as most important, note that I didn’t say anything about the product, the type of business, the target audience…it doesn’t matter as much as the above.
Good luck
Written: Maxim Godin
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