Start-up Entrepreneurs' Blog

4 Perilous Lessons Entrepreneurs Need to Unlearn and Forget

February 10, 2011

It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game that matters.

Just tell that one to an investor and see what type of reaction you get. No one wants to engage a physician whose patients all die. No one wants to use an accountant who clients are always land in trouble with the tax collector. No one wants to engage an attorney who loses all his or her cases. Winning matters!

Good things come to those that wait.

Customers don’t come to you; you have to reach out to them. Products don’t sell themselves.  The expression should be “Good things come to those that wait. Better things come to those that ask. And the best things go to those that go out and get want they want.” Entrepreneurs need to be the later.

Talent is what matter most.  Stop talking, focus on your work. Stop bragging.

Talent is what gets you to the top of the class in school. Every research study conducted shows that people with the highest IQs aren’t the most successful.  I suspect it’s because they never have the need to develop any soft traits because pure talent allows them to succeed easily in school.

The reality is it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and more importantly, it’s who knows you. Social skills matter.  Notoriety matters too and not just in Hollywood. Sitting back quietly and hoping the market will notice what your start-up has created and built doesn’t work. Yes, you do need to brag. Advertsing fundamentals of frequency and reach say that you need to do it often as well.

In order to achieve a result, you need to have a plan of action.  In order to achieve results as quickly and effectively as possible, you need to focus. True, but that’s not all. For every action you do, you need to ask yourself if doing it will bring you closer to the result. Too often, entrepreneurs and staff get side tracked as a matter of habit.  You can’t give into the exception because if you do something, this just once, there will always be another exception tomorrow or next week.

A venture capitalist said, “Start-ups don’t fail because one big decision went wrong. They fail because of a series of bad decisions that unwittingly led them slowly to a place they didn’t want to be. “

Money doesn’t matter. It can’t buy happiness

Okay, maybe money won’t buy happiness, but it can make things easier.   Money opens doors and provides opportunities. It doesn’t mean you’ll succeed because of it, but you can’t succeed unless you are first given the chance to shine and show what you can do.

As a parent, I sometimes wonder why our children are taught things that will need to be undone as an adult.

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Tags: business mistakes