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As I was watching the investor show, Shark Tank , on TV the other night, I was struck by how quickly and how extensively the sharks focused on the background and character of the entrepreneurs, compared to time spent evaluating their products. Today’s world of business is highly driven by social issues and environmental concerns.
As a mentor to entrepreneurs, I tend to see many of the same obstacles appearing in every new startup, and since I don’t want to appear to be a downer , I’m not sure how to properly warn people ahead of time to be on the alert for these challenges. Too many entrepreneurs think that expert external advisors are suspect, or will slow them down.
As an angel investor in startups, I’m a believer that smart investors invest more in you as the entrepreneur than the next billion dollar solution you are pitching. Even if you are still in school, and never started a company before, strong entrepreneur candidates can point to projects they initiated, led, that produced significant results.
One of the characteristics that every good investor looks for in an aspiring entrepreneur is resilience , or the ability to learn from and bounce back after a failure. With startups, almost every entrepreneur I know has failed at least once, often several times, but never gave up, and ultimately achieved their goal.
Many of the entrepreneurs like you that I have met in my role as a business advisor are really product creators versus business creators, convinced that a great product will generate a great business. Entrepreneurs are typically focused on the big picture – creating a vision, purpose, and a long-term strategy.
As a new business advisor, I hear facts all the time about how hard an entrepreneur is working, but often have a hard time getting them to quantify results. Even you as the entrepreneur, who may not be getting paid at all, are tricked into thinking that if you had more hours, you could get better results.
Based on my experience advising new entrepreneurs as well as more mature businesses, I recommend the following strategies for building business momentum, while still optimizing the limited resources of every small business: Find more customers that like what you do best. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 12/22/2020.
In my own business career, many years as a business advisor, and mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I have validated the following strategies to practice and guide you. Make sure that you implement a metric with each solution, to prevent the issue from recurring, and check for side effects and follow-on side effects.
As a frequent advisor to new entrepreneurs and startups, I often hear your frustration with being treated differently from other startups by investors, on expectations for valuation , traction, and market size. Established company process rules and metrics now characterize the leaders in this market stage.
I’m sure you have all seen entrepreneurs and startups with great ideas that never seem to live up to their potential, while others with more mundane solutions seem to take off quickly and never slow down. Define success metrics, and measure progress regularly. Look for tools to automate and simplify strategy execution.
In my years of advising business leaders, from entrepreneurs to enterprise executives, I often hear a passion for strategic change planning, but seldom see the same commitment to strategic execution. This must include metrics and tracking, with the necessary systems and resources to act, recalibrate, and iterate as required.
That’s why I caution my aspiring entrepreneur clients against proclaiming to investors that they are a great “idea” person. Create a written plan, with target milestones and metrics. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 02/17/2020. A full plan may be no more than 20 pages.
From my consulting with entrepreneurs in Europe and other countries, I’m convinced that we all could benefit from adapting to meet their environments. With a singular focus on building unicorns, very rapid growth has been a key metric. Marty Zwilling First published on LinkedIn on 04/14/2020.
Every year, at the end of the year, we share some reflections on the past year from our readers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, sponsors, and others in the local technology community. I predict SoCal will continue to grow, but in 2020 more companies nationwideand herewill not get the funding they need.
More importantly, I look for entrepreneurs and owners like you who are not afraid to hold themselves accountable for the success of the business. Every investor can recite examples of passionate entrepreneurs who seek funding for a worthy cause, like feeding the hungry, without a real business case for who will pay.
As a mentor to entrepreneurs over the years, I see many of you who don’t communicate enough, others who seem to do all the talking, and some that are hesitant to be direct and open. You as the leader have a responsibility to define goals, strategy, and operational metrics. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 04/28/2020.
Although his focus is naturally on bigger companies, I contend that his recommended strategies apply equally well to entrepreneurs and startups: Demand a mindset of deep thinking for the long term. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 07/23/2020. Cote, former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell.
Most entrepreneurs remember the sense of urgency they felt in startup mode, but don’t see it in their team today. In stable businesses, you get what you reward, so you must incent urgency with metrics for number of proactive projects, expected implementation guidelines, and no failure penalty.
From its start in 2015, the number of registered users has “suddenly” climbed from 45 million in 2017 to a reported 300 million by the end of 2020. It was as much in reaction to my getting blank stares from entrepreneurs when I asked the above question as it was for me to better understand the problem itself. Here is my list.
As a business adviser, I often see entrepreneurs practicing what Tom Peters calls the “ ready-fire-aim ” go-to-market strategy to their detriment. The ready-fire-aim approach makes sense here, but it should be combined with metrics to learn from feedback, and make pivots as required.
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