As an entrepreneur you bring to the table a wonderful innovation idea. It is almost real in your dreams that you will succeed. You can feel that it’s going to make a big BOOM in the industry not just on the local but international market. However, it all comes with the BUT! How to make your DREAM a REALITY and not to flank it? How to successfully grow the seed of your dream to make it come true? How to show the world that it is something that might change people’s life’s forever or your idea deserves a chance to live? How to prove to investors that it is worth the risk to put their money in your venture? And the most important, which mistakes you should not repeat, the one’s many startups made and never made it thought!
The reality check test is here for you today!
1/ You hope that it won’t take long to get the business running or find the funds for such brilliant idea! Planning to develop a business or a project from ZERO to a profitable business in just months or a year? Get back to the ground and multiply your initial calculation at least by 10. It takes time, money, effort, self believe, fails, pivots in your business model, strategy and how the product should look like, sleepless nights, skills to be able to communicate and sell it to investors, motivate your team and achieve target goals. You need to have determination to succeed, be realistic in your goals, brainstorm and listen to others on your team and be ready for failure, disappointment, however NEVER give up. Learn, make necessary changes and go ahead. Most important – be honest to yourself and others who take this journey with you to the top!
2/ You feel you need additional training in sales, marketing or anything else (which I guarantee you will)? Make sure you chose the right one. There are hundreds if not thousands of sales consultants or trainers that promise to double your sales! Right, they are not for you! If you decide to go with the group training or a consultant make sure they HAVE their programs tailored for startups not for already existing business.
3/ You are ready to put some cash to promote your project on-line investing in advertising and hoping for a miracle: hundreds of views to your website a day? So much is offered nowadays for you to fall for the trap and try to throw an add complain with Google Awards, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, investing couple of thousand bucks in creating a landing page or any other platforms which are promised to boost your sales and make your business grow. Right… If you are a startup FORGET about investing in that. Face the reality, unless you are ready to spend 1000$ a DAY your company WOULD NOT benefit in any ways from advertising. Just a waste! Be smart, use free tools to promote your project or business: join target groups in professional and social media platforms (LinkedIn, Xing, Viadeo, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram….), write blogs and publish articles in different on-line platforms or magazines, use references and all your personal contacts asking them to recommend you, to introduce you to someone who knows someone (it works very well for example in China, the magic of «GiuanXi». It will eventually bring you to your goals!
4/ You dream that your idea is unique and so brilliant that it would not be hard to find an investor that can support you and bring it to life? Do you know how many dreamers there are in the world with the same attitude? Millions! Why you? Before you find someone that will believe in your idea, you initially have to BELIVE in it yourself, be ready to invest not just you time, money but to prove that if you have support, you can deliver, show results, that you have this drive to succeed, that it’s not just a «let’s try and see» but a thoroughly developed business plan on how you are going to drive your business to growth and success.
5/ You think that you can do it on your own? If you think that way, it is the beginning of the end. Your job is to put together a strong team and find experts in narrow fields, so each one of them will add something special to shape the main idea and drive the growth. For many Angel Investors one of main criteria’s for choosing wherever to invest or not in the project is a TEAM!
Try to find the easier and quicker way to succeed. How? You can learn from other people about their success and fails. This will help you to grow personally as well as your start-up to boost much quicker.