Last year I formalized a few lessons I would have relayed to myself as I was starting my adventures in entrepreneurship back in early 2009. Now that I’m at my third anniversary of self-employment, I thought I’d take a look back again and add in any points gleaned over the last 12 months.
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1. Focus MAN – I know, I know it is really fun to be working on a start-up AND trying to grow your business at the same time. But you are doing both half-ass. People won’t take either seriously if you are constantly flipping back and forth between where you exert your energy. Pick one now.
2. Don’t Try and Fit Others Vision of Success – Lots of people in business will pass judgement on the difference between a “lifestyle” business and a real “start-up”. If having a “lifestyle” business means you make more money than you ever did working for anyone else, get to travel around the world, and have the freedom to work from anywhere then I’d say we can both agree anyone else’s definition means exactly jack shit. Life is good, don’t forget it.
3. Results, Results, Results – All that cool work your want to do with kick-ass clients? The first step to getting paid to do it is having measurable, repeatable results to point to. Stop speaking in marketing bull-shit and quantify your impact.