What You Can Do to Prepare for Your Entrepreneurial Journey

Until you actually make the entrepreneurial leap, it is hard to completely prepare you for the journey. But we can go into it with some perspectives and tactics in mind that give us a better chance for success. Embracing the journey and the desire to improve as an entrepreneur will be critical to your success.

“There are things you can do to improve your chances of success both before and after you make the entrepreneurial leap.” 

Going into your entrepreneurial venture with the following broad perspectives in mind will serve you well.

• Be Humble and a Learner. Embrace the fact that will need to become a better entrepreneur. Don’t resist what you don’t know, but rather take it on as a part of learning to be better at what you do.
• Focus on Customers. Have a passionate focus on solving problems for customers. In the complexity of a venture, it is easy to lose focus on this. Customers pay you, they provide you insights, they offer valuable critique, and they make you better. Think about what it takes to turn customers not only into supporters but raving fans.
• Serve your employees. Your team that makes the difference. It’s your team that makes the dream happen. Don’t think of them as cogs in the wheel that are helping you realize your dream. Serve them and they will serve your dream well. Make their work life better, thank them incessantly, and help them solve their family problems. If you do they will treat it as their business. And when you hire, think of the way they view how they want their work life to be as much as you look at their talent.
• Love and Learn from Competitors. Love competitors, Learn from competitors. Competitors are the best laboratory for you. Don’t copy from them – learn from them. Find what works, what doesn’t and why they are successful and unsuccessful.

Finally remember that reading a swimming book is very different from getting into the water. No amount of reading books will actually prepare you for what you are going to face. Get ready to embrace the fun and unpredictable turns.