Building A Company Is Just Plain Hard, Below Are Some Tips To Get You Started…

Building A Company Is Just Plain Hard, Below Are Some Tips To Get You Started…

Know Your Audience

From the very beginning get to know your customers, your customers, especially those that use your service early on are your biggest advocates. Make sure they feel heard and make an effort to get to know what they are looking for. Get involved with your customers, over communicate, show concern, and ask for their opinions. Their feedback is incredibly important and will help improve your company processes, as well as identify problems early on.

If you make an effort to get to know your clients, and test out your service or product frequently you will have a good sense of the needs of both your customers and your product. Continue to do this as you grow — You will always learn something new, I promise.

Stay Focused

The founder of Kinkos, Paul Orfalea has a saying that goes “Stay on top of your business, not in it!” As an entrepreneur you are responsible for an incredible amount of work, and as your company expands it becomes difficult to avoid getting caught in day-to-day details.

One of the clear ways for entrepreneurs to stay focused is to build a team you trust and learn how to effectively delegate responsibilities. It takes a village to build a company, in order to effectively scale your business you need to surround yourself with the right people, this process takes time and should not be rushed. Find great people and then give them the space to do the job(s) you hired them for! If you ask the question, “what would happen to my business if I left for an entire week?” and the answer is negative, then it’s time to revisit your hiring strategy.

Make Sure To Balance

Choose success over control. Starting a company is all about your business and NOT You. Ego will kill your company and is one of the fastest causes for a business to struggle. As you frame decisions, always ask the question “what’s the best outcome for my company’s success?” Sometimes the answer is taking a vacation. Yes, take time away from work, it’ll help you think and stay creative.

Think about ways you can be more effective with your time; working long hours consistently will most certainly burn you out. Pick an activity, hobby, or passion that lets you have time to yourself. As you scale, you need to take your decompression time as seriously as you would an investor meeting. Just because you are working doesn’t mean you are winning.

Be Irrationally Optimistic

Have fun with your colleagues! Host frequent company outings and get togethers. Set milestones for your company and recognize your wins with team celebrations. I’m not saying throw a huge party, but put forth the effort to demonstrate to your team they are appreciated and important.

Every successful company needs leadership that empowers and motivates the team to work together successfully. Remember your employees chose to work for your company, honor their decision by building a healthy work environment that fosters creativity and inspires them.

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Colin Barceloux is the CEO and co-founder of Techmate, the startup delivering concierge tech support. Previously Colin founded BookRenter.com, a leading textbook rental company in Silicon Valley. Prior to BookRenter, Colin helped found and grow Decide Interactive, one of the first bid management platforms for SEM. Colin holds a BS in Management Information Systems and a Minor in Information Technology from Santa Clara University and a MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.