Running a Start-Up, 19 Years Apart
That’s a long time to keep making mistakes!
Across 19 years in leadership roles in start-ups, I’ve had a lot of successes, but even more failures — or lessons learned! When I set up a new business last year, I did a lot of things differently based on these experiences and this time it’s already going better as a result.
In 2001 I joined a fresh-faced start-up that would go on to change the email marketing industry (and it wasn’t even an email company when I joined!). During the next 19 years, I’ve run the client teams, technical teams and whole businesses.
I learned from the many mistakes we made, tried to remember the things that worked and applied those lessons to my new startup. Below are the four most important lessons that have helped me successfully launch my new business.
A Clearly Defined Vision & Values
It wasn’t until 5 years ago that I set forward clear values for my old business, that were built by the team and then immersed into the company. It changed how people were bought into the future of the business and had a tremendous effect on staff turnover, which lowered by two-thirds.
It was also great for productivity, people knew what they were aiming towards and would call out work we did if it…
