Billions With Zero Knowledge

Business can be a risky business, with every other person getting into starting their own business, and becoming independent. Whether you are starting out a business for the first time or have been in the business industry for a long time, it is always easy to have a few tip and tricks up your sleeve in order to climb that ladder of success. Business is not just about capital investment but in order to have a successful entrepreneur, you will need to know the dos and don’ts of entrepreneurship in order to achieve success.

1) Establishing leadership

Leadership is a very important feature if you want to become a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs lead the way for their business. Leadership is not just about having the right answers but having confidence to make decisions, conflict resolution and guiding other employees.  

2) Establishing a good relationship with the employees

A business is built not just by the capital but by the employees of the business. Every successful entrepreneurship is built on a proper teamwork and establishing a good relationship between the employees and with the leader and subordinates. Having a good professional relationship means open communication and better conflict resolution and boosts employee morale as it builds a good understanding, trust and respect amongst the employees.

3) A solid business plan

In order to start and run a business, firstly rather than just having an idea, it is very important to establish a proper plan, which can be followed in order to achieve the goals and the target of the company. A good business plan not only lays out the framework on which to build the idea on and start the process step by step, but it also means delegating work, figuring out the weaknesses and trying to work through it to make them better and harnessing the strengths. Additionally, we need to also keep in mind a back-up plan in case the original plan does not work out and have a proper process to follow in times of emergencies and contingencies.  

4) Frugality

When first starting a business, having a proper investment and a large capital is very important and thus being frugal with the spending is equally important as well. As a new entrepreneur with a fresh start up, it is very important to make decisions about your finances in an economic and a frugal way. A successful entrepreneur needs to learn how to manage his spending in order to not waste capital and make smart choices, as a new business means your capital is limited and you can only spend on things that are absolutely necessary.

5) Marketing

It is very important to establish your business when you are starting a new business. Establish a name as a new business is very important in order to get recognition and to find clients. However, marketing can be very expensive and as a new start-up already working with a limited budget, managing that can be difficult. SO, you need to do smart marketing. In the time of social media having so much reach and influence, you can establish your business on every platform and make a proper impact, additionally it can also help you connect to clients.

I’ve been watching the new CBC show Dragon’s Den, and I’m concerned by the examples being set for any entrepreneurs watching or participating. Anyone who thinks this show has anything to do with real business angel investing is probably smoking the same stuff as Peter, Paul and Mary. Now, for those who haven’t seen the show, the basics are that entrepeneurs pitch five wealthy business angels for investments (with the angels cast as Dragon’s protecting their money from entrepreneurs with bad ideas and dolling it out to promising startups). The Dragon’s then make an offer for an amount of money & share of the company or send the entrepreneur packing. From an entertainment point of view, it’s a fun show. I enjoy the American Idol – William Hung factor of watching some really bad business pitches as much as the next persion. I’m also of the strong opinion that anything that helps promote an entrepreneurial spirit in Canada is much needed and welcome. That being said, there is a lot about raising money from angel investors that isn’t well suited to the format of an entertainment show. Aspiring entrepreneurs might be confused about what lessons to take away from the show. This weeks episode where Toronto based Jobloft gave up a 50% of their company for a $200k investment was the turning point for me. The company flat out got bad advice somewhere along the way and as a result were mauled by the dragons. Sean writes that all contestants were coached by either his firm Wise Mentor Capital or Pierre-Luc at Ignite Partners. After what I’ve seen on the first three episodes I really question the quality of the advice they are getting.

The startup that Alex Eberts and I are working on, Project Ojibwe is looking to hire a talented Python wrangler. Our preferred team member will have experience with Python web frameworks (preferably Django) and experience with database, web services and web application architecture. I’ve always wondered why if all markets are conversations, that the job market where we hire the people to make our products begins with a process that is as impersonal as asking someone to drop their pants. So we are going to start an experiment in conversational recruiting. If you think you can add something special to our team, and are interesting in learning how we are building a fun, kick ass product that will help change the world then please start a conversation with us. While we want to see your CV we are more interested in who you are through your work and in your own words. Introduce yourself to us, show us your work, send us a screencast, or a video of you telling us why you want to be part of what promises to be an incredibly rewarding adventure with our team. Show us your online blog, open source contributions, Flickr fetish or the communities you contribute too.