Millennium Magazine_4th Ed

FiveVital Facts Entrepreneurs Need toEmbrace NEVERMAKEDECISIONS INTHE HEATOF THEMOMENT Pressure is everywhere in entrepreneurship, nomatter what industry you are in. Things will get heated, you will get emotional, and in that fury or sadness, you will make a decision. It is likely to be a bad decision if you are not working froma logical standpoint. Emotions are not inherently wrong, but they are a poor basis for decisionmaking. When you are feeling overly passionate, take a step back. Make the decision when you are in full control. Few decisions in life must bemade in a split second. 1 2 YOUWILL ALWAYS BE AFRAID Many people opt out of their dreams out of fear. Others push on despite their fears. What a lot of people do not tell you is that the fear never goes away – the only thing that changes is what you are afraid of. When you first start off, the fear will revolve around how viable your product is and whether you are doing the right thing. Eventually, your fear will be focused on howmuch you have to lose or how far you can take your idea. Themoment you realize that you can never truly get rid of fear, only control and tame it, the better off you will be. Instead of beating yourself up over the fact that you cannot get the fear out of your head, focus onmanaging it. 3 4 YOURWORK SHOULD NEVER BE FREE There is nothing wrong with enticing users with free items. It is, in fact, a perfectly viable way to drumup business. Unfortunately, you can easily take it too far. Give away toomuch, and you will burn through your capital before the revenue part of the plan kicks in. When you are offering giveaways or doing something without getting paid, you are getting nothing in return. While you are gathering a user base, focus on selling what you have. If you are giving it out for free, make sure you get something back somehow. That does not mean that altruism cannot mix with work; it onlymeans that you should remember how business works. Without profit, your business cannot grow. GREAT IDEAS ARE LESS VALUABLE THANAMAZING EXECUTION History is littered with oceans of great ideas and grand plans. The problemmany would-be entrepreneurs face is in exec- uting those ideas and plans. If they cannot be done properly, they are pointless. How you execute your plans should be as perfect as possible. That means every person on your teamshould be on point, whether you have a teamof five or 5,000. Everything, fromcommunication to clear delineation of responsibilities and roles, has an effect on execution. Make sure you plan for everything. Have a timeline in place, as well as benchmarks. FAILURE ISNOT THE END Inmany schools around the world, teachers are told to be aware of student depression. While depressed and emotional students are nothing new, the reasons are different today. Instead of succumbing to depression because of relationship woes, they are often depressed because they failed. While failure is disappointing at best, it is not the end. Failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. It can lead to better decisions down the line, because the story doesn't end when youmake amistake. The story goes on, and the only way you canmake it better is by learning fromyour mistakes. 5