Startup Expert

Archive for the ‘Tips / Advice’ Category

When Should I Start(up)?

Posted by: admin on: February 16, 2012

Tweet One of the most common questions I get asked via this Web site is along the lines of “am I ready?” or “when is a good time to start?”. It is nearly impossible for me to give advice as no-one KNOWS they are ready to press go … and there will almost certainly be [...]

Work Less Hours & Take a Pay Cut

Posted by: admin on: January 16, 2012

Tweet If you are self-employed and working every waking hour in order to maximise how much you take home every month, you’re doing it wrong. This advice is completely counter-intuitive to most people … but is an extremely important step for every entrepreneur to understand. Getting over this hurdle is vital if you want to [...]

Sacrifice to Succeed

Posted by: admin on: December 28, 2011

Tweet There is an awful lot written about what you need to do to succeed. Determination, passion, hard work, learning from mistakes, customer service, etc. etc.. There are plenty of people out there with these qualities who never make it & one of the big reasons is they are not prepared to sacrifice to get [...]

How to be Exceptional

Posted by: admin on: December 7, 2011

Tweet It always surprises me how few people decide to be exceptional. Some don’t want the attention, others lack the confidence … or maybe it is just down to a lack of imagination or motivation? What being exceptional is not about is being a genius. You do not need an IQ of 150 or a [...]

Compete With Yourself

Posted by: admin on: October 2, 2011

Tweet Worrying too much about the competition is a mistake … the biggest opportunity for you to surpass your competition is for you to stop competing with them and start competing with yourself. Too many companies are obsessed with their competitors. Trying to win business away from them, talking trash about them to customers, taking [...]

Who’s Holding You Back?

Posted by: admin on: September 29, 2011

Tweet Sit down and pay attention! There’s someone holding you back. A teacher at school who told you that you were an idiot. A shitty boss who is miserable with their own life so spends their time trying to drag everyone else down. A jealous family member … or even a super-successful family member who [...]

Job Security is Dead

Posted by: admin on: September 3, 2011

Tweet Back in the ‘good old days’ teenagers were encouraged to work hard at school and, if possible, University so that they could be qualify for the best possible start to their careers. They were told that they could then work their way up the ladder, perhaps changing company once or twice in their lives, [...]

Keeping Focus

Posted by: admin on: September 1, 2011

Tweet It is extremely difficult for a startup, particularly one which may be struggling, to keep focus. Founders will often diversify their services/products in an attempt to increase sales, they may venture into unrelated areas of business to make ends meet and ‘bootstrap’ their company. The problem with this is that in a small organisation [...]

Financial Bootstrapping

Posted by: admin on: August 28, 2011

Tweet ‘Financial bootstrapping’ is a term used to cover the various different methods for avoiding reliance on investment by third parties. The business founders take on the financial risk usually in the early stages of their company’s development and typically until they have a working ‘proof of concept’ at which point finding other forms of [...]