Seven Sins of a Startup

Where a Smart Entrepreneur Spends Money

As an entrepreneur, how do you know when is it best to spend, and when is it best to save? How do you know how much to invest and in which types of services? Unfortunately there’s no easy answer, no golden rule for when and how to spend money on your business. Some things can and should be bootstrapped for a few hundred bucks. But be aware: this is nearly always...

Startup Entrepreneurs Risk Overspending

Many of the deadly sins we examine in this series are intimately linked. That’s what makes them so dangerous: they feed off each other and multiply to eat away at the foundations of your fledgling business. We introduce extravagance here because the previously mentioned sin, impatience, and the upcoming one, arrogance, fuel extravagant spending. Would-be entrepreneurs in a hurry to reap the rewards are much more likely to overspend...

Smart Entrepreneurs Don’t Fixate on Frugality

Smart entrepreneurs know how dangerous it can be to overspend in the early years of your business. There are times, however, when you need to spend money to do things right. These are usually the times when spending enough money in the beginning means saving a lot down the road. Fear is the underlying driver of being too frugal. When you are uncertain whether you are making the right decision,...

Conscious Entrepreneurs Balance Impatience and Perfectionism

We’ve covered some of the weaknesses and strengths of both impatience and perfectionism in past posts, but being a conscious entrepreneur requires finding the right balance between these two extremes. Here are a few strategies for walking the noble path to success: If you tend to be an impatient entrepreneur, consider taking the following steps to course-correct: Write a business plan and refer to it on a regular basis. Update...

Dogfooding is Key to Entrepreneurial Success

Perfectionism is a character trait that regularly stalls entrepreneurial success. No matter how great your idea, how much planning and research you do, and how smart you are growing a business from startup to success is fraught with trial and error. In their attempt to avoid mistakes, perfectionist entrepreneurs try to put off the trial part of this equation until they can ensure success. This mindset is counterproductive. Ask any...

Why Perfectionist Entrepreneurs Fail to Thrive

Impatient entrepreneurs may fall on their face due to lack of planning or research, but perfectionist entrepreneurs often don’t even get off the starting blocks. Diving headlong into perceived opportunities with reckless abandon results in a lot of emptied bank accounts and bruised egos, but waiting for the stars to align (and your Master’s degree and your kids to grow up and your hair to grow longer) can be equally dangerous. Why?...

Conscious Entrepreneurs Beat the Odds with Strategic Planning

In a previous post, we covered how impatience is a leading cause of failure for new entrepreneurs. Here, we’ll talk about annual strategic planning, a key practice successful conscious entrepreneurs use to avoid the pitfalls of impatience. Planning can be like putting on clothing to go out. A certain amount – maybe a little bit more than you need – is usually best (you can always take off layers you...

Are You an Impatient Entrepreneur?

New entrepreneurs are usually excited and impatient to get going, so they often slap up a website, print business cards and begin promoting their business before they have a solid understanding of their business concept and offering. While there is value in just getting started and having something out there to begin interacting with your customers and finding out what they want, this approach has big risks. It can easily...