Key Success Factors for Starting Your Own Business

[Lance Shields]

Looking through our member list not so long ago, it was soon clear that a large number of you are founders of small businesses of various flavors ranging from web development, web 2.0 services, web consultants, designers, programmers and more. I am also eager to get my own web agency off the ground and am always interested in stories people have on how they succeeded or failed in making their start, building up business and sustaining it for the long term. I am opening up this discussion for those of you who have past or current experience as entrepreneurs on the web or elsewhere who don't mind sharing what you think are key success factors for getting a small business up and running. If it's a social media related business you get BONUS POINTS.

BTW, as the community has died down a bit in the past few months, I believe I will have to broadcast this a bit to shake things up. Apologies for the PR.

[Andrew Shuttleworth]

Just to let you know I have a reply to this post on my to-do list. Will get to it soon ... I hope :-)

[Lance Shields]

He he. Well, I better add a counter-reply to my to-do's then :@=]

[Andrew Shuttleworth]

Tip: A good way to get a discussion kicked off is make it super easy for people to do the initial replies. e.g. Instead of the above you could have asked, what are three key words you think are key to successful entrepreneurs. I'll start:

1) Vision
2) Persistence
3) Value-creation

Personally, I feel the book 'Think and Grow Rich' offers an easy to comprehend roadmap for success (which he happens to define using the word rich). I think the most difficult part for most people is really finding that burning desire. The original version is available in PDF for free.

Lance Shields said:

He he. Well, I better add a counter-reply to my to-do's then :@=]

[Lance Shields]

Great recommendation on the book Andrew. I downloaded it and will check it out. Did you realize that it was originally written in 1920 and funded by Andrew Carnegie?

[Andrew Shuttleworth]

Lance Shields said:

Did you realize that it was originally written in 1920 and funded by Andrew Carnegie?

Yes. The chapter on 'Transmutation' shows the books age as it's a bit sexist, but from the rest of the book you'd hardly guess. A couple of revised versions have been published which may be worth considering if you are going to buy.

I browsed some of the Google links and found this was one of the best site for downloading as it has the book in many different formats. One I was looking for is *.pdb as I can import that into my library at www.ereader.com or www.fictionwise.com and then download it over the air to my iPhone and use their great ebook reader app.

[Lance Shields]

Great, I will check it out. I actually just printed out the first 5 chapters of the original book. Looking forward to the sexism ;-)

[Paul Papadimitriou]

I would add

4) Luck

Ha ^^

I'm a highly rational person and this is one subject where my rationality is always questioned, but I strongly believe in the inner possibility of bending luck, of making it happen.

Enough of that, I'm boring everyone already.

I'm not a big believer in coaching/self-help/road-to-success books. However, related to before, I believe that one can discipline him/herself to find new ideas and become a better person. In that vein, there's a book I like: The Riddle.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/google_preview/2590177

[Lance Shields]

How lucky do you think Tomoko Namba founder of Mobagetown was?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/677cad78-6b55-11de-861d-00144feabdc0.html

[Paul Papadimitriou]

She was. Just being at that table at that time, allowing to jump-start her idea, or having Yahoo! making big-corporation mistakes, or launching while it was easy to raise money.

Then again, it's not random luck I'm talking about, it's the one you prepare. Having a MBA, working at McKinsey, being there when it was needed, networking in advance to know the key persons, the right employees that you might hire, etc.


Lance Shields said:

How lucky do you think Tomoko Namba founder of Mobagetown was?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/677cad78-6b55-11de-861d-00144feabdc0.html

[Kiyoshi Terada]

My company is waaaaaaaaaaaaay to small but I have been runing it for now two years with my biz partner so here are my HUMBLE opinions:

Key components to me always have been:

1) Persistance
2) Under this economy, be ready to do some probono works for new clients. (especially initial consulting phases.) My business partner and I also offer finance programs to clients.
3) Have two or three clear differences that clearly stand out from your competitors. Also, be clear on what they mean to your prospects. Be able to explain them to prospects in 30 seconds.
4) Under this economy, hourly billing based contracts may kill relationships with clients. I am focusing on project-based services.
5) Don't rely on big business associations for networking to find prospects. Who knows, a referral from your neighor can turn into a big account (which happend to me.)
6) Don't try to "sell". Give.

Just my humble opinions...

[Lance Shields]

This is all sage advise my friend. I'd like to write more of my thoughts later when I have more than 5 minutes. Great to see you back in the blogosphere, Kiyoshi. Jeff and I were just talking about you over beers last night.