Top 10 Biggest Entrepreneurial Mistakes By Mike Michalowicz

13/03/2010

I’m a big fan of Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, most recently I was busy to search a books of Mike. Finally I got a PDF inside my ebook store. I start to downloading and that touched me and greatly 10,7, 6 and 1. I figure out that, I’m ruining my life and messed-up my life for business which is totally uncertain — though I know no risk no gain but that doesn’t make sense to spend the full time for business. I’m doing BBA and side by side doing web business. To managing  or merging or concentrating in both terms at the same times such as need to take serious decision about business and at the same time exam is knocking that is really tough to handle — I wish I’ll handle it smoothly from today. Oh, I forgot to mention, Mike released his first books, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur[i], I wish it will read this book soon.

10. Trying To Get Rich Quick
Most overnight successes take 15 to 20 years to achieve. If you go in expecting to be rich overnight, you may become discouraged early on and give up your dream prematurely. Know that success takes time, takes perseverance and takes a little bit of luck. Give your business the time to grow. Only if your company is stagnant for a long time, should you take it as an indication to try something new.

9. Assuming No Competition
Even if you have the latest, greatest, never-been-done-before approach to something, don’t assume you have no competition. Competition is more than just the direct, obvious competitors. Competition is also all the available alternatives. What else could the consumer do instead of using your product or service? Could they do nothing?!? The customer almost always has the option of walking away; and that is a serious competitive threat.

8. Being a Weak Leader
The success of your company is contingent on you being a strong, effective leader. This does not mean you need to be an authoritarian, and this does not mean you are everyone’s buddy, either. A great leader sets the course for the company, communicates it constantly and inspires the team to get there.

7. Being All Business All the Time
Many entrepreneurs put their personal lives on hold to focus exclusively on their business. Ultimately both suffer. No question your business needs your full attention and effort, but only in short spurts. Just like a peak athlete, in addition to cranking up for game time, you need to have a proper healthy diet, get enough rest, and take breaks. Balance your personal and business life and you will actually do better in both.

6. Pie-In-The-Sky Financial Goals
If all business plans came true, being a billionaire would be nothing extraordinary. Many entrepreneurs go into a new venture planning astronomical returns. Yet, most never even get the business off the ground. Unrealistic goals not only hurt your credibility, but can also be an emotional drain. Set Specific, Measurable, Accountability, Realistic, and Time specific (SMART) goals to ensure continual progress; chances of being an overnight success (albeit in 15 to 20 years) are much greater!

5. No Rallying Point
There is a reason why employees leave high paying corporate jobs to go to start ups, and it sure ain’t for the money. People are driven to serve an important purpose, in addition to bringing home enough bacon to feed the family. Many businesses never define their real purpose for existence and continually attract a mix of employees who are seeking success in different ways. Clarify the purpose of your company, beyond just making money, and you set the stage for attracting like minded employees. A team focused on the same goal is a very powerful force. The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, “I Have a Booger Hanging Out and No One Is Saying Squat”

4. Cutting Price
Often, the first thing entrepreneurs resort to when business is tough is to try differentiating on price. Cheaper prices mean more customers, right? Wrong! Most customers are willing to buy more expensive items because of the greater quality or the better convenience. During tough times, often an increase in price, coupled with improvements in quality or convenience can bring the customers in droves. Price slashing is a dangerous game. At some point you have to slash yourself to keep costs down.

3. No Clear Marketing Message
You never know where, when or how a new prospect is going to hear of your business. If you have a mix of messages out there, the prospects will have an unclear expectation of what you offer. Your company must be presenting a consistent clear message on all fronts. You will never get a second chance to make a first impression. Make sure every opportunity a new prospect will get to see your business for the first time, sends the same consistent message.

2. Not Being Forthright
The days of cover ups, died out with Bill Clinton’s denial of sexual relations with Monica. The anonymous nature and grand size of the Internet allows someone in the know to share anything with anyone at anytime. If your business tries to cover up a mistake, it is just a matter of time before the word leaks and you are labeled as a liar. That’s not good for business. Be the one to break your own bad news, you just may be perceived as honest and trustworthy.

1. Trying To Do It All
The greatest mistake entrepreneurs make is to believe they can do it all by themselves. While an entrepreneur can do most things, they do most things poorly. Just like any other person, an entrepreneur has one or two God given talents. As an entrepreneur it is your job to identify what you are great and do those few things to your fullest. Surround yourself with people who are strong where you are not. Great companies are built on the foundation of exploiting a few strengths, not on trying to be masters of everything.

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60 Resources For First Time Entrepreneurs – The Entrepreneur’s Handbook

30/12/2009

In previous time, I’ve shared tons of resource for entrepreneurs and you know when you’re in business you need to grow venture capital for your organizations or  business firm, have to understand and know about legal issues and accounts management, web design and internet marketing, advertising and lots of issues.  However, one of my favorite writer Neil shared something cool resource for the web users. I wish you really enjoy it.

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics. Through these 2 companies he has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal

As a first time entrepreneur you probably have tons of questions. And every time you do a Google search for an answer you are bombarded with too much information and in some cases that information contradicts other things you have heard. Due to this, I have created a list of 54 resources that should help you out.

Legal & Accounting

Legal and accounting issues may not seem important when you are starting your company, but they are. Legal and accounting mistakes that you make early on can haunt you for years and can be expensive to fix. So if you are going to start a company you should do things right from the get go.

  • S Corp. vs. LLC: Which Structure is Right for Your Business – Determining the type of legal structure for a new business can be daunting for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Learn more about S Corporations and Limited Liability Companies (LLC), and decide if one of these business structures is right for you.
  • Legal Zoom – a cheap way to get incorporated.
  • Findlaw – a directory of all the lawyers throughout the US.
  • Bookkeeping 101: Debits and Credits – Accounting ends with score keeping but begins with record keeping. The first task of accounting is to accurately record transactions. Transactions are events that change the composition of a firm’s assets, liabilities, and equity.
  • Accounting Basics – This explanation of accounting basics will introduce you to some basic accounting principles, accounting concepts, and accounting terminology.
  • Docstoc – A free place to get legal documents and templates which can drastically help reduce your legal fees and in some cases allow you to do some legal stuff yourself.
  • You’ve Been Sued: What Do You Do? – Everything you wanted to know about being sued.
  • Opening a Business Bank Account – Business bank accounts and your identity.
  • Closing Down Your Business Permanently – If you’re shuttering your business for good, there’s more to it than drawing the blinds.
  • Legal Issues to Consider When Starting Your Business – There are a multitude of legal issues to think about when it comes to starting your business. Everything from your business name to its structure to its operation has legal implications.

Web Design

Design is something we tend to take for granted. Not only is important for your website to look good, but you also want to make sure it is usable and converts.

Internet Marketing

You can have a great product or service, but if no one sees it you will never make any money. Now this doesn’t mean you have to hire a marketing firm to help you out, but you could learn some basic things about Internet marketing.

Hiring Employees

When you don’t have much cash in the bank, you can’t afford to make hiring mistakes. Sooner or later you are going to have to hire a few employees, so you better know what to look for.

Raising Venture Capital

Raising money can be a pain in the ass, especially if you have never done it before. If you want to raise money, you need to know the basic terminology that venture capitalists use, how to create a pitching deck, and how to get in front of venture capitalists.

  • Vfinance – A directory of venture capitalists, angel investors, and business plan templates.
  • Forbes Midas List – A list of the top 100 venture capitalists for the year 2009.
  • The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint – Before you make a powerpoint that showcases your company and how much money you are raising, you should read this.
  • How to Raise Venture Capital – An detailed overview on how you can raise money.
  • Venture Hacks – A blog for entrepreneurs that discusses everything about venture capital.
  • The Funded – An online community of entrepreneurs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide.
  • How To Raise Venture Dollars – Ben Elowitz who has raised over 40 million dollars breaks down the tricks to raising money.
  • Paul Graham – Awesome essays about venture capital and entrepreneurship.

General Business Advice

Other entrepreneurs have already solved many of the problems you are going to face. So when you run to into these generic problems, here are some websites you can turn to.

Living The Frugal Life

Although it may sound sexy to be an entrepreneur, most entrepreneurs don’t make a ton of money. You are going to have to learn to live a frugal life so that you can continue to do what you love and not worry about paying your mortgage.

Conclusion

There are a ton of resources out there for first time entrepreneurs, but these are the main ones I use. Do you have any other recommendations?

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20 Powerful Beliefs That Will Push You Toward Success

25/12/2009

I’m little bit excited today and I’m just coming from an excellent  articles, where Gilbert Ross shared 20 Powerful Beliefs That Will Push You Toward Success — I’ve learned lots of new things from his great share and even I’m astionsed some points has existence inside of me and some are not. I’m trying to figure out and lets see the full contents below.

Written on 12/21/2009 by Gilbert Ross. For more great articles by Gilbert make sure to visit his Blog Soul Hiker. Subscribe to his posts here or follow him on Twitter or Facebook.

I’m sure you have met at least one person in your life that is successful, motivated and self-empowered. This is someone that always seems to land on their feet, turns everything into gold and every success seems to come their way faster and thicker.

I’m also sure you have stopped to think about why these chronically successful people are so energetic, driven and successful with no apparent struggle while you seem to have such inertia impeding your progress.

Many believe that this is some unfair throw of the dice; that they just weren’t meant to become successful. Or perhaps it’s that the ultra successful people had some advantage or social lever that you didn’t. Occasionally this is true, occasionally success is inherited or stumbled into. However, more times than not, it’s created.

Success, first of all, is not a set of achievements or a combination of external factors; it is a mindset. Success is an attitude that comes from a framework of powerful beliefs and empowering thoughts. There have been many books written about this, probably some of which you have read. In the ones I have read, there always seemed to be a certain partiality – an incomplete picture – perhaps biased towards financial success or some other area but not another.

In the following list of beliefs and empowering thoughts, I would like to present a rounder view of success. One that I hope will give you a wider angle towards the meaning of success ranging from the material to the spiritual.

  1. I am in charge of my life
    The belief that you and only you are responsible of what you make of a given situation. Life does not happen to you but is a result of how you respond to opportunities and challenges.
  2. I can make tomorrow better
    The belief that you can change your future by your actions today. Some people are stuck in a fatalist (and dis-empowering) mindset where they believe they have little control on their life.
  3. There is a lot of opportunity out there
    Successful people have their mind set on abundance and opportunity and not scarcity and lack. Trust me this makes a world of a difference. Believe that life, energy, positivity, love, opportunities, success, happiness are abundant…because they are!
  4. I don’t need the approval of others to succeed
    If you are always looking for others’ approval and consent you will not go very far off and you will certainly not be self-empowered.Successful people follow their heart even when others are skeptical or do not consent.
  5. My intentions have effect on my reality
    This is not to believe in magic where you can wish things into being…well almost. Most people are blind to this but successful people know, consciously or otherwise, that a focused and strong intention is indeed a powerful thing that will make a lot of things happen and certainly get you to your destination faster.
  6. People are catalysts not barriers to success
    If approached in the right way and you network with the right people, you will leverage your efforts by a thousand fold. You will get things done faster by getting help from others.
  7. Positive thoughts are powerful and empowering
    Successful people know very well that choosing to start a day with a positive rather than a negative outlook means having successful day as opposed to a frustrating one. It’s definitely in the attitude.
  8. I am not separate from the rest
    This is a deep insight which only the truly successful and wise ones keep at heart. Commonly people believe that they are separate and cut off from the rest because they are individuals. True knowledge will tell you that everything is interconnected and success comes from acknowledging that you are not separate but one with the forces of life and the universe.
  9. How can I use this situation?
    When life throws a bad streak at you or you your plans go down the gutter, ask yourself “How can I use this?”. My life changed as I started doing this. You can always turn a situation around even by just observing, learning and sharpening your attitude.
  10. Hard work & perseverance are rewarded
    This is a rule of thumb even if perhaps reward doesn’t always come immediately but is paid off in the long run.
  11. My past can be reviewed and rewritten
    Some people are locked in their past or think that their past circumstances determine their future. Successful people are skillful in the art of interpreting their past and reframinmg it according to their optimal advantage.
  12. There are forces and energies which can help me if I’m conscious
    You might be thinking magic? Fairies? Not exactly. We cannot perceive certain subtle energies but some successful people believe in positive and negative energy flows from things and people just like ancient Chinese traditions believed in the flow of the Chi (Qi) or life energy. You can make yourself aware of this but it takes practice.
  13. Failure is good
    As in point 9, empowered people can turn a failure into success by learning from it and moving on.
  14. Don’t take it personally
    Get out of the trap of taking life circumstances personally or you will end up enslaved emotionally. When you get rejections, criticisms, cold shoulders, etc., put in within an impersonal bracket. They are not rejecting me, but an idea of me they have in their mind.
  15. Bad patches are temporary
    We all pass through bad patches. It’s the cycle of life. But we all get out of them unless we chose not to. Think outside of the moment.
  16. What I learn can be improved and refined
    Self-empowered people have a very dynamic view on life. There is always space for change and improvement especially on skills and lessons learnt.
  17. I am constantly developing and expanding new capabilities
    Just like the previous point, empowerment comes from a non-static outlook where life-affirming mind states are believed to expand not contract.
  18. Things are impermanent, don’t attach yourself to things
    This is a Buddhist concept which the real successful have learnt through experience. You might think that successful people are materialistic. I think the really successful are people who have a richer view on life and know how to ride life’s waves without getting emotionally attached.
  19. Forget, forgive, rejoice
    Don’t get stuck in resentment and grudges. Travel light without dragging an emotional baggage full of past disappointments.
  20. I already have all I need
    Self-explanatory. The path to success is through self-discovery and not world conquest as some would believe. People who have made it knew how to uncover their skills and true potential instead of obsessing with possessing.

content courtesy 20 Powerful Beliefs That Will Push You Toward Success

photo courtesy Fosteringsuccess.org

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For Yours Startups Are You Sacrificing Your Health, Please Don’t

16/12/2009

stethoscopeI’m always loving in-dependency and always dreaming to become a successful entrepreneur. So, to become a success need to hard work, have to plan, work and complete the tasks and touch the next plan or update the next plan, managing working cash flow and investing some little amount when earned and using some money for self. However, to running in same way or always busy to thinking that really harmful for the human body and soul — and sometimes you will be frustrated, when success not come to you and sometimes you will be excited when success knocked to you.

I’m just coming from 10 Tips for Saving Your Life From Your Business, Tim Berry who shared some awesome tips for us “Maximizing your chance for success means sacrificing health and family” and as well I’m excited when I’ve read Sacrifice your health for your startup — below I’m sharing the venturebeat’s posts and you really enjoy it.

(Editor’s note: Jason Cohen is an angel investor and the founder of Smart Bear Software. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

The Internet is full of good advice about how to lead a healthy, balanced work/home life.

If you don’t have your health and your family, it generally says, nothing else matters. On your deathbed, will you wish you had worked longer hours or been a better parent? Will you wish you had spent more time Twittering or more time exercising, extending your life by five years?

Compelling thoughts. And yet, in my experience this attitude is not the path to success in small business.

Maximizing your chance for success means sacrificing health and family.

This sounds controversial, but it’s not just me:

  • Jeremiah Owyang of Web Strategist: “How do I Keep Up?” This is one of the most common questions I get from folks, or a variant: “Do you sleep?” or “Do you have a family?” I can answer succinctly: “I don’t, in shifts, and yes… I think.” … I’m lucky I fell into my passion. It comes with costs however, I’m out of shape, stressed, I don’t sleep well, and my blood pressure is up.
  • Mark Cuban, self-made millionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks on how he acheived success: “I slept on the couch or floor … Because I was living on happy hour food, and the 2 beer cover charge, I was gaining weight like a pig. But I was having fun. … Every night I would read [software manuals], no matter how late. … I remember sitting in that little office till 10pm … I would get so involved with learning that I would forget to eat …
  • More from Mark in an interview with YoungMoney Magazine: Question: “Did you have to sacrifice your personal life in order to become a business success?”  Answer: “Sure, ask about five of my former girlfriends that question. I went seven years without a vacation. I didn’t even read a fiction book in that time. I was focused.”

“So what,” you could argue, “just because many successful entrepreneurs are workaholics doesn’t mean that’s the only path to success.”

Indeed, study after study has shown that “working more hours” doesn’t translate into “accomplishing more shit.” If you’re not getting enough sleep, for instance, working extra hours doesn’t make up for your foggy brain.

Also, optimizing how you spend your time can increase productivity several times over — an increase you couldn’t possibly match by working more hours.

Yeah, but here’s the problem.

The “Rule of Closets” is that the amount of crap you own will expand to fill all available closet space. You can create more space by adding shelves and organizers, but then you’ll soon discover you have more stuff.

Well I have a “Rule of Time in Startups”: How much time does a bootstrapped company take? All of it.

Even ten people could hardly keep up with everything you do in small business — creating, consulting, designing, fixing, self-promotion, blogging, networking, bookkeeping, taxes, customer support and cultivation and all those little crappy things like losing an afternoon troubleshooting your fancy outsourced IP phone system that was supposed to let you “work from anywhere.”

One, two, or even three people can’t do everything, so of course it takes all your time. If you’re working a day job while starting something on the side, of course you don’t have time to exercise or play with your kids before bed.

It takes obsession to make a little company go. Forget “passion” — everyone’s favorite word — it’s “obsession.” It’s not just that you love working, it’s that you can’t stop working. You’re putting your entire self on the line — your finances, your career, your ideas.

The obsession is there even when you’re away from the office, having lunch with a friend or reading to your kids. As my wife would frequently point out in the early years of Smart Bear, my “mental and emotional bandwidth” was entirely consumed. You’re physically there, but you’re not really there.

Read those quotes above again and you’ll see not just passion but self-destructive devotion. You don’t put yourself through this meat grinder just because you “like something a lot.”

“If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?”

Exactly.

Of course those life-coaches are still correct: This isn’t a great way to live your entire life. You need to accept that this is going to happen and ask whether it’s OK to incur this penalty right now. For me, I did all this in my 20’s when I had no kids, I had enough savings to risk everything for a while, and I had a wife who had her own business and who therefore understood how much work it took and why I was spacing out over dinner.

Bottom line: Every successful bootstrapper I know puts work before self. (Until financial freedom is achieved.) I did too.

(Curious what Jason’s wife thought about this? Check out her rebuttal.)

Photo by a.drian via Flickr

Via Sacrifice your health for your startup — Entrepreneur Venturebeat

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164 Ways How To Become An Entrepreneur

19/09/2009

Yesterday, I’m just checking about my sites present search engine performance and googling post title “How To Become A Great Entrepreneur?, it’s brilliant and I’m getting another one excellent post which was published by By Mike Michalowicz, Author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Mike shared 163 Ways How To Become An Entrepreneur, simply awesome and I have read the whole articles and each and every points brings new experiences to me and even I’m enthusiast to read his book The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Read the whole articles first and then go for the books. Until then, I’m busy with Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust By Chris Brogan and Julien Smith — still interested to know more visit Chris’s blog post.

photo courtesy to You are an entrepreneur

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