Resource Articles

 Entrepreneurship requires a significant level of confidence in one’s own abilities, knowledge and intuition. Where this confidence becomes a hindrance to success is when it causes you to stop learning because you think you know enough.  Socrates is widely considered one of the wisest men in history.  Why?  How can an entrepreneur learn and practice the wisdom of Socrates?

Entrepreneurs often build early success by finding and executing the fastest, easiest, cheapest and most effective way to operate and resolve issues.  This agility enhances productivity and creates profitability.  While this is the perfect plan for an entrepreneur, it is also the very roadblock that prevents growth and success at higher levels. Entrepreneurial expertise is not scalable. 

Entrepreneurs who successfully make the transition to CEO are rare. Doing so is a very cognitive, proactive and deliberate process. It requires learning new skills, and a completely new mindset that is not easy.  It requires a desire to no longer be the smartest person in the room, and an ability to create a team of players who are more capable in their area of expertise than is the entrepreneur. 

 Much has been written regarding the characteristics of the successful entrepreneur. Most lists include such things as passion, faith, resiliency, etc. and it’s true that these are invaluable for all entrepreneurs.  But to grow beyond entrepreneurship, there is a specific talent and capability that must be cultivated.  Without it, growth beyond entrepreneurship is stifled, if not killed.  

In evaluating a business opportunity for investment of time, energy, and/or money, there is one metric that is often held up as the gold standard, the holy grail of entrepreneurship. Years of industry experience. If you’ve got 10, 20, 30 years of experience in an industry, you should be able to succeed in a venture that targets that industry, right? Maybe, maybe not.

 Business partnerships compare closely to a marriage, especially considering you are legally and financially joined, and you’ll spend 8-10 hours a day with your business partner, and only about 4-6 of your waking weekday hours with your spouse.  Even more than hiring, friendship alone is not a valid reason.  It requires many characteristics beyond education, experience and expertise.

 We don’t invest without lots to due diligence leading to supreme confidence in the President, his team, their industry knowledge, integrity, work ethic, and ability to make sound decisions. After all that, how is it that we still fail about half the time, only get a satisfactory exit around 20% of the time, and about 65% of the time, we replace the President within a year or so?  

When a business dies, the underlying basis is nearly always based on the triggering of one of seven vulnerabilities. By their very nature, nearly all entrepreneurial businesses carry many of these vulnerabilities throughout the life of the enterprise, and almost inevitably and invariably, one or more of them becomes the underlying cause of the death of over 95% of them. 

The statistics of entrepreneurship are not promising. We all know that most entrepreneurs fail.  A deeper look into the statistics, however, gives us a view in to the reasons companies fail, and how it might be prevented.  These same statistics, however, can also show how to protect your business from failure, and how to turn it into something that facilitates your dreams.

When I am Weak, Then am I Strong

Magnify your strengths, don't waste productive time solving your weaknesses.  Hire people who specialize in your weaknesses and let them do their jobs.