3 Tips For Entrepreneurs

Find the Right Business Partners

I think its very difficult to succeed on your own. Whether its finding investors or other sweat equity partners, you will likely need other business partners. I know that I needed help.
The mistake that I made was that I underestimated how hard it is to find the right people. You want to find business partners that are in it for the right reasons, willing to stick it out through the tough times, and compliment your skillset. This is very hard to find and don’t just partner with the first person or two interested. Make sure you really vet your business partners and be picky about this.
If you played sports, business partners in many ways are similar to building a team. You don’t want a bunch of business partners with the exact same skills as you. You want ones that can compliment your weaknesses and also play well with you to build a winning team culture.

Its A Long Game – Outlast The Competitors

People see movies like the social network and think you can become big in a few years. There are some very rare exceptions where that might be true but in most cases it takes years if not decades. Its a long game. Most people give up. Don’t give up and plan for the long game. If you start out making long term investments, eventually they will pay off. I started blogging early. Now its paying off! It took years for it to be worth it.
Many of your competitors will give up, if you stick with it and keep gaining momentum you will outlast them.

Stay Within Your Niche – Then Expand

I started out doing everything from SEO to branding and web development. We used every platform and spread way too thin. Eventually it became obvious we could not be an expert at all these things and it was impossible to scale this way. We succeeded because we narrowed our focus on two platforms, WordPress, and Magento. Pick one or two things, get really good at them, and then expand. We have now expanded into other platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce, but it took us many years to be able to handle other platforms the right way.