The Three Keys To Starting Your Own Successful Business - Page 2

Good People

What do I mean by good people? Good people for your business are those who are knowledgeable and hardworking. These people put their nose to the grindstone and get things done. When I was in the Navy they called it "attention to detail". In other words people who will not stop until the task is done and done well.

Some may think I am describing a perfectionist. That is not entirely the case. A perfectionist never quits but they also never fully finish anything either. They endlessly toil away never knowing when they have reached a point of stopping. A perfectionist on your team can kill your business. For example, say you're running a technology company that is rolling out a new Internet product. If your lead programmer is a perfectionist they may never get to the point of completing the project and giving the green light. They'll run past deadlines, run your expenditures through the roof and never end up with a completed project.

The other side of the coin is getting someone incompetent. In our Internet product example above, having an incompetent lead programmer is just as bad as having a perfectionist. First, they won't know when to declare it complete and doing so prematurely with bugs in it could doom your business from the start. This was seen time and time again during the dot-com boom when companies would bring in millions and never complete their actual product.
Many went belly up never having actually launched a product. Most of this was due to incompetent people.

The final litmus test for the people involved is in personality. Can the people involved actually get along together? It's surprising the number of businesses with good people that fail because they simply can't get along.

The most important person to ask questions about is yourself.

Are you ready to undergo the stress and strain of starting a business?
Are you willing to call investors and ask for money?
Can you make it financially?

If you are a procrastinator or hate doing any work outside your immediate field of knowledge you may not be the right type of person to start a startup.

However if you love trying new things, don't mind putting in some hard work and sacrificing both time and energy, running a startup may be a fun and rewarding experience for you.

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