« Now or never! This is so easy to build a company here! ». You know what to do and the time has come: you want to quit your job, to give up your job search… in one word you want to let your daily routine far behind and take a jump start in the entrepreneur life! Now to be successful, you would rather be prepared to how this will impact your whole life!
You have just started a game called « I build my firm ». Choose your character, the player!
Building a company is not a lonely project. Partners will often buy your product or your concept thanks to your personality. You need to be trustworthy, to make people believe in you and what you want to accomplish. The first step is thus to have faith in your capacities et your commitment to make your project go live.
Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses
To develop an activity, you need to be able to rely consciously on your talents, your skills and capacities, your knowledge and your experience.
A tip to discover your talents? Go further than just the tasks you are good at; think about all these things people come to you for, all those that look so easy and normal to you. Talents hide behind simplicity.
It also means that you have to be aware of what you need to develop, either by learning it or by delegating the tasks that are linked to this need.
More to read:
- Discover your strengths, by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton, Pearson editions
- Stop focusing on your strengths, published on Harvard Business Review’s website
Be clear with the reasons why you started this adventure
Where does your motivation come from? Are you looking for a social status? Do you want to be free to organize your week as you wish? Do you want to be able to work wherever and whenever you want to? Is a passion driving you?
The more your motivation comes from you internally instead of from external factors, the more it will help you stay focused when difficulties arise.
More to listen to:
- Dan Pink’s TED Talk: The Puzzle of Motivation
Measure your commitment
If you had to scale your commitment on that project, what would be the score you’d write? How much time, energy, money are you ready to invest? Is that OK with your family?
There is no good or bad answer. That does not mean to give up if you figure out that your time / financial commitment is quite low. It is just a matter of being aware of what you could inject in the project and thus prioritize what you have to do regarding your situation.
More to read:
Work on your added value, your Unique Selling Point (USP)
This point is directly correlated to charisma, credibility and how people will trust you. It is not only a marketing matter. You will indeed adapt your communication strategy to your targets but you do have to believe in your story.
What can people see from you? What makes you different from the other individuals or companies that may offer the same product or service? Why this project in particular instead of another? Who are you when you work on such a project?
Last but not least, what do you need to work on to put on a same line the one you are today, the person people see and the one you would like to become?
Define your vision and be clear of your personal and business objectives
You can not imagine how you could succeed with that project? You just want to try and see what may happen? Do not start trying! To build a company is a real challenge with many obstacles you will have to go through. If you are not sure in your guts that you can achieve this, you may not be as bold as you should and you may stop as soon as you face some minor difficulties.
What is your dream, your ambition? What are the values you want to share?
Write everything down! Even what may appear totally crazy! Write the story of how you have succeed and do not miss any steps.
More to work on:
- An exercise on your personal vision
These 5 first steps will help you to:
- Identify what you want to achieve through this project and the purpose of your company
- Start writing the first lines of your story board, of your sales pitch
- Identify the company legal status (entrepreneur, corporation, association…)
- Start working on your personal action plan and on your commitment to walk the talk till your success
You have just chosen the player you want to be. It is time now to enter Level 2 of the game « I build my company »: Draw the path of your company.
Article published in Lepetitjournal.com, Stockholm edition (in French)
