Starting a business is easy, trust me it is very easy, you can do it, I can do it, she can do it, he can do it. Over the past 15 years I have started more than 9 businesses from Online Classifieds site to Interactive Agency, you name it, I have done a few; and through that I have learnt a few lessons that I am going to share with you today.

Me

Yes, you! sometimes when we start a business we are more concerned about US, we let our egos run the business and along the way we develop negative feelings against other people and by so doing we limit ourselves in what we can do, and who we can sell to. We are human we will always be biased but we must always keep it in mind that we did not build the business for ourselves, but we built the company to serve people from all walks of life.

So when you start a business try your best to see beyond the cover of people, from your employees to customers - promote the best performing guy not based on their background but based on what they bring to the table, that will create loyalty even from the junior staff members, it will give your staff a reason to work hard. Forget who you are treat every customer like your life depends on them, show them they mean the world to you.

Spin every Penny twice before spending it

 Before you buy that Bentley cash from your first big payout, think twice. Would that money help you expand your business and be able to get a few of those Bentleys in five years. So on that note one of the killers is spending the business' money, not just big spending but small unplanned spending like staff lunch, Friday drinks, entertaining customers with pizza etc; that money will never come back and those luxuries we can live without; they need to be cutoff if you really want to stick around and build a brand.

Rent

No matter how good your business idea, no matter how good your plan or how much funding you have raised, never start too big. Stay away from malls, expensive locations, when you are starting up. When you are starting up always remember your profit is ZERO, so if you can; work from your garage, share rental space, then grow with your customers. Start small and grow big.

Bad Ideas

I started a business called Prys Comparison, for three years it was doing good in terms of getting traffic, competing with Price Check, Kompare and so forth. I felt like a king, kept pumping money in hoping for the best, but guess what? None of us managed to actually make real money we were dying a slow painful death.

If a business is not making any money for 3 months, try advertising and marketing it for 1 month and if you get nothing or a low ROI, shut the thing down, move on.

Some times management can ruin a business, like running a business without a proper bookkeeping skills, or software to help you; that could and will kill your business faster than you can imagine. My advice is spend money on a software that will guide you, tell you who you owe and how much as well tell you who owes and how much so that you can collect every cent and watch your profit every day. As a manager or startup founder do not be scared to ask, ask if you need help or advice and trust me you will learn a lot and grow.

Lets leave it at that for now, but hey remember to try Bits N Bytes for 30 days, its free, there are no commitments

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