culled from:http://www.forbes.com
Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff built Honest Tea from scratch into a $100 million enterprise.
In my recent article on Forbes, you get a few lessons and a compelling story of their journey.
But wait, because there’s one more thing. In fact, 10 more.
Goldman and Nalebuff share 10 must-follow rules on how to
start and build an equally impressive empire (you can find these rules
in the back of their book; ‘Mission In A Bottle’):
1. “Build something you believe in — because that’s the first step to building a great brand.”
Just like Goldman and Nalebuff, I learned a powerful lesson
in tenacious passion from 30 plus years of entrepreneurship. When
you’re all alone, sitting in a dark room wondering why your business is
failing, there is only one true thing to power you forward — you believe in your purpose.
2. “Don’t aim for 10% improvement. Make it radically better and different.”
Yes — in today’s society we collectively create amazing
products, services and companies through entrepreneurship. World
changing at times and Honest Tea was radically different when first
introduced. But, if you look around, we also live in the land of
‘me-too’ businesses. Don’t fall for it. Dig deep and decide right now to
build something radically different and radically better.
3. “Prepare to be copied. Don’t start unless you’ll survive imitation.”
If your idea is truly radical and takes off, you can count
the minutes before the copy-cats arrive. How will you survive
competition from the big 800-pound gorillas on the block? Or even from
the upstart little guys? Your key is a system of ‘continuous
innovation’. Although you could also take the road of Honest Tea — make
friends with one of the gorillas and let them buy you out. (Coca-Cola Company acquired Honest Tea in 2011.)
4. “Build up reserves of money and energy for bad luck and mistakes.”
Great advice — but sometimes extremely difficult to do.
What startup or growth company has reserves of cash sitting around? But
Goldman and Nalebuff make a good point — run as lean as you possibly can
and do not waste money or energy. You will endure mistakes and bad luck
along the way, so having a good war chest full of capital and energy
can help handle it.
5. “Never, ever give up control — until you sell.”
Some high-impact entrepreneurs will readily give up control
in exchange for the lure of high-growth through venture capital — but I
am not one of them. Relinquish control and you risk losing the culture
and vision of the company you set out to build. Even though Honest Tea
raised investment capital from the beginning, the co-founders always
remained in the driver’s seat. (And yes — Goldman can still drive his
vision as CEO of Honest Tea, but his boss at Coca-Cola can say ‘no’ at
anytime. Thus, true control is forever gone.)
6. “Don’t compromise on the big things — compromise on everything else.”
Vision. Purpose. Core values. Write these things in stone
and never budge. But flexibility in the value propositions, products and
services you build to execute your purpose is vastly important. Many
entrepreneurs I see fail to ‘bend to the market’ by adapting to what
their customer’s are telling them.
7. “Figure out how to achieve your goals on a tiny budget — then cut that number in half.”
Yes — you’ve heard it said before — it will cost twice as
much, and take twice as long as you think. My recommendation is you
apply the principles of lean to your business from day one. No fancy
offices. No fancy full color brochures. Your goal is to stay alive until
you can nail your secret formula for success. Blowing the budget will
insure nothing but a quick death.
8. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Is it ever. Building a business is neither for the faint of
heart or the speed demon. Climbing Mt. Everest is not done in 3 easy
steps: 1.) decide you want to do it, 2.) fly to Nepal with zero
preparation, 3.) sprint straight up the mountain in 12 easy minutes.
Build systems for the long-haul and focus on small-connected steps. (It
takes 26,364 steps of 7″ each to climb Mt. Everest, and that’s starting
from half way up at Basecamp.)
9. “Take care of your family, personal and spiritual health — if you aren’t laughing or smiling on a regular basis, recalibrate.”
Imagine the path to a wildly successful business: founder
working at a feverish pitch for 18 hours each day, for at least 5 years
straight. True? No, it’s not. In my private conversation with Goldman,
he flat-out told me two reasons he made it through the rough years:
first — he believed in his purpose, second — his drive for personal
balance. The notion we need to kill our family relationships, personal
health or level of sanity to build our own business is sadly misaligned.
Take it from me — don’t go there.
10. “Build the enterprise and the brand as if you’ll own them forever.”
Will you sell your business
someday? Maybe. Should that be the sole reason you are building it?
Probably not. When you start and build a business based on passion and
purpose, with a burning desire to solve the pain of your customer
through the deliverance of monetizable value, you build a far more
valuable enterprise. Those in it for the short-term quick buck rarely
succeed.
Plaster these 10
rules from Goldman and Nalebuff to your mirror, live by them everyday
of your life as an entrepreneur and you might end up as successful as
they. Honest.
0 comments:
Post a Comment