The Businessmakers Radio Show

Featuring entrepreneurial resources & hundreds of interviews with make it happen entrepreneurs

Day 4: Analyze Successful Entrepreneurs

Being an Entrepreneur is not the easiest thing to do. In most cases the path that lies ahead is not a clear cut one and sometimes has never been traveled before. The Entrepreneur is a modern day explorer, going where few people have gone before them, enduring the hard times knowing that there may be some sacrifices along the way to get to that “Holy Grail”. As difficult as this is there are many resources out there for the Entrepreneur and it starts with step one, analyzing and studying what successful Entrepreneurs have done before you.

Let’s take a look at the founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell. He credits a lot of the success with Atari to the people he worked with. He surrounded himself with people who knew what they were doing and let them do what they do best by having a “company without politics and that people were judged by what they accomplished not by how they accomplished it. The process was in many cases more important than the end results.”

So surrounding yourself with the right people is extremly beneficial. Do not always higher the people that you would love to work with, but rather the person who you know would be the right fit for your company. On the other side of that, if someone working there is not the right fit, it might be good to just let them go. A cog with a few missing teeth still works, but not as well as a cog with all its teeth.

Another important thing is know your market. Everyone always thinks they have a game changing product but you must do your research. Spend time to get to know your customers and what they are looking for. It may turn out that there is not as big of a market available for your business as you first thought. This is not always a bad thing if you feel your product or service is valued in such a way that the customers will have a good response to it. In that case you might just need to go with your gut. For example, Rod Canion had very little market research early on when starting Compaq but he went with his gut and drew upon the previous experience he had in the industry. Sometimes this is the only way to go when introducing something new to the market.

Plus one of the most common pieces of advice we hear on the BusinessMakers is that you have to have passion for what you are doing without it you might not make it through the dark days.

There is no right way to be successful when starting your company, it takes a lot of hard work and long hours. However, the great thing about being an entrepreneur is that there were several people before you, just like there will be several people after you. So if you feel lost or need a little direction, take a look at what the many successful entrepreneurs did before you and learn from what they did right and wrong. Always remember if it is not working out for you its better to pull the plug and move on to the next project.

Activity

Write down 10 things you can work on that will help your business to be successful. Feel free to post your ideas and discuss them among others it might just spark other ideas. Also, if you know of a successful entrepreneur, ask them what they did to achieve their successful business.