Tips for young entrepreneurs/startups - find the balance and connect

Are you feeling the need of becoming an entrepreneur or are you a startup? Below you’ll enjoy, hopefully, a few tips and probably some reminders (we know how easy it is to forget things along the way and in many cases more vital than we think). Trying to keep the torch lit isn’t an easy and by no means an individual job!

• Try to find balance in your professional and personal life - Knowing how to organize your time and balance it with your professional and personal life is critical. Nowadays couples are not just responsible for work or the home, but, for full-time or part-time jobs and families who need extra care and attention. Learn how to make that perfect balance by establish priorities and a plan. The right attitude in your communications is basic to be able to come to agreements and not discussions in both cases.

• Plan B, essential - Sometimes a great plan doesn't go through the way you thought it would. That's why you must have a Plan B. Don't waste too much time being stubborn. When you realize something is not working, use plan B, C, D or G if you must. Although your initial ideas were the ones that got you to where you are now, things might turn throughout the process and you have to be ready to bend and turn - flexibility.

Be flexible in your thinking  - Prepare to change the way you work, the products you use and the services you offer, in order to meet the demands of your customers.

• Social Media - entrepreneurs must take advantage of this tool. Mashable on Startups can provide essential technology tips for startups. You can always learn through test and error, although once you get the hang of a few social media sites, the rest will come naturally. If you haven’t got the time, contract a company or individual to do it for you. Like the famous  Nike slogan - ‘Just do it’

• Ted Talks - it’s very good to talk, in fact it’s essential, therefore, listening should be as or even more important. This site plays different length videos about entrepreneurs who’ve presented a conference and are talking of their own experience. Is a good option when you need to listen to other points of view.

They come in all shapes and sizes

ted talks - Natalie Jeremijenko the art of the eco mindshift

Energetic approach: ‘Always go the extra mile, there's a lot less traffic up there’

• Even when you have everything to lose, act like you don't - this tip comes from Ryan Blair, who is the CEO and Co-founder of ViSalus and author of ‘Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: How I Went from Gang Member to Multimillionaire Entrepreneur’

• Avoid isolation - Even if you work closely with your clients, you won't be part of an office gang anymore. Develop your own network of entrepreneurs that you see regularly and bounce ideas off. Ideally they’ll allow you to vent your anger and share your successes. Try accessing a business centre or coworking space where you feel comfortable and ideally, it’s a business hub on your niche product.

• Teamwork - vital to keep in focus, it means you aspire to expand and thus there will be  times when you’ll be overloaded. To have a good and reliable team at this stage could mean success! Try always to keep relations as professional as possible but always with  an open mind. Taking the time to know your business relations isn’t becoming their buddy. It’s understanding how colleagues work and how you can help them create a working space, where they are as comfortable and productive as possible.  

Nature, is always a good teacher

YouTube - Could you build a winning team like this?

Philosophical approach - Confucius "Find something you love to do and you will never have to work for the rest of your life."

• Use the Internet - create a website, send out email newsletters, buy online banner advertisements and register your site with all the major search engines. There are a lot of directories that let you list your company for free! It isn’t as difficult as it may look, all you need is time and although you don’t have a lot to spare. Try as hard as you can to find time for this and if you still can’t find the time; find someone to do it for you. It’s a great tool that can open your business to a worldwide network.

Sharing Platform’s Network

       Pinterest                  Yahoo         Elance       quora           Delicious       Howcast   MySpace              Yelp         Springpad                  Reedit                   Buffer        Diigo              Slideshare                   Liist    Storify                Vimeo               Tumblr         Bitly                  JavaBB     Stumbleupon            Hootsuite             wordpress               Path            Letora      odesk               Scribd             Digg          blogger                     paper.li                        Squidoo

​QUESTION? How many of you go further than the first page of a search result form a search engine such as: google, yahoo or bing, when looking for something: a shop, directory, city page or plane tickets.

ANSWER - very few. This is why once you’re in the net, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is essential for your company to be on top of the game.

The product - although left for last, in this short list of tips, is the basis of the whole structure. What you’re planning to present to the market; your product. Should have gone through a set of proof tests to ascertain that the risks, to which it’s going to be exposed to, are manageable and you are aware of the possible solutions. Needless to say, is that, it’s impossible to control all possibilities. But this doesn’t mean you can’t confront most issues, self-assured and visualising the situation as another step of the learning process; instead of a drawback.

Sources

• wamda - entrepreneurs fustany egypt
• huffingtonpost - million dollar advice
• visalus - ryan blair
• regus - business centre qa
• ivillage - tips by entrepreneurs
• forbes - tips for aspiring social entrepreneurs

Photo: mkhmarketing via photopin cc