Basic Advice for Startups

One doesn’t have to search the Internet long to find millions of pages offering basic advice for startups.  From consulting firms, to angel investor websites, eHow articles, and internet marketing get-rich-quick schemes, there’s plenty of “noise” to detract one from the best, basic advice needed.

I was inspired by a recent INC magazine article written by Howard Greenstein (@howardgr), reflecting on his earliest experimentation with entrepreneurship.  While serving as a Congressional intern in the mid-80s, Greenstein found himself buying politically-themed t-shirts for a low price, while unloading them on the local college crowd for a decent profit margin.  Overall, his small business was a success.  Despite some of the basic challenges any entrepreneur faces, he was able to pull-off a successful small business.

So what themes can be shared from his early entrepreneurship encounters?

• Create a business that fuels your passion AND your customers.  Most small business owners will tell you, they work real hard launching their business.  As a matter of fact, for many entrepreneurs, it becomes a second marriage.  To create a business, or website, that is aligned with the things you ACTUALLY like will help it feel less like work and more as a hobby.  More importantly, if it matches the interests of your customers, not only do you have a market for your product or services, but you can also begin building a community.
• Ignore those who doubt you.  There’s no room for those who are going to doubt you.  Yes, you want practical advice and constructive criticism.  But ultimately, if you doubt every decision you make…you’ll only spin your wheels.  I’ve already received feedback from one person indicating that my magazine name, “edDominators” should be reconsidered, citing it may sound too strong to the “education community.”  While I appreciate and respect the feedback, if I ponder and question renaming this magazine site, I’ll spend days coming up with the next title.  Or weeks.  Or months, because eventually I’ll want to change this.  And then that.  And then that too.  At some point you must stay firm to what it is you created and then implement it.  Full-throttle.
• Locate your market.  Before wasting any of your time, make sure you have a market to which you can provide your products or services.  Even though a business idea may really excite YOU, without some market research, there’s no guarantee that it will be needed/wanted by consumers.  edDominators was strategically created to fill a much-needed void of providing educators with information about how to effectively create and launch their own blogs, websites, and online businesses.  There are TONS of websites encouraging and preaching the use of social media for educators, but few websites actually HELP educators do it.  And more importantly, NOBODY helps educators get their blogs, websites, and online businesses ranked high in the search engines or followed by ample visitors, readers, and traffic.  Thus, how edDominators.com was born!
• Forget about your competition.  One thing you CANNOT do–worry about your competition.  In business, and in the Edusphere and “online world,” you’re ALWAYS going to have competition.  You will always need to create the best product, otherwise your competitors’ products and services will be sought after by readers–readers that could have been yours!  So rather than fret about the competition, ignore them and keep doing what you do best.  Keep providing the best online content you can provide, the most unmatched services, and the more useful products…trust me, your customers and readers will keep coming back for more.  Keep abreast of your competition; nothing wrong knowing what they’re doing right and wrong.  A little intel is good for you.  But don’t let your reconnaissance intimidate you.  Instead, let it further motivate you to provide the best all-around services/information you possibly can.

These tips are definitely the most basic advice for startups, but for some, it’s much needed.  Entrepreneurship carries many challenges, many of which lead to great anxiety and stress.  Keeping the basic fundamentals in mind, can help keep an individual focused and committed toward building their small business, or website, into an empire.

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