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10 Things That Show You’ve Found Yourself A Great Co-Founder

Contents:

Start Your Business: 7 Reasons To Work For Yourself

Make a Name for Yourself: 11 Personal Branding Power Tips

If you think of your business in the context of a LEAN canvas filled out, each box is a pillar that makes your business viable. Your perfect co-founder is someone who can explain even the most complicated things of their field in a way that makes sense for you. They are the kind of person who relishes educating others.

They are someone who shows humility when they are questioned and are open to new perspectives. This kind of person will be a lot more easy to work with, in the long run.

2. Focus On a Vision

Fair warning that this type of communication has to be two-sided to work. Keep your ego in check, so those around you can do their best work. One of the first conversations you should have with a potential co-founder is about how you align with them on the long-term vision for the product you are building.

If the talk snowballs into better and better versions of your product, be optimistic. But if you find yourself pulling into different directions on key decisions, take it as a red flag.

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Whether it comes down to the industry, the customer profile or their social capital, make sure when they talk about their expertise, they apply it to your context, not their previous successes. Your co-founder is someone who sizes up their own work and yours to the highest standards possible in any situation. More than that, they will align with you on the quality of work you expect from your collaborators, employees or future partners. Going down the road of building your own business eats up a lot of time and effort. And while your business is a reward by itself, having someone work at your side with the same level of persistence and dedication is motivating.

So before you seal the deal, make sure your co-founder meets you halfway with the work and time you both invest in your startup.

You know that any relationship can have its tense moments that require ironing out. Others relish arguments and know that the back and forth will reveal important information and eventually, a clear decision. Whatever your attitude is towards conflicts, make sure you build the kind of foundation with your co-founder where you feel comfortable disagreeing. More than that, make sure that you are both good communicators under pressure and are able to reach a compromise that will move forward your company. Entrepreneurship is no dancing ring for the perfectionists. But a great co-founder is someone that sees every mistake as a learning opportunity.

Firstly, because founders tend to bootstrap to get their business running; secondly, because talking about money is still a difficult topic to approach. Do yourself a favour and approach it directly and sincerely. Most of all, make sure you both feel the decisions you are making are fair for you both. Arguments without satisfying resolutions may be what tears your startup apart. Truthfully, no one wants to do it. Tools like SurveyMonkey make it super easy to run a survey and get analysis of the results. Use a 5 point or 7 point scale, so respondents can answer on a range. It makes it MUCH easier to find patterns in the answers.

Use the Interactivity and Reach of Internet: It is pretty easy to set up a basic web site and test your concept very inexpensively on real live prospects. You can use an inexpensive product like LeadPages to set up a few different descriptions and see which ones customers like more. You should also use Google Adwords to see if people are using Google to search for answers related to your startup. This is a good sign, because it means there are customers out there for you.

You can test advertising on AdWords or Facebook to see if you can get consumers to click. All of us have hobbies like cooking, gardening, Yoga, reading, dancing, etc.

1. Bet On Your Strengths?
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To turn your idea into a thriving business, you need to set goals for your startup and hold yourself accountable to them. Plan out your next steps, with dates and specifics as best you can. I get it- you have a busy life with a job, family, kids, book club, etc. It is simply way too easy to put off the work on your business until tomorrow. I am NOT suggesting that you try to create a detailed plan for everything for months and months.

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

When is it time to quit your job and go full time on your startup? Follow the words of Steve Jobs: Naturally, it feels awkward to invite yourself into it and unlikely to work. Subscribe to their blogs and make a point to read the content. There are so many ways you can build authority by forging new relationships. A good example of this is Van Barker, who spent decades in corporate America working for companies like Hewlett Packard and Pepsico before founding Yardstash, an outdoor bike storage company, as a side project. Part 1 The issue of a domain name can bed dealt with in anything from seconds to….

But knowing the next few steps, and forcing yourself to get it done on a time schedule, will create positive momentum and also will create clarity about the steps that follow. Your natural instinct might be to save aggressively in preparation for the time when you are full-time on your startup and you have a much lower income. Certainly many financial experts will tell you to do that. I think about it a little differently. I think you should take any extra money you have and invest it in your startup.

Spend some money on Google Adwords and start building an email list.

Start Your Business: 7 Reasons To Work For Yourself

Get some inventory of your new product. Get professional business cards. Hire a virtual administrator. But small investments to get your business moving faster—generating more revenue, building your network, getting good legal counsel or patent protection, setting the stage for this business to be viable and support you and your dreams- these are good investments. Not so good investments: Most other things that you can avoid, penny pinch on, or defer.

Make a Name for Yourself: 11 Personal Branding Power Tips

If you have done your homework and spoken with enough customers, you will find customers willing to pay you for your MVP or a variant of it. Paying customers changes everything. You might be able to use your early customers as testimonials. They might even refer you to other prospects.

Use the fact that you still have a job as fuel to network like crazy. Having a job is great, because you interact regularly with other employees, customers, vendors, even competitors. Network inside the company as well as outside.

Try to meet people who can be potential employees, potential customers, potential contractors, potential advisors and mentors, and potential investors. These connections are all potentially valuable. You know how it goes with networking: Do not overlook the idea of finding mentors now, before you need them. Those could be formal relationships, or they could simply be people you will call when you have a question that they can answer.

When I was a venture capitalist, we used to see founders with good ideas who wanted investment so they could quit their jobs and pursue their business. I understand the logic, it makes sense. Investors almost always want to see you working full time on the business so they think you are maximizing their chance to get a return on their investment.

Even if you could get investors interested, your lack of traction would put a very low value on your company at this point. So low that you would need to give up a very large piece to the investors. Finally, there is your time to consider. The process takes much longer than that to identify the right investors, to pitch them, and to go through their due diligence process.

You are much better off at this point using that investment in time to move your business forward.

I've been thinking about you.

If you have other commitments, like kids or a spouse, it can feel like triple duty. Your time is your most valuable resource right now, so use it wisely. The reality is that this might be the time to put some things on the back burner. For these next six months, you might not be able to coach soccer, or take a long vacation, or do your regular poker night or book club.

If you find yourself getting stuck, as many of us do, just try to keep things moving. You can get yourself unstuck by only focusing on the next step. Break down the problem, write it out, and use baby steps to get yourself moving again. It is important to project a professional image about your company in terms of your web site, your customer service, your fulfillment, your appointment setting and your follow up.

You can find freelancers who can help you to test the concept, and to execute on it. If you need freelance programmers- try oDesk or eLance; outside suppliers or manufacturers- try Alibaba; graphic design or marketing- try 99designs or Fiverr; personal assistants to answer phones, set appointments, or book travel- try eaHelp.

The bottom line is, you can use these outside services to manage a pretty extensive operation without YOU needing to do it all.

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This will enable you to grow the business to a sufficient size that you can consider quitting your job. If you have taken all of these steps, you have a growing business that has launched a basic product or service. Starting a business while working full time is much different than running and growing a business while working full time.

You have paying customers and a good idea of how to market and sell to find more. You have tapped your network for help and you know your go-to mentors and advisors. When is it time to quit your job and go full time on your startup?

The right time is probably once you have proven that you can deliver a product or service that customers want. I know it feels like you need more time and a bunch of money to start a business. Achieving your dreams requires work.

It will take time, energy, dedication, and courage.