How to Start A Business Course – Launching Your Business: The Principles Of Entrepreneurship – Part 18/26

Launching your business is one of the most daunting parts of becoming and being an entrepreneur. Dreaming and planning is the easy part – it almost feels safe and comfortable. As it was said, ideas are nothing but ideas without execution. You must push yourself out of your comfort zone if you want to realize your dream and achieve your vision.

The execution part evokes fear in some individuals. You just need to make sure that you really trust in your start-up business plan, as well as every element it entails. You’ve got to make sure that you’re taking an offering to market that not only addresses a customer need, but one that’s not over-complicated and, of course, that you’re proud of.

"If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough."

If you make mistakes and fail along the way, guess what, you’re only human! You shouldn’t fear failure, as it’s one of the key building blocks to reaching success. Really invest in designing your start-up business plan and use it as your guide, continuously tweak where necessary and refine it to the point where you can’t do anything else, but launch.

However, with all the plans in place, it’s also important to focus on the primary driver of the business – you, the entrepreneur.

As entrepreneurs, we’ve got that fiery entrepreneurial spirit serving as the cornerstone of our decisions and actions. It’s built on a foundation of dreams and desires to create the ultimate life and make a difference in the world, all at once. But, the key to becoming a successful entrepreneur is visualizing your dream, breaking it down into smaller manageable chunks, and manifesting these through clear goals and actions.

It’s also about being aware of the possible pitfalls and putting the necessary protective measures in place to avoid or combat them. It’s about adopting success habits and working towards nurturing your entrepreneurial characteristics, as well as achieving your vision and purpose.

“To build a successful business, you have to start small & dream big.”
Aliko Dangote

This article aims to help you prepare yourself both mentally and physically for launching your business. Our objectives are:

Identify & Combat the Pitfalls of Entrepreneurship
You’ll gain a better understanding of the known pitfalls associated with becoming an entrepreneur and starting or running a business, as well as be equipped with the necessary tools to identify and avoid these pitfalls in the future.
Identify & Implement Core Success Habits of Entrepreneurs
You’ll gain a better understanding of the core mental and physical habits required to achieve both personal and business balance and success, as well as be equipped with the tools to execute these habits within daily routines.
Identify & Nurture the Characteristics of an Entrepreneur with a Vision
You’ll gain a better understanding of the key characteristics that constitute a thriving entrepreneur with a purpose, as well as be equipped with the tools to assist you in staying true to your entrepreneurial spirit and vision.

Common Pitfalls of Entrepreneurship

There are hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs across the globe and each of them has followed a unique entrepreneurial journey. But, one thing we all have in common, is our human factor – we’ve failed on some accounts and we’ve made countless mistakes. But another thing successful entrepreneurs have in common is not fearing failure, but rather embracing and leveraging it.

The important thing about mistakes is that you learn from them.

The idea is not to propel you into a panic but to make you aware of some of the common mistakes entrepreneurs make and hopefully assist you in avoiding them in the future.

The following pitfalls were grouped into key areas and the most common pitfalls:

Strategy

The common pitfalls around strategy involve (1) launching your business without adequate planning and infrastructure, (2) an unbalanced focus on business growth, as well as (3) being averse to innovation and change.

Inadequate Planning & Infrastructure

Planning is probably the most important aspect of both launching and maintaining your business. Many entrepreneurs overlook the importance of adequate planning and rush their offerings to market, usually due to the fear of missing out. However, before launching your business, and releasing your offering into your selected market, you must have a clear vision as to:

•WHAT you’re selling, which refers to the design and development of your offering.
•WHO you’re selling to, which refers to your target market and ideal customer.
•WHERE you’re selling, referring to your distribution and commerce channels.
•HOW you’re selling, relating to your marketing message and content.
•WHY you’re selling, which refers to a clearly defined business vision and mission.

Your start-up business plan should serve as your guide to answering these questions. Should you not be able to answer these comprehensively, chances are you’re not entirely ready to launch your business and offering yet. Having the right infrastructure in place, will also bulletproof your launch and ensure that your business can handle customer requests once launched. This infrastructure refers to your processes, systems, and controls required to support your what, who, where, how, and why.

Unbalanced Focus on Growth

Many entrepreneurs are also either too focused on not focused enough on business growth. Entrepreneurs that are too focused on growing their business, are probably gearing their focus more towards quantity over quality and profit over performance. To avoid this pitfall, you must embed a feasibility study into your start-up business plan and design clear milestones driven by SMART goals.

Entrepreneurs that don’t focus enough on growth, lack an agile strategy that can adapt to changing markets, competitive landscapes, and customer preferences. These entrepreneurs are usually, and unfortunately, one-hit wonders. To avoid this pitfall, you must embed both a business and offering expansion strategy into your business plan, which accounts for possible investment in innovative solutions once capital is available.

Averse to Innovation & Change

Entrepreneurs that aren’t focused on growth, are sometimes averse to change and innovation. It’s important to keep a pulse on your specific industry and know which innovations can / will influence your business strategy. These innovations are usually related to technology and can ultimately provide a competitive advantage – if deemed important enough. These technologies can be integrated to optimize your operations, streamline your resources and enhance your offering.

Operations

The common pitfalls around operations involve (1) hiring the wrong individuals, (2) a lack of adequate leadership & (3) siloed approaches to general management.

Hiring the Wrong Individuals

As an entrepreneur, it’s nearly impossible to launch and maintain your business alone – we’re certainly not robots! You’ll have to have access to a team of individuals who are not only skilled but understand the demands of a start-up business and the inner workings of the entrepreneurial landscape.

These types of individuals should also have a proactive, rather than reactive approach to tackling their responsibilities and do so with the overarching vision of the business in mind. To avoid hiring the wrong individuals, one would generally keep the desired culture and work ethic of the business in mind, perhaps employ recruitment companies to conduct initial skill set sifting or even consider outsourcing certain tasks to specialist companies.

Lack of Leadership Qualities

A lack of adequate leadership qualities in an entrepreneur or business leader is usually the most prominent pitfall of any business. Many entrepreneurs have lost skilled and dedicated employees, due to toxic and unproductive work environments. As an entrepreneur, it’s crucial that, as the lead of the business, you work on your leadership skills and develop a culture of productivity, dedication, learning, transparency, and growth.

Siloed Management Approaches

Siloed approaches to general management usually refer to internal workflow processes, systems, and controls that are, among other things, unorganized, incompatible and inflexible. Most employees, even those who can easily adopt and adapt, value working for a business that is organized internally. Every department speaks to the other, and, there are clear protocols and operating procedures – everything has its place and is in good working order.

To avoid this pitfall, it’s crucial to have the necessary workflow processes and communication channels in place. I’d recommend you conduct some further research as to the affordable, and sometimes free, software and applications available to assist with the latter.

Offering

The common pitfalls around your offering involve (1) developing a product or service that inadequately addresses a market need, (2) an offering that’s rushed through development to get to market, and (3) an offering blueprint that’s over-complicated.

Not Addressing a Market Need

Many entrepreneurs deliver a product or service purely based on what they think their market or customer would want. Sure, your business should be built on your vision, and ultimately what you’re interested in. However, the latter must be accompanied by sufficient market research and should be designed around solving a need of your ideal customer.

There’s no use in designing what you think to be the perfect offering, only to launch and gain little to no sales. Market research is your best friend and is probably the one aspect of your business plan that will based on industry trends and customer preferences, continuously change.

Focused on Quantity over Quality

Some entrepreneurs might be sitting on a billion-dollar idea and find themselves on the verge of the optimal offering but are too focused on business sales frequency and quantity. Taking your offering to market before it’s ready, is the ultimate business suicide. As an entrepreneur, you want your business to succeed, and “perfecting” your product or service is part of that process. I’m not saying your offering won’t adapt – it will if you value customer feedback and innovation. But, first impressions last.

Again, your market research will bulletproof your initial offering. To avoid this pitfall, you must embed prototyping, sampling, and market testing into your market research to make sure your offering is not only wanted but viable.

Over-complicated Offering Blueprints

Dreaming up a new business can be an exciting process, but trying to action everything at once, or at least up front, is more complicated. Entrepreneurs will find that creating a new product or service with too many components or options, almost always hinders progress.

Introducing too much at once will likely confuse your customers and hamper your ability to develop a strong, coherent brand identity. To avoid this pitfall, start-up entrepreneurs should instead focus on what they do best and build from there.

Marketing

The common pitfalls around your marketing involve (1) addressing the wrong target market, (2) implementing an inadequate marketing strategy, and (3) not prioritizing customer feedback.

Addressing the Wrong Target Market

Following your research and planning, you should be able to clearly define your ideal customer and their needs. However, many entrepreneurs create profiles of their ideal customers based on their personal perspectives. Not defining your ideal customer, through thorough market research and testing, but rather through your personal bias, could result in progress delays and a lack of sales.

Many entrepreneurs also find that once launched, their business and offering reach additional customer segments unaccounted for. Many start-up entrepreneurs remain averse to multi-segmented target markets, as it didn’t form part of their initial planning – this could cost you sales and profit.

Identifying your ideal customer is the basis on which you’d design and promote your business and offering but should be designed with an agile approach. Keep a pulse on your customer base and see who’s interacting with your business. You might make some interesting discoveries that could result in future additions to your offering assortment.

An Inadequate Marketing Strategy

You can have the most amazing product or service, but if nobody knows about it, what’s the use? Understanding the fundamentals of marketing and applying them to your start-up business plan, and launch plan is crucial. You need to know who you’re targeting, where you can find them and on which channels they wish to engage with you, what you should say to them, when and how.

Many entrepreneurs also focus too much on the business build-up and launch plan, that they forget to promote their business and offering continuously. To avoid this pitfall, it’s important to design a bulletproof marketing plan that includes both traditional and digital methods of promotion, as well as content plans and calendars. Consistency and quality are key!

Not Focused on Customer Feedback

Another common pitfall in marketing is not observing and valuing customer feedback. Your customers are one of your best assets and will give you the feedback you need to optimize your business and offering, whether verbally through active feedback or non-verbally through their purchase behavior. If there’s something wrong with your product, service, or a related process, your customers will be the first to tell you – because, in the end, they want the most value for their money.

Many entrepreneurs simply launch their businesses and hope for the best. Your marketing plan and platforms should include customer feedback processes, systems, and controls to make customer comments and requests a vital part of your growth process. Another way to keep a pulse on what your customers are thinking is to keep an eye on your digital communities or social media platforms and, perhaps, conduct customer surveys.

Finance

The common pitfalls around your finance involve (1) not having enough start-up capital, (2) inadequate money management, and (3) incorrect or inadequate cash flow projections.

Not Enough Start-Up & Future Capital

Starting a business can be tough and obtaining enough capital to start, launch and maintain your business can pose a challenge for some. Let’s face it – it’s a competitive world! To function properly, businesses of all shapes and sizes require money – and a good share of it too. But the mistake some entrepreneurs make is relying too much on building their business using solely their personal funds and relying on business loans – sometimes propelling them into astronomical debt before their business has kicked off.

When your spending exceeds your revenue, you’ll also run into trouble. So, to avoid this pitfall you must conduct the necessary research as to the funding options available. You can either approach investors or governing bodies that offer grants and even start-up incubator or accelerator programs, to assist you with start-up capital and resources.

Inadequate Money Management

One of the key skills of successful entrepreneurs is numeracy and getting into the habit of good money management. Running out of cash is a major pitfall for many entrepreneurs and usually occurs when the entrepreneur is inadequately versed in the financial aspect of starting, launching, and running a business.

Many entrepreneurs also don’t consider how micro and macro-social and economic factors, as well as trends, can influence their business and financial stability. To avoid these pitfalls, make sure to set a feasible budget and that you have enough cash available, including contingency cash for those unforeseen influences. Hiring, or even outsourcing an accountant and financial advisor to keep track of and manage your money is a great way to have your money managed.

Incorrect Cash Flow Projections

Another area where financial advisors or managers come in handy is to assist with budgeting and cash flow projections. Some entrepreneurs don’t engage in proper financial planning – only accounting for start-up capital and not future capital requirements. Not embedding adequate financial projections into your business plan could result in unforeseen loan requirements and pooling personal finances to pay suppliers.

Avoid finance-related blunders by becoming well-versed in financial management and invest in experts who can assist you in steering clear of irresponsible spending.

QUICK FACT: There are approximately 582 million entrepreneurs across the globe & 60% of them are between the ages of 40 & 60!

Entrepreneur

The common pitfalls around you, as the entrepreneur, involve (1) overestimating your capabilities and capacity, (2) losing sight of the bigger picture, and (3) failing to develop your own skill set.

Overestimating Capabilities & Capacity

The nature of your start-up and your own experience in the industry will determine the necessary homework required to make a successful entry into your desired market. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs often overestimate their industry knowledge. Although many business principles remain universal, there are aspects and trends unique to certain industries.

It’s important to become well-versed in the developments within your industry and keep a pulse on possible change drivers. Some entrepreneurs also fall into the pitfall of wanting to do it all – they are known as “Chief Everything Officers”. You think you can handle it all and you wish to do so because you can control the outcome, but entrepreneurs aren’t robots – we simply can’t and shouldn’t have to do it all, meaning that delegation is key.

Stay humble and remain open to learning from and sourcing input from industry and field experts, other entrepreneurs, and even your employees.

Losing Sight of the Bigger Picture

Many entrepreneurs become so engrossed in conceptualizing and launching their business and offerings, as well as the competitive landscape, that they lose sight of their ultimate business vision and reason for starting the business in the first place.

This pitfall is usually accompanied by focusing on too many opportunities at once and not “perfecting” the business or offer with the most potential. To avoid these pitfalls, it’s important to visualize and articulate your vision and mission in everything that you do – so you’re constantly reminded of where you’re headed.

Failing to Focus on Personal Education

Even though you’re not required to manage every aspect of your business alone, you must be able to know and grasp what’s going on in your business. Investing in your personal learning and education is a crucial part of business growth, as your skills can be invested back into your business and become a vital tool for business success.

To become an entrepreneur with a multi-faceted skill set, you have to make a habit of investing in yourself through reading and research, working with a business coach or mentor, setting time aside to complete executive courses, seeking advice from experts, taking notes, and asking the right questions. Create your own skills development plan and stick to it.

Myths of Entrepreneurship

Myth #1: Entrepreneurs don’t have a social life
Experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that the key to running a successful business is balancing it out with relaxation and social activities. Sure, being an entrepreneur is hard work and requires a level of dedication sometimes indescribable to individuals who don’t share your entrepreneurial spirit. But, yes, entrepreneurs do indeed have social lives, but only if they know how to maintain a good work-life balance.

Remember, it doesn’t matter in which stage of your business you’re in, you’re not a robot – you can and should make time to both relax and engage in social activities. It’s all about balance.

Myth #2: Entrepreneurs are only motivated by money
Some entrepreneurs do it purely for the money – they see a problem; they find a solution and remove themselves. If you’re anything like me, you’d like to think your motivation continuously stems from wanting to make a difference in the world, living the life I’ve always dreamed of, and making money in the process. If you can live the life you love and help someone else live theirs too, I call that a win-win situation!

Myth #3: Anyone can be an entrepreneur
Unfortunately, that’s not entirely true. Being an entrepreneur and starting or running a successful business is an uphill climb. It requires certain aptitudes and attitudes, and a different level of inquisitiveness, dedication, and gumption. Being an entrepreneur also requires embodying certain characteristics, such as being a motivated self-starter, and being self-disciplined and self-aware, among other things.

Myth #4: Entrepreneurs require formal training & education
Although there is much value in gaining an education and qualifications, some entrepreneurs decide they’re confident enough and trust enough in their expertise to start and run a successful business. It essentially boils down to, among other things, your work ethic, ability to design and implement a vision, inquisitiveness and willingness to learn, your personality and characteristics, habits, agility, and passion.

Myth #5: Most entrepreneurs are young
Although most businesses are conceptualized by our Generation Z these days, there’s really no age limit to starting a business. If you’ve got a product or service that addresses a market need, you’re continuously updating your knowledge base, you’re open to change and innovation, and you’ve got a good and agile business acumen – why not?

Success Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, there are a few core mental and physical habits to consider implementing into your daily personal and business routine. Running a successful business is as much reliant on sound business actions, as they are on an entrepreneur that engages in self-reflection, self-care, and skills development.

There are several small, but key commitments, that effective and successful entrepreneurs practice in their daily routines which help them remain at the top of their game and propel their business into an industry dominator. When it comes to success, these types of entrepreneurs recognize the role and importance of engaging in smaller disciplines that catapult them far beyond expectation. They commit to the simple things, providing them with the grit and resilience to push ahead.

Entrepreneurs who not only survive but thrive:

Get Enough Sleep Every Night

This is probably both the most underestimated and most valuable success habit for entrepreneurs. Sleeping patterns impact most, if not all, facets of your life – from physical and mental health to thinking and decision-making abilities. Experts in the field recommend between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night. Although some entrepreneurs would argue this is nearly impossible to keep up, you must force yourself and make a habit of adhering to an effective sleeping routine.

Maintain a Healthy Eating Routine

To achieve an optimal level of productivity, successful entrepreneurs hydrate and follow both a healthy and balanced eating routine. Staying hydrated and giving your body the nutrients it requires will not only boost your brain but give your body the energy it needs to sustain. Many entrepreneurs live a very fast-paced life and will easily indulge in the convenience of fast food. By all means – treat yourself! But, do so in moderation and make time to give your body everything it needs to function properly.

Make Mistakes & Learn

There isn’t an entrepreneur alive that doesn’t want everything to run like clockwork. But it’s the effective entrepreneurs that are aware that not everything goes according to plan and, as a result, train themselves to keep a light-hearted and positive, almost silver-lining, attitude. They recognize the importance of being kind to themselves, and even laughing at themselves from time to time. My philosophy in life is to control what I can control – and, let the rest take its course. Being open to failure and change will help you come up with solutions when and as needed, but also enable you to identify when it’s time to let go.

Stretch & Exercise Regularly

It can pose a challenge to include exercise into an already over-saturated schedule, especially if you’re pursuing various opportunities and career paths at once. However, including just a few minutes of stretching and other forms of exercise into your routine, could make an incredible difference. Aside from the undeniable stress and health-related benefits, it has been proven that exercise increases the neuroplasticity of your brain – making you more alert and able to exist on the cutting edge of intelligence.

Relax & Socialize Often

Being an entrepreneur takes a tremendous amount of effort and sacrifice, no doubt. But successful entrepreneurs need and take time for themselves to recharge. They carve out time in their daily schedules to host self-reflecting meetings and, perhaps, socialize with family and friends. Being an entrepreneur is all about balance, and when you maintain a good balance between “work” and “play”, you’ll avoid burnout. They understand that to truly be present to others, they must nurture the connection they have with themselves. Don’t compromise on your time!

Value External Input & Support

Effective entrepreneurs are very much aware of the fact that they can’t do everything themselves and that there’s always room for self-improvement. They consider themselves a leader and a follower, the teacher and the learner. Having an inquisitive nature and an openness to learn, is one of the principles of success for entrepreneurs. They value learning from like-minded and similarly driven individuals and continue growing their professional networks and support circles.

Educate & Motivate Themselves

Successful entrepreneurs not only educate and motivate other individuals but themselves as well. Most entrepreneurs would tell you that they’ve experienced the imposter syndrome from time to time. Successful entrepreneurs combat this common syndrome by continuously accessing daily affirmations, motivational quotes, and speeches. Successful entrepreneurs also get into the habit of continuously educating themselves – they have an endless list of audiobooks, seminars, and other inspirational content to keep them on track.

Create Success Routines

Creating a success routine might not be attractive to some entrepreneurs, but it certainly works. A success routine considers every aspect of an entrepreneur’s life – their personal life and their business. They make time to, among other things, run their business, motivate their employees, fix their failures, gain inspiration and take time off to relax and socialize. Every entrepreneur’s success routine looks different, but I encourage you to research the routines of entrepreneurs that have achieved success and follow suit – at least until you find your own groove.

Focus on Valuable Outputs

Entrepreneurs have incredibly busy workweeks, calendars filled with meetings, and notepads saturated with to-do list doodles. However, what separates effective entrepreneurs from the rest, is prioritizing high-value tasks. Effective entrepreneurs know how to spend their time wisely and which tasks to focus on first – they usually implement the urgent/important principles. Successful entrepreneurs also know when and how to delegate tasks to skilled employees – making way for inspiration and strategizing.

Embrace Change & Uncertainty

Although entrepreneurs should be focused on the destination, successful entrepreneurs also value the journey. Being an entrepreneur requires the ability to approach every decision in an agile manner and remain both open to and vigilant of possible influences and change drivers. Entrepreneurs use their business plans as guides but are also able to adapt to external influences, such as markets, problems, and trends, very easily. They turn their threats into opportunities, and their weaknesses into strengths – in both their personal and professional life.

Key Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs

Being a successful entrepreneur not only requires business acumen and success routines, but also an untameable entrepreneurial spirit that’s driven by your personality and purpose. Not everyone can be an entrepreneur – it takes certain an entrepreneur that embodies a specific set of characteristics.

Being an entrepreneur also means staying true to and living up to your purpose – your reason for being and doing, which directly links with your business vision.

Here are the top 10 characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, which can be applied in both your personal and professional life. Successful entrepreneurs:

Are Motivated Self-Starters
Self-starters are disciplined and focus on delivering high-value outputs. These types of entrepreneurs are proactive, rather than reactive and don’t need continuous encouragement to adhere to expectations. They lead by example and lead themselves in the process. They’re aware of their weaknesses and stumbling blocks but rely on their openness to change and strengths to overcome them. They also understand the demands of the entrepreneurial landscape and the effort it takes to not only make it but dominate in a cutthroat business world. Essentially, they don’t slack.

Have a Positive Attitude
As mentioned earlier, successful entrepreneurs embrace change and turn potential threats into opportunities. They aren’t discouraged when plans change or when strategies must be revisited – they leverage it. Many entrepreneurs will tell you that their business has turned out much different than they originally envisioned – but they see the value in that. They don’t get stuck in a comfort zone and mundane way of thinking, as they train themselves to be receptive to changes and even criticism.

Are Inquisitive Learners
We’ve established that no one entrepreneur can know and do absolutely everything. However, that doesn’t stop them from enhancing their skill set and knowledge-base, to mold them into well-rounded entrepreneurs. They keep a pulse on the industry and ways in which they, and their business, can be improved. Although adopting this characteristic will certainly help you in the long run, it’s likely you already possess it if you’re following the entrepreneurial path – the same applies to the other characteristics mentioned.

Are Inspired & Creative
Employees and businesses thrive when their leaders are creative. Successful entrepreneurs thrive on being inspired and often create solutions in unique ways. These entrepreneurs are open to new ideas and external input and are prepared to do things differently to set themselves and their businesses apart from the rest. Although there are basic principles to running a business, your unique flair and flavor must be embedded into your business.

Are Leaders & Followers
Successful entrepreneurs usually embody the ability to both lead and follow effectively. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to drive the vision of your business and empower your employees to help you reach it. It’s having the ability to inspire commitment, as well as nurture a culture that drives innovation and growth. A successful entrepreneur is also one that embodies the ability to follow – to be open to criticism and learn from their employees, and even their customers.

Are Resilient & Resourceful
Resilience is a combination of hardiness, resourcefulness, and optimism. Being able to identify and embrace failure and rejection, as well as allocate the necessary time and resources to avoid that failure in the future, is certainly an important characteristic – and skill if looking at it practically. Successful entrepreneurs implement success routines and can manage stress effectively – they are solution and results-driven.

Are Highly Organized
Although entrepreneurs embrace change, they usually rely on structure and various processes, systems, and controls that can manage said change. Successful entrepreneurs are organized in both their personal lives and business – creating a structure for not only themselves but their employees.

Have a Strong Work Ethic
Successful entrepreneurs know a thing or two about work ethic – and are usually driven by their own vision and purpose. They know and understand what it takes to succeed and usually lead by example – which is usually related to output, but more importantly, the quality thereof. They have a natural sense of commitment to the cause and won’t have any unfinished business that might cause delays in progress.

Have an Undying Passion
Work ethic and passion go hand in hand. It takes a certain work ethic to keep the business strong, and it takes passion to drive motivation and results. I believe passion, along with vision and purpose, is the ultimate driver of the entrepreneurial spirit. Successful entrepreneur is driven by their passion and won’t stop, even after multiple failed attempts, to perfect what they’re busy with.

Vision & Purpose
They are goal-driven and have a clear understanding of both their purpose and vision. They know where they’re headed and what the result could look like – and they keep that in mind when making decisions or pursuing opportunities. As a fellow entrepreneur, it can sometimes feel daunting to start designing your business – especially if you have multiple ideas that could possibly change the world. But, the amazing thing about being an entrepreneur is having access to an endless hub of resources and tools to help you organize your thoughts.

Finding Your IKIGAI
Ikigai (pronounced “eye-ka-guy”) is a Japanese concept meaning “the thing you live for” or your “reason for being.”

Above all else, it’s a lifestyle that strives to balance the spiritual with the practical. It requires you to deep dive into your passions, mission, profession, and vocation to define your ultimate purpose, support your vision and create a business with meaning.

Passions refer to what you love doing.
Mission relates to what the world needs.
Vocation is what you’re good at.
Profession is what you can get paid for.
The balance referred to is found at the intersection where your passions and talents converge with the things the world needs and is willing to pay for. It’s essentially your very own recipe for creating not only the business but the life of your dreams.

By exploring the principles of entrepreneurship, you’ll be one step closer to reaching your dream and creating a business that helps you build and leave a legacy for years to come.

Remember our quote in the beginning: “To build a successful business, you have to start small & dream big.”

Never lose sight of your vision, continue the hustle, and more importantly – enjoy the journey!