For many businesspeople, the ultimate goal is to start your own company and turn it into the next Apple, Google or Facebook. But running a start-up is far from the easy route to success and riches than it might seem and for every Jeff Bezos there’s thousands of wannabe entrepreneurs whose dreams turn to dust rather than gold.
That’s why it’s important to learn from those who have made it, and luckily most of them are generous with their insights, which have gathered into a new guide from Headway Capital. Their tips run the range from how to work on your own focus and confidence to which people you should hire to help turn your great idea into something that can change the world.
Elon Musk, for example, believes that there’s more to a candidate than whether or not they graduated from a great university, citing the success of Bill Gates as evidence that you need to look deeper at what they can achieve, not what certificates they have. Steve Jobs, meanwhile, spoke about the balance that made The Beatles great as an example of how you should structure your team to make it greater than the sum of its parts.
Another of the hiring insights comes from Vasil Azarov of Startup Socials, who recommends consulting with experienced marketers and sales veterans rather than going out and hiring yourself a marketing or sales team too early on in your development. This gets you their expertise while also keeping your business lean and flexible, saving you from having to find money for a full-time salary each month.
These are just some of the start-up tips on offer from these successful founders, so why not see what has worked for them and think about how you can apply their lessons to your own business?