What advice would I give other entrepreneurs on how to build a great business?

It’s good to surround yourself with people that you trust, complement your skill set, encourage possibility, critical thinking and debate. Always keep your ego in control, you are not always right or the guy with the right plan even though I don’t believe in brainstorming, I prefer coming up with new ideas and asking others to challenge them. Everyone at your team should feel comfortable sharing their own opinion; they should be natural selves at work.

Your best ideas will not come when you are sitting in the office but from rare and unexpected moments and places, like when you are taking a shower, middle of the night, when traveling and may be on your low moments when you feel like giving up. If you are not thinking about your venture 90% of your time as a founder you are doing a bad job.

Be honest and above all simple, do something that you strongly believe has value. Stop wasting resources and time doing a lot of research about what you think your customer needs, just create a great product that you believe in and tell an honest story about it. Tell a story that suspends your customer’s disbelief and immerses them to believe in you.

Think big and build quickly. Solving shitty small problems will take as much time as when solving big problems, make it worthwhile. If you are going to pick a fight with someone, why pick a small one when all your odds of winning are the same? Taking on big challenges however will require a strong committed founder and a dedicated team, you need to put in the hours in order to deeply understand your customer’s problem in every aspect. 

Find your niche and stick with it, find what you know you don’t know, what you know or do best. Focus for sure, “Say no to 1,000 things”- Steve Jobs. Have a clear focus until you have focused too much. It’s very difficult for many start-ups to focus; they are always chasing the next shinny object around the corner, focus like a laser beam, on less than two opportunities then after you have mastered your products in a small scale you can expand to other areas.

Being an entrepreneur is not easy and must be your calling, something that you feel deep you were meant to accomplish.  Building a successful business takes a lot of commitment, effort and hard work; it’s only if you love what you do that you will be able to with stand all obstacles that come your way. Don’t do it for the money or else it will feel like a job for the rest of your life, find a reason to get you early out of your bed and do it all over again.  It’s all about chasing your passion and being true to who you are and not being afraid of taking risks. Life is very short not to love what you do.

It’s always the best to get the culture right at your startup from the start, get the right engine in the bus or else things may go wrong along the way. Let everyone in your team look at things from the customer’s point of view on every decision you make.  As an entrepreneur you should be able to tell great stories not about the cool features on your product but on how you are solving you customer’s problem. Get in your customer’s head.

Keep pushing the envelope, lots of hard work cos nothing comes easy. It does not matter how much education or experience you have but you ability to deliver.  

BY Sammy Subu – Founder of Fine Blendz