What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal? I wanted freedom more than anything else, and to feel like I was really making a difference and building something.
When everyone else was going for dinner and drinks after work, I wanted to go to the gym or do martial arts. So, I started the business because of a combination of factors, mainly because I felt I wanted the freedom to create an environment that worked for me rather than squeezing myself into an environment that felt foreign. All this must be in line with market forces, but you have a huge degree of creative and intellectual freedom that I think many people crave.
Bite the bullet and bite it early. Leverage can be financial borrowing some money to buy some kit that allows you to make more, and hence sell more, faster and sooner than you could if you saved up , or intellectual e.
However, I remember countless times when I was younger hiring someone to do a job, and when they did that job wrong, instead of addressing it there and then and saying, I would go back and redo the work myself as it was quicker in the short term. There will be plenty of times where if you want to be successful, you have to deliver hard news and give negative feedback that will make people dislike you. So, any issue, address it early and fix it to ensure it does not happen again, to avoid causing you stress and slow down company growth.
What was that moment for you? Probably managing by numbers — ultimately, do your accounts. Know what makes your business grow and what makes it profitable. What drives customer acquisition, retention, sales rate, what are your costs, what drives these costs? How can you minimise costs? But costs are half the battle. Understand your costs, understand your numbers.
