In this final edition of Setting Up Your Business the Right Way on Innovators Jamie and Tom share their thoughts on the entire business set up process. Once you get things set up they are not set up for life. In fact, when you finish all this work, you should start all over again. Things change and today, things change rapidly. Lessons were learned and shared are as follows:
Lesson One: Things will always take longer than planned. Always.
Lesson Two: It will snow, rain, tornado, hurricane or flood when you are in most need of time and resources to get things done.
Lesson Three: It will take 6 months to set up a business. No less. Often, a lot more.
Lesson Four: You cannot open a successful business with pocket change. If you plan on X dollars, triple it.
Lesson Five: Vendors will not always deliver things when promised. S*** happens and it will usually happen to you.
Lesson Six: Sales development will be harder than you will ever plan; usually by a factor of 3 or 2 times harder.
Lesson Seven: Go lean and go mean: if you have too much capital, you will waste it; if you wait to figure everything out you will be too late to market.
Lesson Eight: Things go faster today than yesterday. Expect things tomorrow to go faster than today. Get used to it. The fast eat the slow.
Lesson Nine: Doing anything in a vacuum will allow you to make many mistakes. Having someone help you allows you to figure things out before bad stuff happens.
Lesson Ten: The best laid plans will be laid to waste. This axiom has never changed. You will pivot and change things. Expect and plan for this and you will be fine. This is the key lesson for anyone listening to these podcasts. Set up your business correctly. It works.
