If anyone told you the startup life is easy, they haven’t experienced it.
So far, BuddingCEOs has had a good start, it’s got a good Facebook Page (BuddingCEOs on Facebook), a clear idea of what we’re building and an awareness among a niche group.
But the cruel fact of life is that, it’s not enough.
Read this for deeper insights into the startup condition and the ups and downs of my own personal journey.
I recently got a wake-up call from a friend about the need to focus.
I’ve been in this phase where business ideas just seem to pop into my head. They’re not all the “wouldn’t it be awesome if…” ideas yet (initial ideas almost never are). But I’ve now come to realize, that if you are chasing two rabbits, both will escape.
So I decided to read about focus and here’s what I’ve picked up from John Maxwell’s book ‘Talent is never enough‘
“If you want to be successful, you must focus on what you can do, not what you can’t”
Why? Because the alternative (being a big fish in a small pond) is often mis-leading.
A personal footballing story
When I was younger, I was captain of my school’s soccer team and the best player in that small pond. By chance I was recruited to be part of the youth setup in a football club, there I was no longer the best.
At age 14, we took part in qualification for the nike international cup (a global tournament held for youths under 14 years old). We played well and faced the national youth team in the final, but psychologically we felt we were better. That match ended 1-0 in our favour and we representated Singapore in the Asian version of the tournament.
We were badly beaten by powerhouses Japan and China, but our perspective was expanded. We now knew that in that larger pond… we were small fish.
At every stage, I felt smaller and smaller but by working hard, I was constantly improving and actually growing. Wait, there’s more to this post. Read on
Business whiz: I want to start a business! I want to be my own boss.
Techie: Well do you have an idea?
Business whiz: I don’t, but I know ‘how to brainstorm for ideas’ ( http://bit.ly/ideas1 )
Techie: You do that, let me know when you have one.
— 30 minutes later —
Business whiz: Darn. I’m on my own. I don’t really know where to start, but let me look at ‘trends to watch for 2010’ ( http://bit.ly/follow_trends )
Business whiz: Number 1 trend to watch – Economic Turmoil. Ok that’s a start.
Business whiz: Hey. I have an idea. How about we build a website to help users track spending?
Techie: Sounds easy, but why would anyone want to track their spending online. Aren’t there spreadsheets and accounting programs for that?
Business whiz: That may be true, but we’ll ‘make it viral’ ( http://bit.ly/viral-startups ) and strike up partnerships to sync the user accounts with their bank statements.
Techie: I’ll join you and start building it, but I still feel we need to make it more special. Maybe, provide recommendations of how they can save money.
Business whiz: Cool. You do that, let’s start small and build up our business. No good idea that changes the world is regarded as one from the start.
— 3 years later —
Business whiz: Now that we’ve sold our company for $170 million , what do you think was the key to our success?
Techie: I think we benefitted from taking it slow. Someone once said, “Great ideas come from rested minds” (http://bit.ly/rested_minds )
Business whiz: I think it’s b‘cos we make a great team. ( http://tcrn.ch/finding-cofounders )
– P.S. See if you can guess which start-up this story is very loosely based on.
Adam Smith, Founder of Xobni (Email management software), captures his start-up experience in this 30 min video brilliantly.
or losing 1.5kg (3.3 lbs) in a two hour gym session (no, not all water loss).
Today, I decided to make my trip to the gym more spectacular. I wanted to push my limits and decided that I would not leave the gym till I burned 1.5kg (or 3.3 lbs). It was almost like the ‘last chance workouts’ made popular by The Biggest Loser.
Through that process, I saw some parallels with the Startup experience that will be useful lessons for Budding CEOs.