Make Meaning - No Pain, No Gain

• Can you work long hours at low income?
• Can you deal with rejection after rejection?
• Can you handle the responsibility of several employees?

Think Big

• If you'll make a success, you can't do it with boring products or services.
• Therefore, aim to shoot for doing things at least ten times better than the status quo.

Find Soul-mates

• Successful businesses are made successful by not just one person but a team.
• It's after success that one person may come to be recognized as "the founder".

Design Different

• Don't rely on only one ideal way to design your product or service.
• There really is no single best creative way but numerous ways.

Your Business Model - Answer Just 2 Questions

• Question 1: Who has in their pocket or account the money you are targeting?
• Question 2: How are you going to get it into your own pocket or account?

Polarize Your Market

• Create products or services for which people will admire (pro) or hate (anti) you.
• The result that should scare you is people remaining indifferent to your offering.

Manage for Cash Flow - It's Your Business Lifeblood

• Low up-front capital outlay.
• Quick sales cycle.
• Short payment terms.
• Recurring revenue.
• Social media, low cost publicity.

Deliver, quick

• Get your fair product or service quickly to market.
• Instead of fix-fix-fix-fix-deliver, think deliver-fix-deliver-fix-deliver . . .
• Admittedly, there are pros and cons to this philosophy.

Seize the High Ground

• Your business purpose is not to put another organization out of business.
• Customers don't care if you want to destroy the competition.
• All they care about is what benefits to derive from patronizing you.

Be Customer-Centric

• Announcing that your business is "the leader" is egocentric.
• Position your business with what you do for the customer.

Constant Training

• We do not rise to the level of our expectations.
• Rather we often fall to the level of our training.

Branding

• Most new successes don't start out preoccupied with building a great brand.
• Focus first on building a profitable product or service and a sustainable enterprise.

Sometimes, Copy Somebody

• Successful business people have invented numerous business models already.
• Inventing a new model for your business can sometimes be a difficult bet to start out with.

                                          Inspirations for this article are from THE ART OF THE START  by Guy Kawasaki

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