from Timothy Mbugua’s profile
Stepping into self employment or what most would call as the entrepreneur mindset is not an easy feat. Becoming your own boss, finding and recruiting invaluable talents, creating your own projects, and ans running the show has led to many jumping impatiently onto the entrepreneurship bandwagon.Firing your boss is the clarion call, but 9 times out of 10…it is not that easy especially once you have become accustomed to a regular paycheck and a certain lifestyle.
The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence and you may find that inexperience (not lack of knowledge), lack of talent or poor management will slowly drain your passion and your creative juices will cease flowing leaving you in a dry, sorry and depressed state of self. Have I convinced you to stay “employed”? If not read on coz you are one of the few people who actually have the balls to launch out on your own. That said there are some important characteristics that you must have in-place to ensure that you stepping out is not in vain and that you will at least cross that 3 year start-up ceiling that should see you well on your way to business stability and growth.
Before you can start your own technology company, you must be clear of your objectives, focus, and direction. Understand that Rome was not built in a day and your leap of faith into venturing your own business will be tested by constant obstacles.
Recruiting Talents as Partners
Fortunately, you need not experience this alone. In order to have better success, you need to make use of others’ expertise to grow your business regardless of the industry vertical. Most tech businesses are not built alone. In order to form your dream team of partners, you must master the art of recruiting talent .
There are a few reasons why being a single founder is tougher and will easily succumb to failure. There will bound to be many difficult decisions and it might be tough to decide without another person’s opinion or banding together to call the shots. With a single founder, there would not be enough diversity in generating ideas and problem-solving processes. Look at big companies like Google and Apple, they have a wonderful pool of talented people around, and are still constantly recruiting new talents. Plus you must also realize that there are smarter people out there…get them to work for you!
Furthermore, with a partner, you can motivate each other to keep things going and see things from different perspectives. But there is the other extreme, and it is when too many cooks spoil the broth. This runs into the problem of things being debated or argued constantly, causing critical decisions to be delayed.
Same Aspirations
There is nothing more powerful than like-minded partners. To determine the correct person to join your venture, first you have to determine their aspirations. A worthy partner and a mere partner are equally busy; but because of different aspirations, their gains will also be different.
Respect Your Partners and Control Your Desire
After you have recruited the suitable talents, maybe a designer or developer, you must control your desire for power. A partner or company chief executive who cannot relate well with those around him and cares only about his personal desires is unlikely to stay successful for long. You have to control your personal desires and respect others in order to achieve great cooperation.
Rewards, Recognition and Penalty
Next, when it comes to rewards and penalty, one has to be fair. Giving due reward or penalty is an important part of the art of leadership. As times change, however, one ought to be flexible in deciding the type of reward or penalty to be meted out. Give a lighter penalty when it is difficult to decide what penalty is due and give a greater reward when it is difficult to decide what reward is due. If a project design is well received by your client, give more credit to your designer and praise him or her. And when a project messes up, do not be the first to push the blame but help to shoulder the responsibility.
Foster Good Working Relationship
No one likes to be bossed around. In terms of relationship, you must foster good relationships with your partner, superior and subordinate. A superior treats his subordinates with kindheartedness and in return, the subordinates will sincerely respect their superior.
Happiness is the Health of Your Company
A group of happy people is a requisite for company prosperity. When the people are angry or unhappy in a company, they are unnameable to the precepts of ethics. Without moral values, social cohesion is impossible and the loss of support of your team will spell the downfall of your company.
Humility is Key
Humility can get you very far no matter where you go. It’s a great attribute that is useful to cultivate. But be careful not to overly do it, as it might be perceived as fake. Always be ready to listen humbly to the criticisms of your partner and make timely corrections.
Be Willingly to Delegate Responsibility
Always give food for thought to people with high aspirations. These days, many young people are used to a life of plenty and enjoyment from an early age. In such an environment, it is difficult to nurture outstanding talent. In adversity, the survival of the weak is constantly being threatened. Be willingly to delegate your responsibility to your partner and watch them perform. Those who have the courage to accept challenges and give full play to their potential may turn out to be a valuable ally.
Meritocracy is the Way to Prolonged Prosperity
A wise leader would employ people judiciously and give key position to worthy and honest partners, thus making the company strong. Know your partners’ strength and not just allow mediocre people to hold key positions based on friendship or connection.
Take Less and Give More to The Company
Any one will desire that the company give more and take less from them. Invest more time, trust or money into your company and take less from it in order to build up the relationship.
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
Unified command and unified action are prerequisites for company success. A team without unified command and esprit de corps is doomed to failure. The same ingredient is also vital for the success of any organization.
Be Expectant of Adversity
A person is bound to have one form of worry or another. Nothing in the world remains unchanged. Success and failure, good times and bad times, conflicts and harmony, are all part and parcel in a company journey towards success. Knowing this, if you still does not anticipate disasters and prepares for them, a good time will soon be gone.
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Additional insights from Aidan Huang, a Web enthusiast fascinated by the vivid design and technology world. He is also a front-end Web developer that strongly believes in sharing exciting and noteworthy information.
