Startup Challenges

If you’re like me, you have no shor­tage of ideas for crea­tive things that you could do to make money. We have all had and heard plenty of ideas on how we can “make money online” and run our own busi­nes­ses, or even just gene­rate addi­tio­nal income. I have heard dozens and dozens of great ideas for web­si­tes, busi­ness models, or colla­bo­ra­tive pro­jects from friends, family and peo­ple that I know from online, but why do so few of them ever see the light of day? One word: FOCUS.

I have tech­ni­cally been through the star­tup pro­cess with 5 dif­fe­rent brands, 3 of which have actually gone somewhere and made some money. As I devote my spare time to what is now my 5^th star­tup pro­ject, I have noti­ced that it is now, more than ever, har­der to focus my atten­tion to make things hap­pen. In a world satu­ra­ted with Twit­ter, Face­book, ins­tant mes­sen­ger and beer, it is all too easy to let valua­ble work hours dwindle away into was­ted time “net­wor­king.” Back when I was wor­king on my 1^st star­tup, Twit­ter and Face­book didn’t exist and my IM list was much shor­ter. For­tu­na­tely I have deve­lo­ped the dis­ci­pline to buc­kle down and GTD when I need to, but it seems that so many peo­ple that I know haven’t mas­te­red this art. Why? Because, for many of you, there is no real moti­va­tion. Why are you moti­va­ted to make your star­tup suc­ceed? Is it your sole reve­nue stream? If you are like most, it isn’t. Many peo­ple today are star­ting busi­nes­ses on the side, in hopes to launch something spec­ta­cu­lar in the few hours per week they spend half-heartedly devo­ting to it. NEWS FLASH: Your busi­ness isn’t going to “take off” if you don’t light a fire under­neath it!

Really want to suc­ceed with your star­tup? You need to find moti­va­tion. What is the rea­son you are dedi­ca­ting time to your star­tup? Here are a few com­mon rea­sons if you don’t have any:

• You hate your day job & want to quit
• You want to be a millionaire
• You want to do something that you really enjoy
• You need to make addi­tio­nal income so you can get out of debt

Moti­va­ted yet? Here’s what you do:

• Write out a mini­mum weekly sche­dule that you will com­mit to devo­ting to your startup
• Make a list of every task that you can think of that needs to be accomplished
• When you sit down to work, turn off twit­ter & log out of face­book (beer still ok)
• Every time you sit down, work until you can cross off 1 or more things from the list; if your list items are too large for one sit­ting, break them into sma­ller, actio­na­ble items
• Repeat.

You’ll find that once you have drive and focus, the action of com­ple­ting tasks, even small ones, is rewar­ding enough to keep you moti­va­ted to keep going. Even when the list is long, accom­plishing goals and rewar­ding your­self with cros­sing them off the list is an age old tac­tic that still works. Don’t let the fact that there’s a lot to do, and even more to dis­tract you, bog you down! Keep going and good luck!

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