By James R. Lint
Faculty Member, School of Business
Small businesses start as an idea or a dream. Sometimes, these businesses start in a bar with friends who think about an idea and decide to act on it.
Businesses Often Have Simple Origins in Friendships
Friends who are related by their business or school experience will start a company while working full-time at another job. They are commonly bonded by a similar idea before they decide to create a startup company.
For example, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard launched their company from a garage in 1938. Today, it’s known as Hewlett-Packard, a leader in technology.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University and started a small company from a rented garage in 1997. This company would later become the search engine powerhouse known as Google.
PayPal was started in 1998 by four guys — Luke Nosek, Max Levchin, Peter Theil and Ken Howery — who thought they could start a payments and cryptography company. PayPal has been a great success and is a market leader.
In 2009, artist Perry Chen, web designer Charles Adler and online music editor Yancey Strickler started Kickstarter, a funding platform that supports creative projects.
Planning and Focus Are Key to Successful Startup Companies
Much planning and focus is required to create a business, whether you’re the owner of a small business or a big business. Good organizational skills are critical. Make a plan and pursue it. Know the route you are going to follow with your business.
A plan is good, but a plan with milestones is better. A plan where you must accomplish elements of the larger plan by a specific date will keep your forward momentum moving in the right direction.
Four Practical Ways to Prevent Your Business from Losing Focus
Loss of focus is a landmine for a startup business. To prevent problems, your leadership team should know these four ways to keep your business on track:
- Communicate and coordinate with your team to work more efficiently and effectively. The failure to make weekly phone or in-person conference calls is the first indicator of a weak link.Normally, a team is much stronger than the individual. Combined brain power creates better success. Participation from everyone is important.
- Create a branded website, a necessity in today’s cyber world, and optimize it for desktop computers and mobile devices. Customers often look at your website to get further information. A thin website with little to no useful information shows that the company has not fully thought out their future plans.You’ll also need to show that you’re on top of technology by making your website easily viewable on different mobile devices. Viewers may regard a bad website experience as a sign that the company is not ready for business and doesn’t have a firm plan for what they want to accomplish.
- Create a branded email account. When you’re contacting potential businesses about your future new company and your services, send it from a branded email account. A branded email account provides a professional impression. Don’t delay; delays in creating email accounts cause interruptions in acquiring business customers.
- Advertise the new business on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an excellent way to spread the news about the formation of a new company among your business contacts.
With focus, you’ll acquire the basic elements of a business, which include paying customers. As you get your branding, you will also increase motivation and pride in your organization. Some business entrepreneurs wait until the end to develop a focus and branding, but this type of intense focus boosts you over the finish line.
Focus is what distinguishes start-up entrepreneurs from a mere group of bar friends. When your startup company/bar friends get together for a drink six months later without email accounts, without a website, without a running business, without customers…It is a strong indicator that this group of potential business leaders is not a business, but in reality they are a bunch of drinkers at a bar. The end result is that the bar has the highest profit margin of the group.
About the Author
James R. Lint recently retired as the (GG-15) civilian director for intelligence and security, G2, U.S. Army Communications Electronics Command. He is an adjunct professor at AMU. Additionally, James started the Lint Center for National Security Studies, a nonprofit charity that recently awarded their 43rd scholarship for national security students and professionals. He has 38 years of experience in military intelligence within the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, contractor and civil service.
James was also elected as the 2015 national vice president for the Military Intelligence Corps Association. In 2016 he was accepted as a member of the Military Writers Guild. He has served in the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis and at the Department of Energy’s S&S Security Office. James had an active military career in the Marine Corps for seven years and also served 14 years in the Army. His military assignments include South Korea, Germany and Cuba in addition to numerous CONUS locations. James has authored a book published in 2013, “Leadership and Management Lessons Learned,” and a new book in 2016 “8 Eyes on Korea, A Travel Perspective of Seoul, Korea.”
Comments are closed.