There are so many adages about persistence; it can make your head spin.  “90% of success is just showing up”.  “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”  And perhaps my favorite “Being defeated is only a temporary condition; giving up is what makes it permanent.”

Persistence is unquestionably needed as an entrepreneur, and is often highlighted as the number one quality of a successful entrepreneur.  Mark Suster recently covered this topic well on his blog.

What really needs to be said about persistence though is that it has to be married with the ability to change course quickly if that is what the market is telling you.  Steve Blank of Four Steps to the Epiphany fame has a great story about adapting quickly when initial market assumptions don’t work out.  An entrepreneur went to his VC board to tell them what wasn’t working and what the plan was to change it.  The inexperienced VCs screamed, but the older, wiser VC in the room calmly told the entrepreneur to follow his gut and make the strategy change.  That’s brave for an entrepreneur to admit what wasn’t working, and commendable for the investor to believe in the entrepreneur.

Having a quick iteration loop and adapting quickly has been defined by Eric Ries as the pivot.   This turns out to be incredibly hard to do for tech entrepreneurs when you have a large “sunk cost” of a particular iteration or set of code.  You really want to believe that your initial assumptions will work out, and it can be difficult to determine when enough is enough and to try something else.

I don’t think there is anything more important to remember as an entrepreneur, or general business person, as 1) be persistent and 2) be willing to pivot.    Those two qualities are at the foundation of any successful venture.  If you can do both of those things well, your chance of success goes up by an order of magnitude.

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A careful balancing act is needed when running your business.   You must carve out a lot of time initially to strategize on how to build your business.  You must also strategize on a regular, almost daily basis, as you research, fine tune and tweak the business model and long term goals.  Your strategy is a set of plans to reach a set of goals.  But most of your time is spent on tactics.  You need to do all the things necessary to execute your plan.  Your tactics are usually a laundry list of dozens of items you should prioritize and act on every week.

The key is to make sure that your tactics always correspond to a strategic goal.  This can be a challenge.  A good trick to ensuring tactics-to-strategy alignment is for every task ask yourself “why am I doing this?”  What strategy does this support?  If you can’t put a tactic in the bucket of something that supports your strategy, you should seriously question whether it is necessary.

Correspondingly, all tactics should be prioritized by where they fall on the list of strategic goals.  This is a great way to prioritize your day.   For example, your strategic goals may include getting five new customer wins by the end of the month, or doubling traffic to the website in six months, or increase revenue by 30% in three months.  Every action item on your plate during the day should be weighed against that list of goals.  Does the action support the goal?  Yes?  Proceed.  No?  Why are you doing it?  If you don’t have a good answer to that, you need to re-prioritize.

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One of the biggest questions entrepreneurs have is how to get funding for their venture.  Fortunately there are many sources for venture dollars.  Where to look for funding depends on what stage your company is at.

Early on you should either bootstrap or go to friends and family. Many companies start this way, and the goal with limited early funding is to stay lean and get something built as cheaply as possible.  There is disagreement on whether bootstrapping is ultimately successful, and whether you should take angel money early on.  Personally I believe it is crazy not to bootstrap, at least initially.  Bootstrapping forces you to think very carefully about your business; and it is your chance to prove to yourself and potential investors that there is something worthwhile to invest further in and keep the ball rolling with the company.

The next stage of funding is usually angel money. The amount of angel money can vary widely, but is often within the $25K to $100K level.   However, anything south of $1M is usually considered to be an angel level.   To get an angel level of investment, you need to get plugged into your local angel network.  In most high tech communities like Austin, there are dozens of organizations and hundreds of angel investors.  In Austin, a good list to reference is on Austin Entrepreneur Network.

After an early seed round, if your company continues to do well, you may want to go for venture capital funding.  As with angel, you should first reach out to local VCs.  It’s best to do research on the venture firm and see if they typically make investments in your space, and target those first.  Unlike angel, going for VC money opens up a wider aperture and you can look at VCs in other cities, as it’s harder to get angel money from someone living elsewhere.

Regardless of where and from whom you attempt to get funding, the most important thing in most investor’s eyes is where the introduction comes from.  Cold calls to investors or throwing business plans over the wall will never get a warm reception.  It takes a reference from a trusted source to get a meeting, and ultimately get an investment.  In the case of VCs, they see hundreds of business plans per month, and there is no way they have time to look at all of them.  Priority goes to known entrepreneurs and references.

Alternative funding sources are starting to emerge.  Companies like stealth-mode Profounder promise to bring crowdsourcing to venture financing.  Profounder is being started by the founder of the microfinance site Kiva.org, and counts Reid Hoffman, chairman of Linked-in, among its advisors.  A crowdsourced model of investment is a brilliant idea that it’s surprising hasn’t been already done yet.

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To successfully start a venture, there is no way you can do it alone.  Not even with just a partner or two.  To build a strong company, you will need to build a correspondingly strong network of people around you.

You should begin this process early.  If you haven’t started in earnest yet, do it today.  The people you want to network with will largely be driven by the type of business you are starting.  Of course you will want to network with other entrepreneurs, but you will also want to network with folks that can lend some direct insight into your business and potential customers.

In truth, you want to network with as many people as possible because you never know where one good contact will lead down the road.  But you should prioritize who you network with, because time is precious and you will have a lot on your plate.

There are four optimal types of people that you must network with at some level.  Make sure all of these bases are covered.

1)      People that have direct insight into your business. This could be someone that started, or has worked at, a company in a similar market.    For example, if I wanted to start selling cars online, it would be great to talk to a car dealership owner or someone that started another ecommerce site.    These people are very valuable because for sure they know something you don’t about your business.

2)      Potential customers. Perhaps the best people to network with are prospective customers.   You will want to understand their needs and have them define your products for you.

3)      Potential funding sources. You should network within circles of high net worth individuals, VCs, angels, and business partners.  Even if you are bootstrapping you will want to be in a position to take the company to the next level, and having strong relationships with people that could invest money in your venture is very important.

4)      People that augment your skill set. As the saying goes, you should focus on your strengths and hire to your weaknesses.    In the case of a startup entrepreneur, you should absolutely network with people that augment your strengths.  Let’s say you are bad at bookkeeping, creative design, SEO, or any other major task of running your business.  You better network with someone that is awesome at it, otherwise you are in trouble.

The best thing about networking with a lot of smart people over time is that if you do it right, eventually you will build up quite a fan base.  Most people love to be cheerleaders when it comes to helping an entrepreneurial venture.  Personally, I love to help others reach their goals, and am glad to help out when asked.  By building a large consortium of people that want you to succeed, there are infinite ways that group of people can directly and indirectly help you through advice, guidance, customer referrals, bartering services, discounted services, investment, and dozens of other ways.

Nothing is more important when starting a business than building a strong network.

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If you are serious about your business, you have to trademark your company name.  You absolutely won’t get really big otherwise.    You may find out in the process that you can’t really trademark the name you were planning to use because someone else has trademarked it, and it’s certainly best to find that out earlier than later.   However, if you chose your company name correctly based on good branding guidelines, you shouldn’t have a problem.

Using a trademark attorney is the best course when establishing a mark for your company name.  You can do a lot of the initial legwork yourself though to save some of the cost, and if you are feeling adventurous you can even do the whole thing yourself.  It’s actually not that difficult.

After choosing a good potential brand name, start by visiting the United States Patent and Trademark Office website.  You can search on name you are considering and see if anyone else already owns that mark.  The search may turn up results for that name, and potentially that is still ok.  It depends what the business owner of the mark does and whether their business is related to your business.  But most times, you want to avoid a mark that anyone else is laying claim to.  This is where consulting with an experienced attorney pays off.

Additionally, you will want to do a Google search for the potential company name.  If the search returns a lot of results, that’s probably not a good thing.  Someone else may be using it for their business, and that can cause you problems down the line.  Again, consulting with an attorney will be helpful.  For sure if your Google search returns results for another company or product that is similar to the type of company that you are planning on, that’s a bad thing.  You should move on and try another name.

The same goes for names of your products. If a Google search or USPTO search turns up an existing mark, you should probably steer clear.

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I’ll reveal a pet peeve of mine about entrepreneurs.  In this post, I really mean “entrepreneurs” rather than entrepreneurs.

It seems there are literally countless people that can talk about an idea they have, what they want to do, and why it is so smart. They can talk the talk.

But very few, and in my opinion the low single digits, can actually walk the walk.  Meaning, can you execute?  Will you do what you say you can do?  Can you take something from the idea stage, flesh it out, figure out if there is a market for it, and then go build it?

For most folks, the answer is no.  And the excuse list is a mile long.

I don’t have… money.  Time.  Anyone to help me.  I’m not a programmer.  I don’t know anything about fund raising.  My wife won’t let me.  I’ve got mouths to feed.  The timing isn’t right.   I’m working 60 hours/week already.  My butt needs wiping.

It’s pathetic.

Look, either you want to do it or you don’t.  Stop whining.  This is where Nike got the branding right.  “Just do it”.

For all the excuses on the list, there are even more ways you can overcome the obstacles.  There is always a way.  Everything in life is a trade off.  You just need to figure out what to trade off.  Time, money, sleep, exercise, and lots of other things can be horse traded when you are following your passion.  A great blog post from Jason Cohen of Smart Bear drives this point home by saying to truly succeed, you need to sacrifice your health.   Hopefully you can succeed without doing this, but I have to agree with Jason.  If you need to, you should.

However it seems so many are not willing to put in the sweat equity.  My advice to all “entrepreneurs” is this:

If you catch yourself starting a sentence with ‘I don’t have’ or ‘but I’m not’, then stop.  Back up.  Think about what you just said.  Then tell yourself “ok, there must be a way.”  Strategize about how to solve your problem.   Get advice from others in your network.  Move forward.  Be persistent.  Do something.  It may not be the right thing, but eventually you will get where you need to go.

And if you need inspiration, watch the first two minutes of this Youtube clip.  Its the most iconic “walk the walk” scene ever.

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Almost any company you start will require some level of creative design.  It could be your website logo, web layout, business card design, stationery, or a brochure.

In the past, you would need to find a contract creative designer that hopefully would work cheaply.  But today you have some other really good options.

Websites have sprung up that offer outsourced creative work to be done on “spec”.  Sites like crowdSPRING and 99designs are duking it out for customer mindshare.

Let’s say you need a logo, or a website design, powerpoint template, etc.  As a buyer you simply post a project, timeframe, and name a price you are willing to pay.   Then the clock starts ticking, eBay style.  By default you would allow a week for submissions.  Along the way you would rate and comment on those submissions, until you find the perfect one.  At the end of the week, you award the project to the best submission.  Sound simple?

Spec work isn’t without it’s critics.  Some would say that doing work this way commoditizes the efforts of designers.  This may be true, as you can get really good logo designs for less than $400.   But the benefits for the buyer are many, including lots of choice and different perspectives.  Typically a contract creative designer might give you four or five choices if you are lucky, and that’s just from one creative person.  With 99designs or crowdSPRING you could easily have more than 100 choices from two dozen creatives.

The market will decide if there is a place for these types of companies, but so far the answer seems to be a resounding yes.  For small businesses, this is an excellent new way to tackle what was once a difficult obstacle – creative help in branding your business.

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If you research how to form a legal entity for your company, you will find many books and sites that will talk about all the options.  You can choose from among a C-Corporation, S-Corporation, LLC, Limited Partnership and more.   While there are plusses and minuses of all the choices, what many books end up recommending is an LLC.

For most entrepreneurial ventures, an LLC is often the best choice.  One exception is that if you have a company that you believe has a good chance of growing quickly and have an IPO in your sights, the best choice can be a C-Corp.  A C-Corp allows you to grant stock options, while an LLC does not.  Were you to get close to an IPO, your attorney would likely want you to change the legal entity to a C-Corp.

An LLC is very flexible because it offers you individual protection while allowing you to easily change to another legal entity if desirable.  In fact, it doesn’t work the other way.  You can’t easily go from an S-Corp to an LLC for example.

When creating an LLC, you have three options.

1)      Legal counsel. Attorneys that specialize in creating legal entities are very proficient.  They have all the LLC document templates and can usually get everything done from start to finish in a few weeks.   The cost usually runs around $1,500 – $2,000.  (Incidentally for a C-Corp you should plan on spending about $5,000).

2)      Low cost legal services. By Googling “create an LLC” you will see lots of options for getting an LLC created.  You can use an online site like LegalZoom or Incorporate.com.  This can be a great option that saves money while still having an expert keep you inside the guardrails.

3)      Do-it-Yourself. Surprisingly, creating an LLC yourself is not that difficult.  Standard form templates are available on the Secretary of State website for your state.  Most states also have an online option for filing and being granted your LLC.  This can be turned around in a few hours once you submit the forms.  This is by far the least costly option, and only takes a little bit of your time to learn what to do and what not to do.

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No matter what business you are starting as an entrepreneur, you will benefit from having a compelling website and making it easy for people to find.  For the latter, you need Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Nobody truly understands how the search engine algorithms work their magic, but there are several smart folks that know a lot.  SEO experts are plentiful and it’s a billion dollar industry.  Good experts are hard to find, and great experts are harder.  They are also expensive, which can be a limiting factor for an entrepreneur.

Luckily, there is also a plethora of information about SEO techniques out there.  It takes a while to wade through the sometimes conflicting information while also figuring out what is outdated or just plain wrong.  But if you put in the effort, you will soon learn the trends in the SEO industry and what works.

There are three basic things you need to know when learning SEO.  For more detail, you can download my “Hands on SEO” presentation from Slideshare.

1)       Keyword research. Before you do anything else, even before you create a website, you should research keywords that people will search on to find your site.  There are a few types of keywords that represent the different types of searches people will do – Information, Shopping, and Purchasing keywords.  You should include different types of keywords on your website.

2)      On page SEO. You will need to optimize many things on your website to make it appealing for search engines to index your pages.  Meta title and description, alt text for images, heading tags, etc.

3)      Off page SEO (Linkbuilding). Once you have completed steps one and two, and only once you have completed steps one and two, you need to start building links to your website.  These links are often referred to as backlinks.  Every one of these links should use anchor text of a keyword that you want to get good rankings for in the search engines.

If you are not in a highly competitive industry, you may be able to rank well for some of your top keywords in a matter of 3-4 months.  If you are in a competitive industry, it could take many more months.

All of this you can do yourself with a little education and elbow grease.  Some of it you may want to outsource to one of a few cost effective offshore SEO resources.

The best thing about learning SEO is a sense of accomplishment when you are able to move the needle and bring more traffic to the site through your own efforts.   Additionally, when it is time to bring in that SEO expert, you will be able to interview and hire them confidently, with the knowledge to at least call bullshit on something they tell you.  That’s important, because you can spend thousands of dollars with the wrong SEO “expert” and not get good results.  You don’t want to waste your time and money like that.

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