Five tips for starting your own business

Entrepreneurs should get out of the building and learn about what customers really need

Paul O'Dea is a company transformation adviser at Select Strategies, a firm that helps businesses grow. He has founded or chaired several technology companies including Credo Group, Netsure Telecom, and CampusIT. Below, he shares five tips for fledgling start-ups.

1. Learn something about the customer every day

“Too many start-up founders get consumed with their product or service. They should get out of the building and learn about what customers really, truly need and what’s important to them,” says O’Dea.

Do that by networking, making phone calls or any other way to connect. It will prevent a start-up from creating a solution first and then looking for a problem to solve.

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“If you don’t find your customers’ deep and compelling pain, your start-up is flawed from the beginning. You need to understand the customer perspective deeper and better than anyone else. A big advantage for start-ups is they can pick a small section of the market and do that really well.”

2. Be more flexible than a gymnast

“Many start-ups start because the founder is often a rigid, mad person that has a passion for something,” he said.

But the single-mindedness that is a strength can also become a weakness. “At the beginning you need the flexibility of a gymnast…you need to experiment and change and weave towards the market.”

The start-up path is a “very curvy journey”, and businesses often transform themselves many times on the route to success.

“You need flexibility to navigate that and really listen and take feedback. It’s a skill as a founder to be able to understand, parse and take action on the really important advice you receive,” O’Dea says.

3. Get a trusted, challenging advisor/mentor as difficult as Steve Jobs

Companies need “somebody who’s relentless in moving away the cobwebs from the vision and able to help unearth the vision from the heads of the founders”.

An advisor will be able to “pick the gem and polish it so it’s focused”. O’Dea said that often, particularly in tech, it is hard to understand what a founder is trying to communicate.

His advice is to find someone who will be there for you in the long-term but who won’t be afraid to be critical when you need to hear it.

4. Be very afraid of the money men/women

All start-ups need funding, O’Dea said, but they should only take funding from people they are prepared to “get married to for a long period of time”.

“Don’t go on blind dates. Don’t do one-night stands. Taking money from somebody is a very big responsibility. Take it seriously,” he said. Instead, treat it like any other relationship and be sure you can live with each other.

“Also, don’t take money from anyone until a critical mass of customers say they love your product.”

5. It’s a marathon, not a sprint

O’Dea thinks that if you are trying to get rich quick, go back to your day job. “Starting a business is hard. It will stretch you to your limits.”

Instead, he says, start with passion.