From Geek to Peak

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Recently, I asked my LinkedIn colleagues a simple question:

What is the single biggest mistake you made in your first year of business?

The answers I got back were very insightful. I’ll summarize/paraphrase some of the better ones:

Giving it away for cheap (or free). Pricing yourself too cheap is a huge mistake, but one that everyone seems to make. It’s only afterward that you recognize your own value. Raising your prices is really the only way you can keep the really bad clients away, don’t ya know?

Not paying attention to operations. You may hate all the banking, invoicing, and tax stuff, but you’d better get your head around it. Doing a good job only requires a little bit of your time, and with a part-time bookkeeper (or in my case, an extremely savvy spouse) you can keep the wheels of business turning. Believe me, you don’t want to experience the pain of not getting paid because you were late with your invoices.

Growing too fast. All the business books tell you to market your brains out, get the customers in the door, hire lots of people, set up an office, expand that office, et cetera. But what happens if you’ve got no systems down? Or your product still needs maturity? You’re stuck with lots of irate customers and systems that have to built on the fly.

Not having a focus, or allowing fear to be your focus. Listen, it’s easy to go into panic mode when you don’t have the big paycheck. I know. But you have to master it. Otherwise, every single decision you make will come from a place of fear, uncertainty and doubt. And that’s not good for you or your business. Instead, it’s easier to live and work from your own values. More on that later.

Being a perfectionist. Yes, systems are important. Yes, process is important. Yes, quality work is important. But you have to get things out the door. Everyone understands that sometimes its better to get a good prototype out there and then iterate. Being a perfectionist is sometimes worse than being a complete slob.

Postponing tough decisions. I can’t tell you how many times I should have just fired that problem employee, or walked away from the terrible client, or not agreed to work with such a scummy business associate…but every time, I postponed the tough decision. And every time, I should have just gone in and cut my losses. I learned how to do it, and so can you. Your life will be better after you take action.

Cash is king. Especially if it is in your hand. You can’t pay the bills with profit. Once you learn that cashflow is the number one thing, everything else is easy. Sorta.

Enjoy.