If you want to be a successful startup founder, you better have a distinct set of beliefs that will able you to concretize your dream and make it possible.
A lot of startup founders, in general, are not aware that their beliefs not only impact their personal life but all the aspects of their life. Including their business life.
Beliefs are the foundation in which you built your entire life, and so your business. Your beliefs are going to spread through your startup team and your startup ideology.
Your beliefs are going to become a part of your startup culture.
That’s why you better get some right beliefs from the start. So you will have a positive impact toward your startup and let it grow in a good way.
Here are 10 important beliefs all startup founders should have:
1.Believe your idea can change the world
Too big? Too much? My answer would be: why not?
You might think that you better be as realistic as possible in order to not get disappointed and that’s true. But you better dream big if you ever want to achieve big. Don’t set limits to yourself just by yourself. Your competitors are already going to do that. Don’t be supportive to them. Support yourself and believe that what you are intending to do can change the world.
Steve Jobs has done with Apple. Elon Musk is doing it with Tesla Motors and SpaceX. Why wouldn’t you be the next world changer?
2.Believe in your team
Startups start usually with small teams and big ambitions. Everyone in the team is definitely priceless! Whatever what each one is doing, every teeny tiny action will have certainly a big impact toward the startup and its evolution.
To make sure your team is going to deliver great work, you don’t only need to make a team of skillful people. But they have to be motivated too. They must want to make the startup succeed and achieve its idea and make the world change.
One way to help your team have that state of mind is to believe in them.
By believing in your team, you show the confidence that you have on them, you show them the responsibility they have and how the objective and success of the startup is achievable and is up to all of you -the founder and the team-.
3.Believe failure is not fatal and it can be beneficial
Life is not full of rainbows. The startup you found, the business you are doing, the path you are going to go through in order to succeed is definitely not going to be a perfect one.
You are going to make mistakes. You might miss an important call and loose a lifetime chance. You might make a bad partnership. You might badly pitch your business ideas to investors and lose finance…. In brief, there are tons of mistakes that you might do.
But making mistakes -even huge mistakes that are considered as “epic failures”- are not as fatal as you might think.
After every fail, you have to pick up yourself and your business fast. Save what can be saved, and don’t regret if you have an awful decision to take. You are not a bad person and you wouldn’t have taken such awful decision under better circumstances.
Learn from your failures, and know exactly what you should avoid and do for the upcoming days of your startup.
Keep failing and learning, until you succeed.
4.Believe you can compete with anyone
You are trying to make a startup about a business where there are already some big companies well established? You are afraid you are not going to be able to make any impact against them?
Well, don’t worry too much about this. Just study your competitors. See what are they providing, and find what can you provide which will be better than them. It doesn’t have to be twice better, or twice cheaper. An improvement of just 0.01% can make a big improvement for the customers, and push them to choose your product over the others.
Maybe you are too small when you start, and nobody is hearing about you. But the noise you make, even if it’s inaudible now, just keep doing it. Stay consistent and never settle. One day, you will start making noise and will be considered as a tough business from the big fishes. In fact, you will probably become one of the big fishes of the business.
5.Believe money doesn’t come first
You are a startup founder. Thinking about making benefices out of your business is a normal way of thinking. But to want to see the money flowing as early as possible after that you started would be a greed mistake.
Don’t be interested only by the money. You are a startup founder, an entrepreneur, not just an investor.
Money will definitely come and will be on the table. Don’t worry. Just don’t rush things and be greedy.
Believe that it’s not the profit that matters the most, but it’s the success of your startup. Your branding and the growing numbers of your satisfied customers.
6.Believe the time is yours
You have a great idea. You are sure of yourself that you can compete with others and make your ideas concrete projects. But yet, you are waiting to have this and that, to be able to do is or that…you are waiting for a “perfect time”.
You are waiting for a time, where all the conditions are going to be perfect so you will be able to execute your ideas perfectly. But here is the hint, the time is never ever going to be perfect.
You should stop waiting for somethings that will never happen and for some illusions that will never be real. The time is now.
Just start from now, and you will not regret it. Starting your startup and actually doing business is better than to keep planing and daydreaming about it.
7.Believe in guiding not commanding
In your startup, the product or service you are providing is extremely known by you and your team. Your customers may don’t be able to use it exactly as they are supposed to. But you should not be rude towards them and behave like you are giving them orders. They are the customers, not you.
They should use what you are providing as they want. Show them how to use it and the best way to use it. If they struggle with some parts help them to fix it. But never try to impose a way to use something for everyone.
Believe that you are here to guide people not to command them.
8.Believe hard work will always pay
Everyone prefer to believe more on the saying: “Work smarter not harder”
Yes, working smarter is better. But in business, you better work smarter very hard. You have to go all for it and give all what you have in order to succeed.
And since it’s going to take time, even a lot of time, you better believe that hard work will always pay. Otherwise, you are going to lose you motivation and stop being consistent.
You might like: 5 motivational videos to get you back on track
9.Believe not being easy is a gift
Starting a business and make it succeed is everything except easy. You are going to face a lot of difficulties in your journey. How to deal with it? Embrace the difficulty. Accept the challenges. They will all make you learn and improve both yourself and your startup.
Why should you complain about it? Enjoy the fact it’s not easy. If it was easy anyone would do what you are doing/planning to do. You ain’t anyone. You’re a startup founder, you are special!
10.Believe you are the first and last responsible for the success of your startup
It might be not obvious enough. YES, YOU ARE THE FIRST AND LAST RESPONSIBLE FOR EITHER THE SUCCESS OR FAILURE OF YOUR STARTUP.
Some people prefer to hide under reasons/excuses. If you want your business to succeed you have to work for it. Take full responsibility of it and make it work.
Many startup founders who are nowadays leading successful companies remember the days when they were the first at the office and latest people that head to sleep. And where? Most of the time just on a couch inside the office itself.
But all the sacrifices were worth it!
Work hard. Work smart. Take the best decisions. Assume the whole responsibility and keep trying to improve yourself and sacrificing until your startup succeed.
There you go. These are 10 important beliefs all startup founders should have. Which one do you think it’s the most important? And is there anyone else not mentioned?