“As an entrepreneur, are you focusing on your strengths”
I haven’t been focusing on my strengths and I think you shouldn’t either. I consider myself an early-stage entrepreneur and at this stage I have to do too many things, most of which I’m not good at. As a bootstrapped entrepreneur i’ve been focusing exactly on the opposite: my weaknesses.
Sales is probably the area where I am less good at. But sales are key for InfluAds and I had to do it. It may be key for any concept because your mission is to sell your concept/vision to everyone in front of you.
This allowed me win on different fields since:
- I could double my focus and “ROI” on what was important for the project
- Learn while doing it (everyone should be a salesman so…)
As an entrepreneur facing your weaknesses you can do three things:
Outsourced approach
You can ask someone to do it and you’ll have it done properly but you’ll never grasp your own weakness. You’ll have it done right the first time (probably… maybe…) and it will cost you $$$ (not available when you’re bootstrapped).
Co-founder approach
You can have a co-founder on the team focusing on that. If one person is limited on time, X co-founders will be as well and adding an extra co-founder has some levels of complexity around timing, choosing the right one… This causes some liquidity dilution and won’t solve much of your weaknesses.
Just f$%ing do it
This has been my approach. No, I won’t be an awesome sales guy even if I grew on that field a lot. No, I will never be a good accountant but I’ve learned a lot about the intrinsics of the nitty-gritty details about accounting, cash-flow management, related obligations…
It takes time, and sometimes time isn’t enough…. but then again, it will never be enough anyway!
It may require being somewhat stubborn (that’s me).
It’s tough but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It may not even be forever but it’s a very rewarding experience when you nail it !!!!
Let’s take one example:
Imagine that you want to recruit someone for your small team and that person will have to do many things, think and sit outside his/her confort zone, as anyone joining small companies. Which kind of profile would you choose, if you knew which approach that person would follow?
I would certainly choose the one that was willing to “take the bull by the horns”. If you agree, why wouldn’t you do it yourself?
