Ritesh Agarwal -Born Business Prince - Hotel King - OYO Rooms

Ritesh Agarwal is an Indian entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms. He started his business career at age 18.

He first started Oravel Stays, and then catapulted it into OYO Rooms which is $25 million (Rupees 150 crore) company till 2015 (stat from here)

Early life

Agarwal was born on November 16, 1993, in Bissam Cuttack and was raised in a middle-class Marwari family. His father works with an infrastructure corporation and his mother is a homemaker. He has three siblings.

He went to Sacred Heart School in Rayagada, Odisha. After finishing class 12th, he enrolled in Indian School of Business & Finance, Delhi.However, he didn't continue with his college education and dropped out to start his own company without his family knowing of this move.

Professional Life :

He started travelling extensively across India at the age of 17. He hogged the limelight for his best-selling book – A Complete Encyclopedia of Top 100 Indian Engineering Colleges  His various stay experiences at budget accommodations inspired him to launch Oravel Stays in 2012. Oravel was modeled after Airbnb By 2013, Agarwal realized that mere aggregation of bed and breakfasts couldn't address the problems of budget travelers in India and hence, he pivoted Oravel Stays into OYO Rooms.

In the same year, Agarwal was selected for the Thiel Fellowship. The fellowship was created by PayPal founder, Peter Thiel, and provides $100,000 to college drop-outs under 22 years of age to pursue their idea

Agarwal is the first resident Indian Thiel fellow.

OYO Rooms

OYO Rooms is India's largest budget hotel chain and is present in over 160 cities across the country with 40,000 rooms under its umbrella. OYO Rooms is not merely an aggregator of budget hotels but instead focuses on the standardization of hotels in the non-branded hospitality sector. OYO Rooms is considered to be one of the very few start-ups which are non-copycat. According to Agarwal, OYO Rooms was founded to solve the problem of the lack of predictability, affordability, accessibility and availability at budget stays. Ritesh Agarwal, recently announced OYO's launch in Malaysia through a post on the company's official blog.

Awards and Recognition

1. Forbes '30 under 30' in the consumer tech sector.
2. First resident Asian to win Thiel Fellowship, 2013.
3. Top 50 Entrepreneurs in 2013 by TATA First Dot powered by NEN Awards.
4. Named as one of the '8 Hottest Teenage Start Up Founders in the World' in 2013 by Business Insider
5. TiE-Lumis Entrepreneurial Excellence Award in 2014.
6. Business World Young Entrepreneur Award in 2015.

Ritesh is  Entrepreneur Inspiration for all of us. hats of to this great young hotel king of the world. :) 

Dinesh Agarwal's IndiaMart

After acquiring a B.Tech degree in computer science from the Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur, Dinesh Agarwal took up a job as systems analyst at HCL Technologies.
                                        

                                          

Finally, he settled on building a platform for businesses to display products via dedicated Web pages. He named the venture, IndiaMart InterMesh. The idea was to help the small and medium enterprises in the country market their products and services. Convincing customers to first buy computers, which, in turn, would help in the promotion of their business was quite a task.

As business started growing, he had to deal with several issues and the most irksome among these was looking for bigger office space. In 2007, he invested Rs 7 crore to purchase a two acre plot in Noida and build a new office. He has around 1 crore products and almost 15 lakh suppliers. In 2013-14, the company generated a turnover of around Rs 200 crore. The seed capital was only of 40,000 INR.

IndiaMart :

The Druva Funding Story

The Druva Growth Story: 3,000+ customers, $65 million+ in funding and big data pastures ahead

Druva, founded in 2008, has offices in Sunnyvale, Pune, London and Singapore. Being a student president at IIT Guwahati and an intern at Fraunhofer Institute in Germany provided valuable early learnings to founder Jaspreet Singh. He teamed up with two seniors at Veritas to found their startup, now a leader in data governance.

Druva is one of the prime examples of building a global technology company from India. It was back in 2008 that Milind Borate, Jaspreet Singh and Ramani Kothandaraman set out to create a new kind of data protection solution for the enterprise. Prior to co-founding Druva, Milind worked at Veritas Software as Technical Director for SAN-FS and served on the board of the Veritas patent filter committee. Milind was the one who encouraged Jaspreet to join Veritas and he became of the youngest folks to join the company. Ramani was also with Veritas. Soon, they both got the itch to take up something more challenging and start up. The trio had been with corporates and knew the gaps that existed in the corporate data and security area. This is what gave them the push to start up Druva.

The Funding Jouney

Druva raised its latest round of funding this month- a series D round of $25 million from Sequoia Capital, Tenaya Capital and Nexus Venture Partners. This brings the total funding to $67 million.

Druva had raised its angel round from the Indian Angel Network back in 2008 and then a round of $5 million from Sequoia and IAN in 2010 when it shifted its base to the US. The team at Druva had realized that their major market was in the US and a presence over there would make a lot of sense. Druva then raised a Series B round of funding for $12M in the later half of 2011 led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from Sequoia Capital. At that time, Jaspreet wrote on their blog:

I can still remember working from a “shared” garage office when Druva was a bootstrapped company with just 7 people. After wasting about 6 months, the “eureka” moment came in July 2008 with the launch of inSync (n integrated suite of endpoint data protection and governance solutions), and since then we haven’t had the time to look back.

Druva is also the latest of the lot to join the INR 1000 crore valuation in India and the road ahead is going to be very exciting.

Website: Druva

Sara Blakely - Lose yourself and win the game

How Sara Blakely lost her way to a billion dollars: 8 years ago Sara lost in the finale of Richard Branson’s reality TV show “Rebel Billionaire”. The loss was one of many that turned Sara into the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire...

Sara’s entire life has been about failure. She says “My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn't have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don't be afraid to fail.”

In the 1990s Sara became an expert in failure by selling fax machines (remember those?) and was often so terrified of meeting prospects she would burst into tears and drive around the block to calm down before her sales calls.

Overheating from the stress of it, she decided to cut the feet off her pantyhose to cool down. That was her ‘aha’ moment. As she says “When I cut the feet out of my pantyhose that one time, I saw it as my sign.” She decided to start a business to sell the footless pantyhose in 1998 with just $5,000 - all of her savings - and called the company “Spanx”.

Did the failure stop then? No - “When I invented Spanx I heard 'no' for two years. It didn't faze me. I didn't have a special ability, it was sheer drive and telling myself to keep going.”

FAILING BIG

Working from her kitchen, she made a push for publicity, which simply means your failure becomes more public. For example, her experience with the English: “On the BBC, I was asked what Spanx could do for women in the U.K. I said, 'It smoothes and separates your fanny.' The interviewer looked mortified. I had no idea what was going on, so I kept rambling on about fannies until he stopped me and said, 'I think you mean bum.' The word fanny means vagina in England.”

Her publicity led her to Oprah and Richard Branson’s “Rebel Billionaire” in 2005. She ended up losing that too, but the show gave her a chance to realise what she really wanted to do with her future success - Start a charity for women. Branson gave her $750,000 to start her charity, the Sarah Blakely Foundation, to support women leaders.

What happens when your failure rate goes up? Your luck rate goes up too.

To face her failures, Sara had luck on her back - literally!

“I found my lucky red backpack from college in my mom's attic and became determined that it was going to change my path for Spanx because I kept hearing no, no, no. It went with me every step of the way, to the point of being made fun of because I went to Neiman Marcus headquarters with this old backpack as my presentation bag. Now, with the Sarah Blakely Foundation, every woman we send to college or help start a business receives a lucky red backpack. They're usually more excited about that than the money, which I totally get. The backpack is a symbol of their potential.”

THE BIGGEST RISK

This year Sara Blakely became the youngest female Billionaire in the world, with Spanx generating over $250 million in annual revenue. Sara puts this down to her sheer determination:

"The biggest risk in life is not risking. Every risk you take in life is in direct proportion to the reward. If I'm afraid of something, it's the next thing I have to go do. That's just the way I've been."

What are your big dreams? Where are your greatest risks?

Get your own lucky charm on your back, cut off the feet of whatever is holding you back, turn on the music and take the path that Sara took.

Today, 41 year-old Sara makes many speeches to inspire other entrepreneurs, and even the song she uses to get in her zone is the anthem to failure. As she says - “Eminem's 'Lose Yourself' is my go-to song to pump myself up if I'm having a tough time or if I get really nervous right before a speech.”

Now that she’s a billionare, her mission is “World Butt Domination” through Spanx and supporting women through her foundation, which has donated $17.5 million to charities supporting girls and women in South Africa.

Her failure has meant her wealth has come with humility, which is a different kind of wealth: “I feel like money makes you more of who you already are. If you’re an a**hole, you become a bigger a**hole. If you’re nice, you become nicer. Money is fun to make, fun to spend and fun to give away.”

Use Sara's story to inspire your day: Lose yourself and win the game

Winners never quit and quitters never win.

I ask mentors what they thought the most important key to success was. They all had different opinions. Then one gave me the very best answer. He said "All the most successful people have many differences, but they only have one thing in common. They never gave up. The ones who gave up you don't see. You only see the ones who never gave up. So as long as you never give up, no matter what, you'll be fine."


"Winners never quit and quitters never win." - Vince Lombardi

Carlo Feliciano (freelancer)

 " how-i-started-my-freelance-career-with-zero-experience-in-my-field " - Carlo.

Advice by Carlo : "I decided to start my freelance copywriting career months ago, one of the biggest obstacles I had to overcome was my lack of experience in the field I wanted to get into.

I decided to explore the idea of freelancing when several people from the office complimented my writing one after the other. My problem was that I had no idea what I wanted to do exactly. Yes, it was going to involve writing of some sorts. I discovered I had a knack for words (my boss even trusted me to write a press release about a new product we were launching — not bad for someone 6 months out of university!) but I had never been specifically hired and paid by others just to “write stuff.”

The biggest question running in my head was: who the hell was I to be charging people for a bunch of words I put together?

Luckily, I managed to push through that hump. Within a month or so, I went from being clueless about freelance copywriting to consulting with my first client over Skype."

If I were to summarize what I learned during that period, I would narrow everything down to these 5 steps:

1. Learn

Let’s face it — no matter what field you’re in, you won’t be able to get anywhere with your career if you don’t actually have any idea what you’re doing.

Although I never thought I’d do this again after college, I got my hands on books about copywriting and studied. I pumped as much material as I could into my brain about the topic. I trolled Amazon and hunted down the respected and credible books about the field. I bought them and read them during my free time. I subscribed to blogs, and most importantly, I practiced my craft.

Not enough free time, you say? I didn’t have much either (I work a full-time job, and maintain a long-distance relationship). I can’t read while I’m on the bus without getting dizzy, so I got my hands on a seminar conducted by a well-known copywriter. I took the audio and put it on my MP3 player. I listened during my commute and took my Zune to lunch. Voila; I just had 2-3 hours of study time everyday.

You might think you’re pretty good at what you do, and you know what? I believe you. But you’re not perfect. Every one of us can use more knowledge and improvement with our skills. Don’t sell yourself short by choosing not to learn.

2. Research

We all know the importance of differentiation, and I’m a huge advocate of marketing something unique about your business. Copywriters are a dime a dozen — it wouldn’t be good business sense to call myself a freelance copywriter and hope that clients came in droves.

How did I find my way around this? As I mentioned in the previous point, I studied. In addition to buying books and actually reading them, I went to tons of copywriter’s websites and took detailed notes. I noted what services they were offering and how they were selling it. I paid attention to their website style and how they presented themselves online. I wanted to know their strengths, and more importantly their weaknesses, so I could make an educated decision on how to position myself against them.

At the end of it all, I decided to focus my services on website copywriting. My goal is to be the guy you run to when you need your website to sell your products and services. Instead of generalizing my services to include everybody, I decided to narrow down the field and focus on what my competitors weren’t offering. Being someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience, not having a lot of people to be compared with works to my advantage.

You can always add more services as you become more established. Don’t worry about offering everything plus the kitchen sink right now. Besides, expanding your business is always a lot better than “downsizing” it.

3. Build

Some might say that building a website isn’t necessary. I’m sure there’s a success story or two out there by freelancers who until this day don’t have a website. And they may be right; if you have a large enough network offline, then you probably don’t need a website to start your freelancing career.

But I didn’t have a business network to leverage. I was completely green (and still am in some ways) and NEEDED a website to advertise my services; otherwise nobody would know I existed. I registered my domain name, signed up for a year’s worth of hosting, and slapped a customized WordPress template on it. I managed to find one that suited my needs (I didn’t want it to look like a blog, but I wanted an easy content management system). Plus, with all the research I did on my competition, I knew exactly what to write on my website so I could stand out.

Although I am up for bootstrapping when starting out, one thing I would recommend is to outsource as much of your website as you can. I’m not a web designer by any means, so I probably spent 3 to 4 times longer than I would have if I simply left the coding to a professional.

4. Spread

While most freelancers hate marketing, this is the part I enjoyed the most. I love coming up with a marketing plan and executing it. It is critical that you spread the word about your new business. You never know who you will run into, so don’t be shy about talking up your business.

You don’t have to market your services to businesses alone. One alternative that not a lot of freelancers think of is partnering up with other freelancers. Programmers need designers, designers need copywriters, copywriters need illustrators, etc.

Talk to the people you know and tell them about your new venture (one of my clients is actually a good friend starting his new business). Participate and forums and put your URL in your signature. If you’re comfortable, write an ebook and distribute it through social media. My first client was actually a referral from Shockboogiedesign who found me from the Freelance Switch forums. She contacted me, and we set up a partnership that works exceptionally well for both of us.

Ask yourself one thing: who would benefit from your services? Then figure out how you can use that to your advantage.

5. Act

Your ducks will never be all in a row, so you might as well get to it now. You will make mistakes along the way, and that’s fine. A Kennedy once said, “Only those who dare to fail can ever achieve greatly.” Airplanes don’t travel in one constant direction — the pilots have to adjust and correct their paths every now and then. Your freelancing career should act in the same way. Ready, fire, then aim.

Avoid the curse of daydreaming. I can’t count how much time I’ve wasted reading about freelancing as opposed to taking action and just doing it. Don’t get me wrong; knowing how to do it right is great. But many people should concern themselves more with actually just doing it, period. Blogs and ebooks are a fantastic learning resource, but be sure you dedicate enough time to taking action, as opposed to learning how to take action.

Conclusion

If you’re delaying starting a freelance career due to lack of experience, hopefully these tips helped you get your mind straight. Starting a freelance career is probably one of the most time-consuming activities I’ve ever done, but it’s also been one of the more rewarding ones too.

Facebook Story & About Mark

Facebook Story - very nicely illustrated 

CEO :

NAME : Mark Zuckerberg

OCCUPATION : Computer Programmer, Philanthropist

BIRTH DATE : May 14, 1984 (age 31)

EDUCATION : Harvard University, Phillips Exeter Academy

PLACE OF BIRTH : White Plains, New York

AKA : Mark Zuckerberg

FULL NAME : Mark Elliot Zuckerberg

Synopsis

Born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, Mark Zuckerberg co-founded the social-networking website Facebook out of his college dorm room. He left Harvard after his sophomore year to concentrate on the site, the user base of which has grown to more than 250 million people, making Zuckerberg a billionaire. The birth of Facebook was recently portrayed in the film The Social Network.

                                                                                    

Early Life

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, into a comfortable, well-educated family, and raised in the nearby village of Dobbs Ferry. His father, Edward Zuckerberg, ran a dental practice attached to the family's home. His mother, Karen, worked as a psychiatrist before the birth of the couple's four children—Mark, Randi, Donna and Arielle.

Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers at an early age; when he was about 12, he used Atari BASIC to create a messaging program he named "Zucknet." His father used the program in his dental office, so that the receptionist could inform him of a new patient without yelling across the room. The family also used Zucknet to communicate within the house. Together with his friends, he also created computer games just for fun. "I had a bunch of friends who were artists," he said. "They'd come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it."

To keep up with Mark's burgeoning interest in computers, his parents hired private computer tutor David Newman to come to the house once a week and work with Mark. Newman later told reporters that it was hard to stay ahead of the prodigy, who began taking graduate courses at nearby Mercy College around this same time.

Zuckerberg later studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive preparatory school in New Hampshire. There he showed talent in fencing, becoming the captain of the school's team. He also excelled in literature, earning a diploma in classics. Yet Zuckerberg remained fascinated by computers, and continued to work on developing new programs. While still in high school, he created an early version of the music software Pandora, which he called Synapse. Several companies—including AOL and Microsoft—expressed an interest in buying the software, and hiring the teenager before graduation. He declined the offers.

ELON MUSK - 3

Be Like ELON :)

Food Masters

John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola when he was 55 years old.

Ray Kroc bought McDonald’s when he was 59 years old.

Colonel Sanders began franchising KFC at 62 years old.

Tim & Nina Zagat were 51 yr old lawyers when they wrote the 1st Zagat guide.

Charles Darwin was 50 years old before he wrote “On the Origin of Species”.

Julia Child was also 50 years olf when she wrote her first cookbook.

Henry Ford was 45 years old when he created the Model T car.

Microfinance pioneer, Muhammad Yunus, launched the Grameen Bank at 43 years old.

Samuel L. Jackson was 43 years old before he had his first hit film, “Jungle Fever”.

It’s never too late to succeed.
It’s always too early to quit.

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
~ C.S. Lewis

What do you and 31 year old billionaire Elizabeth Holmes have in common?

What do you and 31 year old billionaire Elizabeth Holmes have in common?

Right now, Elizabeth Holmes is under attack. Not by her customers or investors, but by the press and the US government. 

She started her company, Theranos, when she was 19. It’s now worth $9 billion and has made her the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world. How? Because her company helps people check their blood easily in pharmacies at a fraction of the cost a hospital will charge.

Elizabeth’s a big threat to the medical industry because she’s openly saying “Health care is the leading cause of bankruptcy, and the lack of it is the leading cause of suffering.” If she succeeds in making blood tests cheap and easy, they lose control of your medical data and wallets. We take control.

So one thing has led to another, and in October the Wall Street Journal ran a mud-slinging piece on Elizabeth and her company, quoting 'unnamed sources' who say her tests aren’t all accurate. Now the rest of the press is on the bandwagon and Elizabeth is fighting back, saying “"We’ve seen two articles that were false, and immediately everyone reprints it as if it were true.”

Have you noticed all success stories have a big road bump in the middle, when the establishment or dark forces turn against the hero?

Are you in a similar situation where everything seems against you?

It’s happened to everyone from Bill Gates to Oprah Winfrey, from Mark Zuckerberg to Marissa Mayer, from Mahatma Ghandi to Mother Theresa, from Luke Skywalker to Katniss Everdeen.

Each have had a darkest hour, which has also become their defining moment.

It’s now happening to Elizabeth Holmes and maybe right now it's also happening to you or someone you know.

Mythologist and scholar, Joseph Campbell, calls it part of the “Hero’s Journey”. He showed that every culture told the story of the hero - how we must follow a journey with the same “Three Acts” to reach our true greatness:

In “Act 1 - The Departure” we follow the 'call to adventure'. We start a business, or take on a new challenge, which leads us into unfamiliar territory and internal struggles.

In “Act 2 - The Initiation” we meet the 'road of trials'. We are tested by external demons and dragons to see if we are up to the task. We need to be strong enough to stand tall and humble enough to seek the help of others.

This is where Elizabeth is right now. Most don’t make it through the road of trials, and give up. They never reach the prize - which is to rise above these obstacles to become the very best version of ourselves.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” ~ Joseph Campbell

In “Act 3 - The Return” once we make it through the trials, comes resurrection and rebirth. We then return to where we began, with far greater power and wisdom to share with others.

This is all our journeys: It’s your journey. It’s my journey. We’re all in this together.

Get strength from the journeys of amazing entrepreneurs like Elizabeth’s. They’re unfolding in real time right in front of us. Keep hanging in their, and know you’re not alone.

8 favourite famous failures

8 favourite famous failures

Thomas Edison was told by his teachers that he was "too stupid to learn anything."

  
 
Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job as a television reporter and told she was "unfit for tv.”

Walt Disney was fired from his first newspaper job because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

Henry Ford went broke 5 times before finally creating the Ford Model T when he was 45 years old.

While first writing Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling’s mother died, her marriage failed, she had no job, was on welfare, was diagnosed with clinical depression and described herself being as "poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless.” She kept writing anyway.

One of Elvis Presley’s first singing gigs was at the Grand Ole Opry, but he was fired after just one performance with the manager telling him, "You ain't goin' nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck.” He kept singing anyway.

Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, and that was to a friend. He kept painting anyway.

Famous philosopher Socrates’s original ideas at the time led him to be named "an immoral corrupter of youth" and he was sentenced to death. He kept talking anyway.

Each of these 8 famous examples show the difference between mindful vs mindless failure.

Mindless failure is when you keep failing without growing skills and self awareness. Mindful failure is when each failure gets you clearer about who you are, why you’re here, and how to do it better next time.

The key to mindful failure? Set up a rhythm of commitment, action, failure, learning, repeat - and keep persevering to create your own virtuous cycle maximizing failures that steer you and minimizing failures that sink you.

“The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success."

UBER - A Success Story

Here’s a tweet Travis Kalanick sent in January 2010. The reply from Ryan Graves happened 3 minutes later. That tweet was worth over a billion dollars.

January 2010 was the month Travis was doing a test run with 3 cars in New York for a mobile app that he and his friend, Garrett Camp, had just created.

They had decided it was time to start a company around the app and, needing to find a General Manager to run it, Travis took to Craigslist and Twitter looking for the right person.

Ryan’s reply to Travis came as he was looking for something new. He had some experience at GE, and had worked for Foursquare for a while for free after the company turned him down for a job. He was ready for a new opportunity - and took a chance with this tweet.

Travis replied back, they met, they hit it off, and Ryan joined Travis and Garrett on March 1st as their first hire.

With their new company started, the three of them then invited all their friends to demo the product and they officially launched in San Francisco just 3 months later on May 31st.

That was five years ago.

This week, the team that started with that tweet has built their company, Uber, into a company that is currently valued at over $60 billion (they just announced another funding round of $2 billion this week http://bit.ly/ubers-next-2-billion).

Today, Travis and Ryan are worth over $6 billion, and that tweet from Ryan (who today is Uber’s Head of Global Operations) began a journey which has made him a billionaire today as well.

How are you using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube today?

As a wall of content? As a broadcasting tool?

Or, like Travis and Ryan, as a way to find the resources, connections and opportunities you need when you need them?

Depending on how you use it, social media can make you feel apart from everyone, or one step to anyone.

It can overwhelm you, or empower you.

It can be a time waster, or a time saver.

“Never confuse motion with action.”
~ Benjamin Franklin

What do you need or who can you help today? It may just be a tweet away.

Of course, there is no promise that one connection or one tweet will result in you making a billion dollars or impacting a billion lives.

But there is no promise it won’t either.

Best advice to Entrepreneurs

Best advice if you're just starting or growing a business:

Focus at your customer more than your product. Get fixed on your customer experience, and your product will keep changing to serve them best. But fix your product, and customers will find a path that fits them, with or without you.

If you're waiting on the street corner, wondering where all your customers are, this post is for you.

We've moved from the industrial age where it was all about the product and productization to the technological age where it's all about the customer and customization.

Instead of focusing at product development and production lines (which we learned about and were a part of at school), focus at customer experiences and customization lines.

Your business doesn't start when you have a product. It starts when you have a customer. So who is your perfect customer? Start from there and ask yourself (and them):

Problem - What's the problem they need solved?
Promise - What's the benefit you deliver to them by solving it?
Product - How will you solve it better than others?
Proof - Why should they trust you?

Keep upgrading your answers (and your products) regularly. Because what your customers need, their expectations and how they are being served will keep changing fast. And once you get into flow, you'll begin to know what they need before them, and they'll begin pre-buying your next product.

"Get closer than ever to your customer. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves." ~ Steve Jobs

The easiest way to future proof your business is to have customers that love you. The easiest way to fail is to love your idea or product more than you love your customers. So find your soul-market and fall in love all over again.

50 Tips to Young Enterpreneurs :

1. Do a self-inventory.

Not everyone has what it takes to start a company. That’s not to say that your idea is not brilliant. It just means that you may not have the personality traits to handle launching a company of your own.
Before investing any time or resources, evaluate yourself and see if you have some the typical traits of an entrepreneur. Are you motivated, able to adapt and confident? Are you resilient?

2. Develop an idea.

Don’t just start a business because something is in vogue and you think commercializing it will make money. Develop a business concept that you're passionate about related to something that you have experience with. From there, come up with a product or service that you believe can enhance the people’s lives.

3. Test the plausibility.

Once you’ve settled on an idea, figure out how you can make it become a reality. Is the product or service something that people want or need? Can you make a profit selling it? Does the product work?
Related: 6 Great Business Models to Consider for a Startup

4. Write a business plan.

A solid business plan will guide you going forward. It’s also needed for presenting your idea to potential investors. Your business plan should include a mission statement, a company summary, an executive summary, a service or product offerings, a description of a target market, financial projections and the cost of the operation. Learn about how to write a business plan at SBA.gov.

5. Identify your market.

Even though you may have detected some interest in your business, you need to do more homework. Assess the market, targeting the customers most likely to make a purchase. Perform a competitive assessment.

6. Determine the costs.

Do additional research and find out the standard cost factors within this industry. Not only will this help you manage your business more effectively, investors will want to know this.

7. Establish a budget.

Once you determine how much money you’ll have to work with, figure out how much it will take to develop your product or service and create a marketing plan.
Related: Founders Are From Mars, Capital Providers From Venus

8. Find the right investors.

You’re going to need some sort of funding to start off, whether from your savings, credit cards, loans, grants or venture capitalists. Find an investor who shares your passion, someone you believe you can work with.

9. Listen to investors.

Whether you like it, investors do have a say in your company. And you need to listen to their advice or suggestion. But that doesn’t mean you have to do what they tell you.

10. Set up a great support system.

You’re going to be investing a lot of time and resources into your new business venture. Be certain that your family is on board. They must be aware that this process will be challenging financially and emotionally.

11. Determine the legal structure.

Settle on which form of ownership is best for you: a sole proprietorship, a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, an S corporation, a nonprofit or a cooperative. Find out more at SBA.gov.
Related: Name That Company to Dazzling Success

12. Select a business name.

Decide on a name that best suits your business. Then check to see if the domain name is available online, as well as if it’s free to use in your county, state and in the country.

13. Register your business name.

If your proposed business name is available, register it with the county clerk, have it trademarked at the state and federal levels and secure a domain name.

14. Take advantage of free resources.

Numerous free resources can offer advice, training and assistance. SBA.gov is a great place to look at to find local resources.

15. Determine tax obligations.

Now it’s time to wrestle with the tax obligations. In the United States, four basic types of business taxes arise: income, self-employment, taxes for employees and excise taxes.

16. Secure permits and licenses.

According to NOLO, you’ll have to pick up a federal employment identification number (unless the company is a sole proprietorship or a limited liability company without employees.) Apply for state licenses. Pick up a local tax registration certificate. File for local permits, if required, such as a conditional use permit or zoning variance.

17. Buy insurance.

Make sure that you arrange for the proper insurance for your business. This will vary according to the type of business. If you’re working from home be sure that your homeowner’s insurance covers theft or damage to business assets, as well as liability for any business-related injuries.

18. Set up the books.

Figure out if you’re using a cash or accrual system, determine the fiscal year for the business and set up a recordkeeping system.

19. Choose a business location.

Select a location that best fits the needs of your business, one that offers an opportunity for growth, the right level of competition and proximity to suppliers. It should also be accessible to customers.
Related: Office Space à la Carte Is on the Menu for Some Entrepreneurs

20. Don’t worry about an office.

If you’re not making any revenue, then don't concern yourself with an office or warehouse ust yet.

21. A patent can wait.

Patents can cost thousands of dollars. Wait to pursue this route until you have a few customers paying the bills. A patent is less useful if you can't enforce it or have the money to see it through.

22. Be flexible.

Chances are that your original idea will have to be modified. Being able to pivot and adapt to create what customers want will determine if your business will fail or succeed.

23. Share your ideas with friends and family.

Your nearest and dearest will most likely be the most honest with you about your business. Don’t hesitate to seek their advice and suggestions.

24. Ignore the naysayers.

At the same time, there’s a difference between constructive criticism and someone's quick jab projecting that your business will fail. Follow the example of French Internet mogul Xavier Niel and ignore them.
Related: When Angel Investors Reject Your Plan

25. Don’t become angry.

If your idea is rejected by customers or investors, don't just succumb to anger. Find out what they didn’t like, make adjustments and go back to them when you’ve made the changes. There's the possibility that the timing was wrong as well.

26. Deliver the product or service fast.

Your business is a work in progress and if you launch your product or service quickly, you will be able to build a community of customers who can provide valuable feedback that can help you improve the offerings. In the words of LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, "If you're not embarrassed by your first product release, you've released too late

27. Offer new products or services.

If you already have customers, be sure to hold on to them by providing new products or services.

28. Be patient.

Always keep in mind that success won’t happen overnight. It’s going to take some time before you make a profit.

29. Overdeliver at first.

Once you land a new client, be sure to go above and beyond the call of duty for at least the first month. You’ll have this customer hooked from then on.
Related: The Web Is a Content War. Here's How to Win. (Infographic)

30. Blog all the time.

Don’t be ashamed to share both your triumphs and struggles. Customers will enjoy your honesty.

31. Avoid fights with partners

If you have disagreements with partners, then sever ties as soon as possible. In-house bickering will prevent you from focusing on growing the business.

32. Don’t worry about dilution.

So an investor has required a stake in the company. Recognize the fact that eventually at one point or another you'll have to give up some control of the business. Accept it and move on.

33. Hire a copywriter.

Unless you’re an excellent writer, hire a copywriter to compose emails for highly targeted customers. A copywriter will also prove handy for press releases and other pieces to spread brand awareness or provide business updates.
Related: 7 Taboos of Business Pitching

34. Prepare for meetings.

When preparing for a meeting with a client, read up on everything that’s available, steeping yourself in information about the industry, that firm's employees and its competition.

35. Don’t fear the competition.

Don’t bad-mouth the competition when talking to investors or customers. There’s no need to become an object of pity. In fact, talking in this manner might even point customers to a competitor who may offer a product or service that you don’t. Remember, when competition exists, there’s a market for your business. Use that knowledge as inspiration to outperform a rival.

36. Benefit from word-of-mouth.

Nothing beats some good old-fashioned word-of-mouth marketing. Let friends, family members and influencers in your field spread the word about your product or service.
Related: Where the Real Deals Are Ignited at Conferences -- the Bar

37. Network.

Don’t be afraid to get out there and show your face to the public, whether at a conference or just being out and about with friend on a Friday night. But try to stay local because travel can dwindle your budget.

38. Provide outstanding customer service.

Interacting with people is a big part of the job. Your business may gain new customers because you made them feel important. For example, Zappos wasn’t the first online store to sell shoes, but the company perfected its customer-service department and won over shoppers.

39. Be sure your website functions.

Potential customers want to know as much about your business as possible and they should be able to quickly access that kind of information on your website.

40. Don’t be overly concerned by the economy.

Some of the best businesses have launched during a recession. In fact, half of the Fortune 500 companies listed in 2009 were founded during such times, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

41. Make sure clients pay their bills.

Always be certain to receive payment for your products or services. Instead of being taken advantage of of, establish a time frame for payment. It also wouldn’t hurt to accept credit cards and have an online payment system set up.
Related: 9 Questions to Ask Candidates' References

42. Find the right employees.

Hire the right people for the job. Even though it's your business, you won't be skilled at every task, which is why you need qualified people to complete the work.

43. Assign responsibilities.

Eelegate attainable tasks to employees. This is all about effective management.

44. Know that honesty is the best policy.

If any issues with employees emerge, be sure that they are addressed. No one enjoys being talked about behind their back.

45. Remember that opposites attract.

Hire people with skills and personalities that are the opposite to yours. They’ll challenge you and will bring different skills and talents to the business that you don't.
Related: Does a Work-Life Balance Exist for Entrepreneurs? Not Really.

46. Say goodbye to your social life.

You’re going to spend a lot of time devoted to the business. Even if you plan a night out, you may leave early because a lightbulb just went off. Hopefully those closest in your life will understand.

47. Recognize that you'll be the final person to be paid.

As the CEO, you’re the last to collect a check. That’s just how it works until there’s adequate revenue.

48. Arrive at a useful definition of success.

Just because your business hasn’t made you a millionaire (yet) doesn’t mean that your enterprise is a failure. If you’re able to make some sort of profit doing something that you’re passionate about, isn’t that a success story?

49. Realize when it's time to move on.

Failure is inevitable. If things aren’t working out and you’ve done all you can, then put aside your pride and close up shop. Something like this is not easy to accept. But it’s for the best.

50. Don’t just rely on the advice of others.

Despite my offering up all of these tips for you, perhaps the most important piece of advice is something learned the hard way: While many people may offer a startup assiistance, recognize that in the end you’re the person running the show and the one responsible for the company's success and failure. If you understand what worked and what didn’t, you’ll burnish the skills and knowledge to run your business.

Mark - born hero

How do you make a mark with a new company in a competitive market? How did Facebook reach its first $100 million mark in revenue?

The answer may surprise you - and change the way you think about your own business strategy.

In 2006, Mark Zuckerberg and his team were more focused on coding Facebook than growing revenue. Mark hired Dan Rose from Jeff Bezo’s amazon.com as “VP of Business Development” to help grow revenue.

Dan had learned from Jeff Bezos that one big partnership can make all the difference to revenues. He watched Myspace start doing big deals in the grand style of it’s new Deal Maker owner, Rupert Murdoch. The problem was, Facebook was growing, but was not as big or as established as Myspace yet, so its marketing partnerships were still small.

Within a month of Dan joining Facebook, in August 2006, everything changed. Myspace announced a $900 million deal with Google. Myspace had the traffic, and Google had the ad network. It was a perfect partnership where Google would manage Myspace’s ads, and that deal single-handedly made Myspace profitable.

Dan Rose asked “Who has the most to lose from this deal?” The answer was Bill Gates’ Microsoft MSN ad network, which had lost out to their arch rival Google. Dan jumped on the phone to Microsoft, and asked them if they wanted a similar deal with Facebook. Microsoft’s answer? “Okay, we’ll be down there tomorrow to iron it out.”

That one deal, wrapped up 24 hours later, doubled Facebook’s revenues in 2006 from a forecast $22 million to over $40 million. The year after, the Microsoft deal was worth over $100 million in revenue to Facebook.

One phone call to solve Microsoft’s problem - which was not wanting to lose to Google - led to Facebook’s first $100 million.

Sometimes to win the war, it’s easier to help others fight their battles than to fight your own. Sometimes their battles are much bigger than yours.

Who would you love to work with who would want to have you in their corner? Who could you be helping to win big today?

The fastest way to find out? Bring in someone with inside knowledge - Inside knowledge that’s outside the box.

“If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.”
~ Milton Berle

Elon Musk - 2

What’s the price when you fail?

This week, Elon Musk watched as his latest attempt at landing his Space X Falcon 9 rocket went wrong, ice froze one of the legs and the entire rocket toppled over and exploded.

That’s another $60 million up in smoke. What was Elon’s reaction?

First, he tweeted “Well, at least the pieces were bigger this time!”

Then, he posted a video of the explosion on Instagram.

And finally, he posted yesterday “My best guess for 2016: ~ 70% landing success rate (so still a few more RUDs to go), then hopefully improving to ~90% in 2017.”

“RUD” stands for “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly” which is another way of saying “it blew up”…

What can we learn from Elon happily blowing up his rockets?

Most people would see this as an expensive failure, but Elon is a master of learning by failing, and he expects to fail epically and often.

It doesn’t cost Elon to fail as he builds it into his business model. Each Falcon rocket is expected to be lost anyway if he wasn’t testing how to land them. This one had already done its job of delivering an ocean monitoring satellite in orbit, which had already paid for the rocket.

This year, there are another 10 to 20 falcon rockets scheduled for take-off, each already paid for by the companies and governments paying Elon to send their cargos to space. With revenue secure, he focuses his time on how to test new innovations (like landing the rockets back safely).

We’ve moved from the industrial age where product development and testing took place BEFORE delivery, to the technological age where product development and testing takes place DURING delivery.

How can you increase the testing you can do? When in front of customers? When serving your customers? When delivering an existing product to develop the next product?

In the old paradigm, it was easy to dismiss testing as being too costly.
In the new paradigm, it’s NOT testing that’s far more expensive.

When Elon finally works out how to return his rockets each time, he’ll be saving himself over a billion dollars of lost rockets each year - and he’ll be able to cost his trips to be far ahead of the competition.

You don’t need to be a billionaire like Elon to test like him.
But you do need to test like Elon to be a billionaire like him.

Failing isn’t where the price is. Failing is where the profit is.

“If things aren’t failing, you are not innovating enough.” ~ Elon Musk

Elon Musk - The Monk Moment

The Monk Moment - 
Many great entrepreneurs have had a moment when they have lost everything. Monks create this situation intentionally through "Vairagya" when they give up all money and possessions. Many entrepreneurs end up in the same situation unintentionally.

Elon Musk lost $180M and was in debt in 2008. Seven years later, he's worth $13 billion, but he'd be ready to risk it all again. Steve Jobs lost his entire Apple fortune by 1994, betting it on NeXT and Pixar. In 1995 everything turned around, he sold NeXT to Apple, Pixar to Disney and he passed away an icon. Walt Disney mortgaged away his entire fortune in the 1950s to build Disneyland, against everyone's advice. He too went from giving up everything to becoming a legend. Each bet everything material they had on something invisible - their purpose and vision.

Monks call the state that comes after giving up everything "Moksha" which means liberation from the illusion. We're not alive until we know what we'd die for.

I'm not saying great entrepreneurs are monks, but they do have 'monk moments' when they lose everything.

Many of the greatest entrepreneurs unintentionally find themselves in this state by betting everything on their dream. Maybe you're in this place right now. It is a place of pure power. When you have nothing to lose, you have infinite potential.

That is provided you don't focus on what you've lost, but on everything you have to gain. That's when everything turns around. As Walt Disney said "I don't make movies to make money. I make money to make movies".
That's the paradox of entrepreneurs having a 'near-death' experience where they lose it all. Steve Jobs wrote:

“Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.

Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

What mission is so important to you, that you'd be ready to clear out the old and make way for your new?

Instagram - A Success Story

18 months & 3 simple, not-so-simple steps to $1 billion...

Today, Instagram sold to Facebook for $1 billion. A week ago, when TIME asked Instagram founder, Kevin Systrom, if he would sell the company, he said “It’s not really on the top of our minds right now.”

Kevin is 27 years old and started Instagram 18 months ago with Mike Krieger, in October 2010. The company has grown with just 4 staff, and today has just 9 in the team. With the $1 billion deal that was announced today, was Kevin just plain lucky, or was there some simple steps that he (and others who have had the same luck) have in common?

Here’s three steps he followed. They may not guarantee you exactly the same success - but they will increase your own good fortune:

1. THINK BIG FROM DAY ONE - THEN LEARN FROM OTHERS:

It was while Kevin was studying at Stanford 7 years ago that he had the idea of a photo-sharing site, from his passion for photography. That was before iPhones, and before Facebook. Step one is to cultivate your idea by learning from others. He met Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 and talked about his idea. Mark then offered him a job at Facebook, which had just launched (in hindsight, a cheaper option that the $1 billion he’s just paid to work with Kevin). Kevin turned him down but they stayed in touch. He went to intern at Odeo with Evan Williams, who sold Blogger and Jack Dorsey, who launched Twitter. This is where Kevin got to understand the power of social sharing. Kevin later said “Comparing Instagram to photography is like comparing Twitter to Microsoft Word”.

He then went on to work at Google. All in all, it was a full six years after having the idea of a photo sharing site that he worked with others leading the field: Getting paid for his own education before he launched his own start-up. As Kevin says, “I was given the opportunity to be in the middle of a ton of innovation, and meet some of the smartest people doing the coolest stuff in the world. When I finally did it [myself], it just felt so right."

Who could you (and should you) be working with today to lay your own foundation?

2. KEEP 100% FOCUSED ON WHAT PROBLEM YOU’RE SOLVING - AND FAIL FIRST:

When Kevin launched Instagram in October 2010, he explained in his first blog what problems Instagram intended to solve. He listed the top three problems users were having:

“My mobile photos look lame.”
“It’s a pain to share to all my friends.”
“Photos take forever to upload.”

How would he know these were the problems? Just by talking to people? No, by getting it wrong the first time. In early 2010 he launched his first attempt “Burbn” as a location-based photo app, using Foursquare. It was a one-man-band, but after a year of hard work it had failed to catch on. It was, however, a failure that allowed him to learn from his users what would work, and to attract interest from like-minded people, including his future co-founder of Instagram, Mike Krieger.

By focusing on these three problems, Instagram launched in October 2010. Kevin relates the first moments of launch: “It was 12:15am, October 6th and we had been working on the app non-stop, day and night for 8 weeks. With a bit of hesitation, I clicked the button that launched “Instagram” live to the Apple app store. We figured we’d have at least 6 hours before anyone discovered the app so we could grab some shut-eye. No problem, we figured. Within a few minutes, they started pouring in... The night of sleep we were hoping for turned into a few meager hours before we rushed into the office to add capacity to the service. Now, only a couple months later, we’re happy to announce that our community consists of more than a million registered users.”

What problem are you solving, and what are you learning by failing, that is setting you up for your own overnight success?

3. CUT OUT ALL THE NOISE:

Kevin explains the difference between Instagram and Burbn: “We actually got an entire version of Burbn done as an iPhone app, but it felt cluttered, and overrun with features. It was really difficult to decide to start from scratch, but we went out on a limb, and basically cut everything in the Burbn app except for its photo, comment, and like capabilities. What remained was Instagram.”

Kevin cut out all the noise. He then launched Instagram just on the Apple App Store (It just came to Android last week) and focused on sharing on Twitter and Facebook (Three platforms that didn’t even exist when he first had the idea). That’s it: Photo, comment, like. No other platforms. No other noise.

Simpler means sharper means easier to cut through the noise. Instagram went from one million users by Dec 2010 to 30 million users today. In 2011, Apple named Instagram the “App of the Year”. Why would Facebook buy it now for $1 billion? Because Mark already knows it will add more value than that to Facebook when it has its upcoming $100 billion IPO.

If you are already thinking big, connecting smart and focused at the problems you are solving - How could you solve them in the fewest number of steps?

A BILLION DOLLAR STORY

It obviously takes more than three simple, not-so-simple steps to get the pieces lined up and timed right for the kind of 18 month run that Kevin has had. But these three show up again and again in today’s stories of hyper-growth, and the ones I will continue to share here on Facebook and at my Fast Forward events.

As an end to this chapter of the Instagram story, here’s how Kevin relates the beginning of his photo-sharing idea. It is at the heart of his journey, as your story should be at the heart of yours:

“When I studied abroad my teacher set what I do now in motion by saying, “Give me that camera of yours.” He took my camera away and gave me a little, plastic camera. I was studying in Florence at the time and he told me that I wasn’t allowed to use my camera for the rest of the class. I had to use this plastic camera with a terrible lens. He said I was too focused on sharpness and “I feel like you’re more artsy than that.””

“He said, “I want you to use this Holga,” this plastic camera with a plastic lens that had this cult following in the ’80s and ’90. I was blown away by what it could do to photos. My photography teacher was totally right. I was too focused on being meticulous with these really beautiful, complex architectural shots. It helps to see the world through a different lens and that’s what we wanted to do with Instagram. We wanted to give everyone the same feeling of discovering the world around you through a different lens.”

It’s ironic that as Instagram hits a $1 billion value, mimicking the feel of these disposable cameras, the biggest producer of them, Kodak, has filed for bankruptcy.

Each wave that crashes is followed by another. The only question is who is already positioning themselves to surf it. Are you up for the ride?