A few years ago, my friend Vishen and I decided to embark on the craziest adventure of our lives. We started a company together. We had no plans and no money. All I knew was that I wanted to go into business with this guy. We both loved technology, so an Internet business made sense. MindValley was born. Today, we’re a multi-million dollar company, and one of the world’s leading online publishers in the field of personal development, and we did it with no bank loans and no venture capital.
I wake up every day with a profound sense of gratitude because I’m building an incredible company with some of the brightest people from around the world. I truly get a kick out of watching the MindValley team evolve and grow. Moreover, I get to share my passion for personal development with remarkable people from every corner of the planet. Life is pretty darn good.
But what I want to share with you today are my thoughts on something I call Agile Entrepreneurship, which I’ve broken down into 10 Rules for You. These rules are based on personal lessons and insights I’ve learned as I’ve built MindValley up to where it is today.
In a nutshell, Agile Entrepreneurship is about launching businesses faster and significantly reducing your odds of failure. It’s about making your business successful, so you’re free – free to do what you want, when you want, where you want. Really, it’s about doing what you love and making money while you’re doing it.
10 Rules of Agile Entrepreneurship
Rule 1: Get the Right People on the Bus
Putting your team together is one of the single most important things you need to do as an entrepreneur. You need a team of truly outstanding people. You need A players. And you’re going to want to emphasize learning and experience to get them on board. Great people want to be challenged. They want to learn and grow. Strange as this may sound, money is rarely the top priority for them. If you offer a better and more dynamic work experience, you can get great people without having to pay ridiculous salaries. In addition, if you’re looking for another founder, try to find someone who will compliment your weaknesses. You don’t need another YOU. What you need is someone who excels at things you’re not so good at or don’t enjoy.
Rule 2: Know What Mountain to Climb
This rule has to be one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned (and perhaps the most painful). If you and your team don’t know where you’re going then it will be impossible to reach your end goal. How can you possibly achieve your goal in the shortest amount of time, with the least resources, if you’re not clear about what you want to achieve? If you want smart people to follow you, they need to know where you’re going. At one point we had a jumble of different project going on, without any real coherence. Not good. We’re much better now. We have a vision, a mountain.
Rule 3: Always Think Like a Marketer
Sales is not a dirty word. Marketing is not a dirty word either. For a long time, I had this belief that if I put a great product out into the world, people would magically flock to it, and, of course, they’d go tell all their friends about it too. All my education is in business – I have a BBA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Stanford – and I was NEVER taught the art of selling. No sales classes at all. I’ve observed MBAs generally look down on sales. But, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you must pay attention to sales and marketing. It’s that important. Remember, if you believe in your product, there is nothing wrong with getting it to as many people as possible.
Rule 4: Ideas do NOT Matter, It is Execution that Counts
Ideas are so much fun, aren’t they? I could just sit around a whiteboard all day with my team hatching new ideas. Not a surefire way to keep the dough rolling in, though. Honestly, anyone can have a good idea. It’s execution that counts, and this is the hard part – getting organized, putting the pieces together, hammering out the details. This is what matters. At the same time, don’t get planning paralysis. I lean more towards the Ready, Fire, Aim approach. Execute quickly, early and often. Tweak Later. And remember to celebrate every milestone – successes and failures!
Rule 5: Set BIG Goals
You need big goals. If a goal doesn’t excite you and make you a little nervous, you need to think bigger. Moreover, your team isn’t going to be inspired or motivated by wimpy goals. Too many people toil away on the planning part and never really have the end goal in mind. Goal first, strategy later. You need to visualize your goals every day. Use a vision board to help you do this.
Rule 6: Know When to Push and When to Let Go
Getting from point A to point B is never a straight line. Sometimes, along the way, you’ll figure out that it’s not even point B you’re after. It’s point C. Time to stop climbing one mountain and head up another. Other times you know exactly where it is that you want to go, but your approach isn’t working. It’s time for a new line of attack. The point is to take a step back and get perspective every once and a while. If you can clearly see that what you’re doing will get you up the right mountain, by all means push. Just be open to letting go, if you have to. Not everything you do is going to work. Yes, this sucks. It’s no fun. Clean yourself off and get back in the game. And please learn from your mistakes. There’s nothing worse than watching people make the same mistakes over and over: “To keep doing the same thing while expecting different results is the definition of insanity.”
Rule 7: Learn to Love Systems, Processes and Numbers
Once upon a time I was a corporate guy. I worked at the Boston Consulting Company and then at eBay. When I started my own company, I believed I had freed myself from the tyranny of systems, spreadsheets and KPIs. I learned the hard way. Systems, processes and numbers are the core of a well run company, especially one that can run on autopilot. Now we automate one business (website) at a time and spend our time looking out for the next big project. We now have a nice system for rolling out a website each month. Also remember to measure and test everything. When the business is your baby, your heart can be in it too much. Numbers won’t lie. Last thing: make sure everyone in the company knows the numbers – nothing is more empowering than showing them the impact of their efforts.
Rule 8: Work ON Your Business not IN Your Business
What exactly does this mean? It means you should be constantly delegating. If you’re still buying the cookies for the office when you have a staff of more than 20 people, as I was doing two years ago, you must STOP. Everything that is required to RUN your business should be delegated. What you should be doing is coming up with new ideas, innovations, products, markets, etc. You should be taking in the big picture and diving in and out when your direct attention is required. Stop micro-managing and trust people. If you really don’t trust your team, you need to get new people on your bus (See Rule 1).
Rule 9: Always be Learning and Experimenting
If you’re not growing, you’re dying. The most successful people do three simple things: 1) They always learn new things; 2) They always try new things; and 3) They never give up. A fellow joined MindValley about a year ago, and he brought with him such a hunger for knowledge it completely changed the company. Now we encourage staff at MindValley to spend 10% of their time on learning and developing their work-related skills. Doing this will change your company. The person you had a meeting with last month will be a different person than the one you meet with this month. I don’t want to work in a boring place, so this emphasis on learning and experimentation keeps things hopping.
Rule 10: Do What You Love and Love What You Do
Follow your heart. Cheesy, but true. Don’t listen to your Dad who wants you to be an engineer. Stop taking advice from your Mom who thinks you’d make a great lawyer. If it’s your calling to open a scuba diving shop in Panama, go for it. If you love it, you’ll probably make a good living doing it, and you can visit home any time you want. You only have one life. What point is there in living it for someone else? When you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, it doesn’t really feel like work. From my experience, it feels more like a game. There are so many people out there trapped in this idea of what life should be: 9-to-5 for forty-something years and then a few years of retirement. Life is about experiences and giving back. Take stock of your natural strengths and what you enjoy doing, this will help you carve out a life of joy, abundance and success.
