Elevate Your Business Game with 7 Insights from Successful Entrepreneurs

Don’t fear failure

With learning comes failure. But that’s not a bad thing. Failure is actually a huge opportunity to learn and become a better version of yourself. It’s a chance to grow your business and yourself, too.

Bille Simmons from Daylight had some interesting thoughts about failure. She said, “A phenomenon that I’ve noticed a couple of times when talking to people that have any kind of success is they become increasingly fearful of failure. Because as you sort of build up success, you build wealth around you, you built stability around you, you get further and further away from the version of yourself that wasn’t succeeding. And it’s terrifying to go back to that version of yourself or to conceive of going back to that version of yourself.” 

So, just as Billie suggests in this episode, regardless of what happens in your business, the lessons that you have learned along the journey will always be worthwhile. So, don’t fear failure, and keep going!

Know your why

When Kirk Michie of Candor Advisors spoke about the 6 key steps for selling a business, he emphasized the importance of knowing your WHY. We couldn’t agree more: knowing your WHY in anything you do with your business is crucial for success.

He said, “Show me an entrepreneur who’s got some useful scar tissue, who’s had a few disappointing outcomes or even failures, who is going to take that useful scar tissue and create a great business, then as an investor, that’s a guy I want to back. As an advisor, that’s a guy I want to help across the finish line because that’s a guy who has a clearer WHY.”

Always keep growing

There’s beauty in being a beginning at something. That beginner energy of not knowing what’s waiting for you around the corner is priceless. Curro Romero of Vimbu made some strong points in his episode about achieving success through innovative thinking. He compared his snowboarding experiences with entrepreneurship and shared that both of these journeys have a lot of adrenaline.

As he pointed out, in business, there’s a constant excitement of trying new things and learning new “tricks.” Curro said, “The coolest thing is when you discover a new way, and it starts working!” He also added, “You have to constantly adapt yourself to where the company is, and not just adapt but also understand the next five steps of where to take it to so that progression keeps happening.”

You’ll grow better faster with a coach

Continuous growth is not just inevitable in business, but it’s also necessary. We thoroughly enjoyed the episode with Matthijs Welle of Mews, where he addressed several key elements of sustainable growth. In particular, he focused on the importance of working with a coach. He shared some relatable real-life examples to show us just how much faster you can grow when you work with a coach.

He explained, “Last time we had an offsite we did an exercise where she said, talk about an experience in your earlier stage life that has made you who you are today. And it led to people sharing really personal fragments of their life and it really underlined why they do things the way they do them today. And it brought us all so much together. It was such a simple exercise in hindsight, and I’m like, ah, why didn’t we do this way sooner? But that’s what you bring a coaching for.”

Keep your customers at the heart of your business

Stories make the world go round. But they also connect you to your customers. Another key insight from this year was Karen Eber’s storytelling advice. She shared with us that when you put your customers at the heart of your company, you draw them in and connect to them on a deeper level. Instead of talking about yourself and your origin story, focus on your customers. Talk about their needs and experiences. Make them feel heard and seen.

Karen explained, “That’s why storytelling is so key for as an entrepreneur. You have these opportunities to just connect to all of these thoughts, fears, hopes, aspirations, and that’s where you are grabbing people. And you know you’re doing it well when people say, ‘I feel like you wrote that just for me.”

Focus on your customer’s pain points

When Juho Makkonen of Sharetribe was on our podcast, he shared all about building successful marketplaces. There was a lot of wisdom in that episode, but what truly made us think was his thoughts about trying to be the next Uber or the next Etsy. You don’t have to put that pressure on yourself and try to be the next big thing, no matter what. Instead, focus on solving your customers’ burning problems and pain points. That’s more than enough to serve a community and make an impact in the world.

Juho explained, “Becoming a unicorn company, for example, it actually is not a priority. A priority for us is to build something that we actually believe in. And we think that this is actually doing some good for the world and having a big impact.”