DO NOT make these mistakes when starting a business

for Kendra martin

There are probably a million different lists on how to be successful in starting a business. In my experience, most of them are too long or out of date. I'm a millennial entrepreneur, I don't have the patience for lengthy documents, and I think that most of what worked for a company that was created twenty years ago is outdated (sorry, but it's true). The biggest mistakes I made starting my own company this year weren't any of the things I could have read on one of those lists. In fact, they were random but specific, with a time limit but timeless (at least for this generation of entrepreneurs). They were big mistakes that cost me a lot of time and money to correct.

So here it is, for all new seekers, a short and not-so-sweet list of my six biggest mistakes. Please don't do it.

1. Solve a real problem - a lot of people have a lot of great ideas. A new technology, a gadget that saves you time cleaning your house, etc. One of the critical check boxes you need to check before investing in your great idea is to ensure that you are solving a real problem that MUST be solved. Make sure that the problem to be solved is intuitive so that when people hear about your great idea, they will intuitively accept that they need help solving that problem, because it is indeed a problem for them.
2. Don't accept “the sibling deal”: if you share with people that you are an entrepreneur and tell them about your business, people will want to help. They will offer you discounted prices, also known as "the sibling deal," which will be extremely tempting when you are starting your way to launch your business. Every dollar counts, and a good offer from someone you know will sound like a great idea. PSA: Select your help with extreme caution before committing to a provider. Most of the time, if a product or service is more expensive it is because the quality is better and, in most cases, it is worth the additional cost. Don't pinch and cut quality corners, because you could bite back on your butt. I made the mistake of hiring a photographer I knew through mutual friends, and it was a disaster. My friend quoted me a price, then a different price from the photographer, then an even higher price from the photographer in the last minute before the photoshoot. I agree to pay, reluctantly, and I was very disappointed in his work from start to finish. The truth of the matter is, I didn't really know this guy, I just trusted my friend when she said “he's an amazing photographer”, and I paid the price.
3. Pay attention to compliance - this part is not fun, indeed it is an excruciating part of the job, but it is essential to your success. When I say compliance, I mean laws, which can range from collecting the appropriate amount of sales tax to annual greenhouse gas emissions. The last thing you want is to have your production stopped or a large unplanned expense to occur due to compliance monitoring. Get it right the first time.
4. Do your research BEFORE choosing a website platform provider. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I was wrong to choose SquareSpace. I spent weeks developing my ecommerce website on SquareSpace and then just as I was about to launch my business, I realized that SquareSpace has a major flaw if it sells products. It does not automatically calculate local tax rates for the states where you must collect sales tax. To me, that was California, which meant that to collect sales tax correctly, I would have had to enter more than 2,500 lines of sales tax rates unique to all zip codes in California. This was so demoralizing to discover just as I was getting ready to launch my website. I am currently in the process of switching to Shopify, and basically had to start from scratch and build a whole new website.
5. Reduce your assumptions to the lowest common denominator; This is going to sound harsh, and maybe it is, but don't assume ANYTHING about your clients. For example, if you provide instructions for a product, do not assume that they will understand what you provide. Reality check: We live in the ADD generation and most people get distracted by at least ten other things while reading their instructions. Keep all written text extremely simple and straightforward. Think of everything you type as if you were writing the "[insert product here] For Dummies". There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than trying to read your instructions and not being able to understand them. It will make them feel defeated, and that's the last thing you want your customers to feel. Use guinea pigs (ideally) but, at the very least, use research to validate all assumptions before making decisions that you can't reverse.
6. If you have to choose, focus on earnings over income. Okay, of course both are important, but it often happens that large companies fail because they make the mistake of driving revenue over profit. Think of it this way: if my business earns $ 1 million per year in revenue but costs me $ 950 thousand to earn that revenue, is it really a lucrative business? The answer is probably no, because it is most likely that there is already talk of a profit of $ 50,000, in the form of expansion cost (for example, buying new equipment, investing in R&D, etc.). Focus on creating impressive margins from scratch. This will be HUGE for you in the next few years of your business, because generally through economies of scale and efficiency, your productivity and margins will expand as you grow. If you bake on a solid margin early on, then all that extra margin is the icing on the cake that makes your company very attractive to investors and gives you the ability to pay yourself.

Kendra martin is the CEO and founder of Craft Lab Co., a company that offers Creative Wellness Experiences designed to stimulate the five human senses of seeing, touching, tasting, smelling and hearing. Their candle-making experience has received rave reviews from customers, and right now, if you order 3 kits, you get the fourth for free! It is the perfect gift for the holidays.