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Strategies & Tools for More Productivity & Free Time

8 Tools to Run Your Business From Anywhere

in Entrepreneurship, Tools & Apps

These days working from has become very common. Surveys show that in 2014 almost 23% of Americans have worked from home. So how to run your business from anywhere? Here are our pick of tools that can enable you to quit the 9-5 routine and run your business from anywhere in the world:

1. Trello (Project Management)

Working virtually makes managing projects and teams difficult unless you have a system to track and manage everything. Sujan Patel recommends Trello for effective project and team management. Trello enable you to “create tasks in various lists, drag them from one list to the next, assign them to team members and more.” Start using Trello today and Stay on top of work and manage your team no matter where you are.

2. PayPal or Transferwise

This is one of the easiest solution for sending and receiving money, especially if you tend to work from home or on the go. “No worrying about exchange rates, corrupt banks or mailing payments — just use PayPal to securely send money wherever it needs to go. You can even get a PayPal MasterCard linked to your account to make purchasing easy as well.” (Sujan Patel)

You can also use Transferwise instead of PayPal if it is not supported in your country.

3. Boomerang

According to Nikul Patel Boomerang is a great tool for all those people who work from abroad or on the go. He says that “when you work abroad, the time zone you are in might not match that of your customers and/or employees. Using Boomerang, you will be able to schedule Gmail emails so that they get sent at times of your choice.” It is flexible and compatible with all major browsers.

4. Dropbox

When the whole word is your office, you are going to need a virtual place to safely store all of your documents. As Rose mentions in her article, “the one name that comes to mind is Dropbox.” You can get the basic (free) account or upgrade to a paid one as required. Dropbox is probably the best place to securely store all your important files and also be able to share them with anyone you want.

5. Skype

When you work virtually, you would need figure out some way to connect with clients and co-workers. For this purpose the simplest tool you can use is Skype. You can video call, voice calls, conference call meetings, file sharing etc.

6. Hootsuite

Without maintaining a strong presence on different social media networks it is almost impossible to market and promote your business in the today’s world. Hoosuite is an app that enables you to manage your social media marketing efficiently. “You can schedule posts, receive recommendations on who to friend and follow, pull clickthrough data from your social networks and keep in touch with your customers and partners in one easy-to-understand place.” 

7. MailChimp

Natalie Sisson recommends Mailchimp in her article to “anyone starting out in email marketing because it’s so simple to use, and easy to navigate.” Mailchimp makes your life easier by enabling you to design beautiful newsletters and email without being a pro. You can manage your subscribers, track your campaigns and set up auto-responders to welcome your new subscriber.

8. Perssist

You can not run a business alone. As the business grows, so will the work and you might need an extra pair of hands to take care of the routine tasks so that you can focus on the bigger picture. This is exactly what Perssist enables you to do. You can hire Perssist virtual assistants for simple but time consuming business and personal tasks such as research, scheduling appointments, finding a gift for your spouse, etc. Just open your request, mention how much time you need to be spent on the task and enjoy the results.

 

5 Tips to Reduce Holiday Stress

in Entrepreneurship

Being an entrepreneur, running business on your own is a very stressful job. To add to this. the holiday season can bring in more stress as there are deadlines to meet, family events, buying presents and so much more to do. This can be over whelming, especially for first time entrepreneurs. In order survive the holiday season here are our 5 tips that every entrepreneur can use to manage holiday stress:

1. Breathe

As Peter Gasca mentions in his article, “When people get stressed, they tend to take short breaths or hold their breath all together. The problem is that improper breathing causes your blood pressure to rise and your muscles to tense, all of which just complicates your stress.” Whenever you are stressed, focus on your breathing. It is even better if you learn some breathing exercises which can help you in reducing stress and also improve your health in long term.

2. Take Time-Out

Gwen Moran quotes Scheinman in her article, “One of the most powerful ways to ward off stress on a daily basis is to engage in some sort of regular contemplative practice.” This can be meditation or just sitting alone quietly for 30 minutes. You can start by taking out 10 minutes initially and then increasing it slowly to reach 30 minutes contemplative time.

3. See Your Loved Ones

Holiday is a time for having fun with your loved ones, and that is what it should be. With the phone buzzing all the time with emails and reminders, it does become difficult to focus on anything other than work, but you should use this time to connect with family and friends and let go of your work concerns (unless it is an emergency). As Zach Cutler suggests, “Leave work behind and disconnect from technology to focus on time with loved ones.”

4. Get out and exercise more

As Carrie Smith puts it, “It’s been proven that more exercise will not only relieve stress but help you make more money … It’s also an excellent way to clear your mind and get the endorphins flowing”. If you dont have time to hit the gym for a proper workout, you can always take a walk. The point is so get some sort of exercise away from work to relieve stress and stay healthy.

5. Ask For Help

Asking for help is not a bad thing. In fact it can help you in getting things done on time without getting stressed. Adam Toren suggests that you can “ask some people you trust to assist you if get inundated with work. Having a quality pool of go-to employees is a wise move.” If you don’t have enough budget, you can always go for hiring a VA firm like Perssist to take care of your time consuming administrative tasks and reduce your workload.

5 Work-Life Balance Tips for Entrepreneurs

in Entrepreneurship, Time Management

From the outside it may look like that an entrepreneur’s life is very easy, however only an entrepreneur can truly know how challenging the startup life is. All entrepreneurs secretly wish to have more hours in a day so that they can spare some time for themselves and their family to maintain a work-life balance. But as we only have 24 hours in a day, so we need to manage this as best as we can to maintain a work-life balance that lets us enjoy both work and family life.

Here are 5 essential steps that you need to take as an entrepreneur to ensure a well balanced work-life:

1. Work Hard, Play Hard

As Richard Branson puts it, “I’ve always lived the ‘work hard, play hard’ philosophy, believing that it’s one of the best ways to achieve balance”. He believes that if you have a busy career, it doesn’t mean that you cannot live and enjoy your life to the fullest. Make it a priority to take out time for your loved ones, especially on special days like birthdays, anniversary, holidays etc.

2. Make To-Do Lists

Lea Elaine suggests that one should “create and maintain daily and weekly to-do lists, prioritizing each task.” You can choose to write it down on paper on use the latest apps to make your to-do lists. This way you will be well prepared for each day and hold yourself accountable for each task/activity.

3. Separate Work Life and Home Life

It is necessary to keep your work life and home life separate in order to create a balance between both. When you are away from work don’t check try to check your email on phone after every few minutes. Be present in the moment and remove these distractions. As David Chait puts it, “The ability to dedicate yourself fully to whatever you’re doing is very meaningful.” If you work from home, dedicate a work space for yourseld which will enable you to minimize distractions while you work.

4. Learn To Delegate

Since entrepreneur’s mostly handle a lot of aspects of the business themselves, it is very likely for them to get over burdened with tasks. This leads to spending more time on work and less time left for family. You can manage this by finding tasks that you can delegate to someone else, such as a freelancer or a VA. You can also use Perssist.com or some similar services to delegate your simple administrative time consuming tasks.

5. Me Time

This is something that most of us forget when talking about work-life balance. Taking time out for yourself is as important as taking time out for your family and friends. In all the talk about work/life balance we forget that part of balance is taking time for yourself. As Amy Rees suggests in her article, take out 5minutes for yourself every day. “No matter what you choose to do with your five minutes, it needs to be time that is just for you. Meditate. Write in a journal. Pray. Just take that time for you – it will make you a better person to the ones you love, trust me”.

5 Finance Tips For Entrepreneurs

in Entrepreneurship

In order for a business to be successful, there are a number of factors that entrepreneurs need to consider. Keeping your finances in order is maybe one of the most important of these factors. However, all entrepreneurs are not very good at managing their finances — and hence run into a lot of trouble during the initial phase of their business and which might even lead to failing. Here are our top 5 tips to assist you to manage your finances:

1. Reduce your Cost of Living

Although you may feel the need to move into a bigger nicer apartment in an expensive city, or rent out expensive office space in the hustling and bustling part of the city, but this is not the time. The lower your cost of living and expenses are, the better for your business and personal life. As Thierry Godard states, “Choose a modest home and consider using it as an office, too. While it may not be the most glamorous option, you’ll thank yourself in a few years“.

2. Separate Business and Personal Bank Accounts 

Your personal account and business account should be separate from day 1. This is probably one of the easiest things for managing finances yet the most overlooked. According to Carrie Smith, having separate business account can lead to advantages such as simplifying creating monthly business reports, prove income to IRS or lender and outsource bookkeeping if required.

3. Don’t Put Off Booking Keeping

Most entrepreneurs do this and this can become a huge problem later. As Eric Siu mentions in his article, “if you put off your accounting work, it doesn’t go away. It just gets bigger, and eventually you’re going to be faced with an overwhelming mess that you’ll need to sort out.”

For small businesses book keeping tends to be fairly simple. Just categorize your expenses, and use a simple method to record all transactions. This way your accounting becomes more manageable and you will not feel the need to put it off for future.

4. Pay Attention to Cash Flow

For every business cash flow is very important to keep things rolling on day-to-day basis. Cash flow is not only about what’s coming and and what’s going out, but it is also about the timing.

Murray Newlands quotes Miranda Marquit in his article “Pay attention to timing. It’s not always fun to plan a budget, but it’s especially important to have a plan as an entrepreneur”.

5. Create a Cash Reserve

Entrepreneurs usually do not have consistent or fixed income, and especially in the beginning there are high chances that might you won’t be making an money for some period of time. It is therefore advisable to set aside some money for emergencies and other purposes like paying off debts.

According to John Rampton, “NOLO.com suggests that set aside 5 percent of your paycheck so that it will help pay for expenses for one year. You could also monitor how much money you spend each month to help determine how much to set aside in your cash reserve — and where to trim if you need to cut costs.”

These funds need to be accessible and easy to liquefy, such as savings account or money market account.

 

The Rise of Personal Outsourcing – Data on Personal Assistant Usage

in Common Requests, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Time Management

Operator, Magic, Pana, and more new personal assistant apps are applying technology such as natural language processing and machine learning to a traditionally low-tech space. Outsourcing work to online assistants has been around a long time, but only recently, with the application of new technologies and user experiences, has the concept of personal outsourcing started to catch on with a wider audience.

To shed some light on how people make use on-demand personal assistance, we analyzed and categorized thousands of user requests. Then, we took a look at what it is about these requests that makes them good candidates to outsource to an assistant and what types of requests are not as helpful when outsourced. Requests are submitted mostly by busy professionals and entrepreneurs to assistants who can help with calls, research, and other short tasks that can be handled by an intelligent multi-talented assistant.

Their requests broke down into the following main categories:

graph

Custom Research
Finding detailed answers or solutions to unique questions and problems facing users, e.g. 

  • Put together a list of all the startup fairs and weekends coming up in the next few months
  • Find all the daycare options between my house and office and set up visits for any mornings I’m free in the next two weeks
  • Figure out the whitewater rafting options near NYC including distance and price

Deal with Customer Service
Contact customer service on behalf of users, e.g. 

  • Call Delta to get my iPad back that I left on my last flight
  • Deal with the warranty process on my laptop that just died
  • Cancel my handy.com subscription

Product & Service Info
Find, research, and/or order products and services, e.g. 

  • Call around to find my favorite wine in stock near my apartment
  • Find out pricing and how long it would take to make a dozen custom decorated cupcakes from a few bakeries near me

Personal & Work Projects
Misc. projects lasting ~1-10 hours where users want some extra help, e.g. 

  • Put together a list of blogs and other sites that write about new consumer hardware, along with their Facebook and Twitter followers.
  • Create a Survey Monkey survey out of these questions

Reservations & Entertainment
Find and book restaurants, appointments, and entertainment, e.g. 

  • I need to find a restaurant for next weekend that can host a birthday dinner with 25 people, around $20 a plate, and has vegetarian options. Private room a plus.
  • I’m looking for a place in Austin that does kids’ birthday parties, and can do a space and aliens theme

Outsourcing Tasks: What Works & What Doesn’t

The requests above share three common attributes:

High Pain

This is a task that you need to get done, but when you think about doing it, you wish someone else could just take care of it for you. They’re time-consuming, boring, or simply annoying. Perfect candidates for tasks to outsource.

Low Requirement for Perfection

No one will be able to complete a task for you as well as you could do it for yourself. You need to be comfortable with this, and then figure out which tasks you’re okay not being perfect. If someone is gathering information for you, and gets 90% of what you’re looking for, is that enough, or do you really need 100%?

Objective Outcome

The best tasks to outsource are the ones that don’t require preferences to be taken into consideration, and instead rely on requirements that must be met. This is why the example request to find a restaurant for a birthday party works – there are a lot of objective conditions to be met for the request to be considered successfully completed. On the other hand, a similar but poor request would be to ask your assistant to simply find you a fun and interesting restaurant for a date. There is too much subjectivity and personal preference in that request and the odds of coming back with a good outcome are slim to none.

 

In the comments below, let me know what’s worked and what hasn’t worked for you when trying to offload more from your to-do list. What’s been the most helpful? Do you follow any personal guidelines when outsourcing?

5 Things to Do before Launching your startup

in Entrepreneurship

Starting a new business is a tough job, especially when it is your very first venture. To make things easier for you, here is our list of things you should do before the launch:

1. Prepare a Business Plan

Whether detailed or not, you need to have some sort of a business plan before you launch your startup. As Charlotte Simmonds put it, “Putting a good plan together is the first big step for anyone who wants to turn their business idea into a reality.“ [Charlotte Simmonds]

2. Pick a Name

Picking the right name for your business is crucial. “Naming your business can be a stressful process. You want to choose a name that will last and, if possible, will embody both your values and your company’s distinguishing characteristics.” You can ask your friends and family for suggestions, or get a naming firm to suggest you some names based on what you envision your venture to be. Either way, choose a name that truly represents you and your idea.

3. Get a Co-Founder

In today’s business world, having a co-founder is of utmost importance. No one wants to invest in a company that has a single founder. As Neil Patel mentions in his article “VCs are more likely to invest in a startup that has a founding team, not a founding individual.” He further adds that, “Cofounders can provide the skills you lack, and take you further than you ever expected you’d go.”

4. Pre-Launch Marketing

As daunting as it might sound, but it is one of the most important things to do before your launch your startup. According to Janine Popick, “Building an audience before you even have a product is critical. You’re going to need to tap people to test what you’re building, and it can’t be Aunt Mary and Uncle George.“ Use Facebook, Twitter and other relevant social media platforms to reach out to your target audience. Get a web page with a signup form, start a blog, start your newsletter etc.

5. Ask for Help

You might have your hands full with so much pre-launch stuff to do, but it is OK to ask for help. “Even though entrepreneurs are notorious for trying to do everything themselves, it’s okay to not have it all figured out on your own. Take advantage of other people’s knowledge and experiences when you need to.” You can ask your family and friends or you can hire a full time or virtual assistant.

6 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read

in Entrepreneurship

For entrepreneurs who are busy in running their own business or newbies who are laying the foundation to launch their startup, it’s impossible to find time to read the business & leadership books published every year. However it is important to take out time and read about the real life experiences of other successful entrepreneurs in order to learn lessons from their journey and saving you trouble and stress.

Since you might not have time to read all that is on the bookshelf, here is our list of some great books that are an absolute must for all entrepreneurs to prepare them for the journey ahead:

1. Zero to One: Peter Thiel

Jeff Boss lists this as a must read book for entrepreneurs in 2015. Zero to One is a book by Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, in which he shares his opinion on startups and innovation. “Zero to One is more conceptual in nature, challenging preconceived notions of startups, or rather: what it takes to create a truly important startup.” Zero to One is book that challenges entrepreneurs to think big and act even bigger.

This is a great book for all first time entrepreneurs offering invaluable advice on things you should consider and things you should avoid.

 

2. The Lean Startup: Eric Reis

Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and author known for pioneering the concept of lean startup movement. In his book, Ries “provides an approach to dealing with uncertainty, which is integral to the success of a new company. It’s often touted by VCs and entrepreneurs as a must-read roadmap for innovation.” [Emmi Martin]

 

3. Rework: David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried

According to Dylan Varian in his article “Rework is one of my favorite books on this list because it’s not really your average business book. It’s all about showing you a smarter approach to succeeding in business and it’s one of the best books I’ve read in the entrepreneurship category.”

Hansson and Fried are the founders of a successful software company, 37signals, defying conventional business models for over 15 years now. In their book they share the secrets to their own success. Their ideas initially may sound counter-intuitive, but as you read you see that they actually do make sense in a weird manner.

 

4. How to Win Friends & Influence People: Dale Carnegie

Learning to deal with people is a very essential part of entrepreneurship, and the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” teaches you how to get good at it. Although around 50 years old, this is one of the best self help books. The book may be old but most of the ideas are timeless.

“How to Win Friends and Influence People is broken into different sections based on subject and offers advice on human relations. While some of his lessons may appear obvious, this book provides relevant insights on how to make people like you more and how to convince people to change their habits or thinking to be more in line with yours.” [Jimmy Rodela]

 

5. Choose Yourself: James Altucher

According to Adam Torren, “If time and money are at the top of your needs list, you’re going to especially love James Altucher’s Choose Yourself. This book is packed with the advice and inspiration every entrepreneur needs to build themselves and their core personal practices up to face the challenges of this lifestyle.”

This is an amazing book. Altucher’s writes like an old friend and his self-depreciating style is raw, honest, and the kick in the pants every entrepreneur needs.

 

6. The E-Myth Revisited : Michael E. Gerber

The book E-Myth was first published in 1985, and revisited a decade later in 1995. Over the years it has been regularly included in many best business books lists. E-Myth Revisited offers very good advice on what mentality an entrepreneur should have in order to create a successful business.

Gerber discusses “that despite entrepreneurs coming up with great ideas, rarely do they make for good business people. To help prevent readers from making fatal mistakes, Gerber presented in an easily understood book an effective business model to guide entrepreneurs at all stages of growth”. [John Rampton]

 

6 Blogs Every Entrepreneur Should Read

in Entrepreneurship

Starting your own business is hard, especially when you are a first time entrepreneur and have no previous experience. Getting good advice in the beginning can help you pave your path to success. Thankfully today there are many entrepreneurs and bloggers out there who churn out useful advice daily based on their experiences. Here is our list of best blogs that every entrepreneur should read for getting guidance and help for day to day matters.

1) Paul Graham

Paul Graham is a programmer, writer, and investor and co founder of YCombinator. Paul Graham’s Essays are a MUST READ if you want to learn about entrepreneurship, startups, or technology. The content in his essays is very well put together. They are informative and entertaining at the same time. You will find some really good advice for your business here.

2) Chris Dixon

Chris Dixon’s blog is about philosophy, history, internet, programming, startups and investing. He is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and has invested in ventures like Airware, Coinbase, BuzzFeed, Oculus, Soylent and Shapeways. Chris Dixon has been blogging for around 7 years now you can find him tweeting, podcasting, and occasionally posting on Medium.

3) Sam Altman

Samuel Altman is a blogger, entrepreneur, programmer and venture capitalist. He was co-founder of Loopt and currently serves as the President of YCombinator. Sam has consistently been recognized for his entrepreneurship. Sam has been featured in Inc. Magazine’s Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 and has been recognized for his entrepreneurship consistently. He was also name one of BusinessWeek’s Tech’s Best Entrepreneurs. His blog has some great advice and tips for startups and entrepreneurs.

4) Both Sides of The Table

Both Sides of the Table is a blog by Mark Suster, in which he talks about what it’s like to enter the entrepreneurship world. Mark is a prominent American blogger and regularly talks about startup fundraising, leadership, marketing, and sales. This blog is a a gem for all those who want to become entrepreneurs.

5) Vin Vicanti

Vinicius Vacanti is the co-founder and CEO of Yipit. He writes on his blog about the lessons he learnt being a first time founder.

6) Benedict Evans Mailing List

Benedict Evans works at Andreessen Horowitz. According to Benedict, he tries to work out what’s going on and what will happen next, and then talks about it in blog posts. He blogs about everything interesting he has seen in tech and mobile with his views and opinion on what it means. Every Sunday he sends out an email newsletter to almost 42,000 subscribers on his latest blog post.

8 Apps for Small Business Owners

in Entrepreneurship, Tools & Apps

Running a small business may seem like something very easy and simple to the outsiders, but small business owners know what a tough job they have with the limited resources and massive competition.

Whether it is customer management, employee and work schedule, tracking finances or social media management, small business owners are mostly on their own. In order to be productive and perform at your 100% it is important to simplify and automate as much as you can to free up time to focus on the important aspects of the business. Here are 10 apps that can simplify the life of small business owners:

1. Asana – Project Management

Asana is one of the best project manage apps out in the market. It enables you to manage your project, tasks and team members all at one place. It allows to prioritize tasks, chat with team members. monitor progress, and so much more to keep all your projects and tasks on track. It can also integrate with other apps like Evernote, Google Drive, MailChimp, WordPress, etc. The best part is that basic version of Asana is free for up to 15 users. [Saundra Latham, TheSimpleDollar]

2. Expensify – Expense Management

If you are a business owner who travels a lot then Expensify is a must have app for you. “Expensify, an app that keeps track of business expenses and mileage, while letting users scan and upload receipts.” This apps enable you to keep a track of your expenses and miles traveled all at once. You can organize expenses by trip or by payment method, add your credit card accounts to upload your receipts and reports. [Ilya Pozin, Forbes]

3. Addappt – Contacts Management

With everything going on, it can sometimes become difficult for small business owners to manage their contacts and update them at all times. Addappt solves this problem. It allows your contacts to update their information in your contact list so that you don’t have to do it. The app’s developers say their product allows your social network to “maintain itself.” [Steve Nicastro, Nerd Wallet]

4. Fuze – Videoconferencing

If you need to host a lot of video conference meetings, Fuze is the app for you. It works on all devices and operating systems, offering HD video and clear audio. This is a paid app with a 30-day free trial period. (Steve Nicastro, NerdWallet)

5. BoxMeUp – Inventory Management

Inventory can be a true challenge for small business owners, but with the Boxmeup app makes it simple to manage inventory which can be hassle for small business owners. It enable you to track your containers and find items in them. Plus, Boxmeup turns your smartphone into a label scanner to check your inventory any time, anywhere. [Scott Lynch, Direct Capital]

 6. Square – Payments Management

“Square is transforming the way we transact by empowering anyone with a smartphone or tablet to easily accept credit card payments.” Founded by the creator of Twitter, this app is very useful for small business owners as there are no signup fee and it also lowers the barriers to accepting payments from clients. [Ilya Pozin, Forbes]

7. Google Drive – File Management

There is no doubt that Google Drive has made our lives so much easier. Therefore this is a must have app for both personal and business use. “The Google Drive app allows you to access all of your Google documents from your mobile phone.” It also offers up to 15 GB free memory. If you have to travel a lot and have multiple office locations then Google Drive app will is what you need for making file sharing simple and easy. [Madie Hodges, Kabbage]

8. Robin – Virtual Assistant App

Sometimes all you need is a personal assistant and Robin is exactly that. “Robin is like Siri for your business …. not only being able to recognize your voice and email your clients and colleagues but also by giving you traffic updates, parking guidance, personalized radio, and hands-free messaging.” [Madie Hodges, Kabbage]

And if your needs are a little more complicated then what Robin has to offer, you can always contact Perssist for assisting with managing your tasks in a much productive way.

 

5 Common Mistakes First Time Entrepreneurs Make

in Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is a fascinating adventure that everyone thinks of taking at least once in their life, but there a few that that the step. Regardless of the passion with which you may start your venture there are very high risks of failure if you do not execute things correctly.

Here are the most common mistakes that first time entrepreneurs make that you should avoid:

1. They Fall Too Much in Love with Their Idea

NerdWallet describes this phenomenon by quoting Susan Scherreik in their article “The most common mistake is that they fall too in love with their startup idea…. Carried away with the idea, the new entrepreneur overlooks how and when he or she can actually execute this idea and turn a profit.”

Your idea may have potential but the success depends on the execution. If you cannot execute your idea properly you might be heading for failure.

2. They Do Not Test the Market

“Without testing the market to see if your product is even a viable option to your potential can lead to months, if not years of wasted time and money.” says Leonard Kim in his article. It is extremely important to test your product and get feedback from your target market before starting a business. It will help you save time and money that you might spend on a product that is not the need of the market.

3. They Are a Single Founder Startup

Being a single co-founder company has a lot of drawbacks. Not only does it mean that you have to do each and everything on your own, but this also makes it difficult to raise funding and find investors for your venture. As Ashish Das mentions in his article, “Investors don’t put their money on ideas because there are hundreds of people with the same idea of yours; they invest in the team.” Finding the right co-founder will not only raise your chances of getting funding but it also gives you a helping hand, reducing workload and stress.

4. They Hire Unqualified Staff

Just as finding the right co-founder, you also need to recruit the right people for your startup. “Your early employees must have the right skills, but equally important they must have the right personality and attitude to help you build the company and environment that you want to create.” says David Greenberg, founder and CEO of updater.

Many entrepreneurs think it will be better to hire anyone who is affordable regardless of whether they have the required skill set or not. Don’t make that mistake!

5. They lack in Cash Flow Management

Vivian Giang explains this by quoting George Kelleman in her article, “First-time entrepreneurs often fail to realize that every second of every day costs money. Whether it is rent, salaries, overhead, utilities, or whatever, cash is constantly going out the door, and if you cannot bring cash in (through sales or financing), then you will eventually run out of cash and the game is over.”

It is important that you create budgets, track all your income and expenses to know where your cash is going, if you want your startup to succeed. 

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