Being an entrepreneur is never easy. Despite what stereotypes and the media might portray. Being a successful entrepreneur requires having a thicker skin than most, and a drive that is unstoppable. In this article, we will look at the advice of three different entrepreneurs who have made a success story of themselves and how their mentality helped them to persevere and learn from their mistakes.
John Greathouse
A serial entrepreneur and investor turned Professor of Practice at UC Santa Barbara, Greathouse led Computer Motion’s $110 million IPO and the $236 million sale of Expertcity (creator of GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting) to Citrix, among other successes such as contributing to CallWave’s IPO, sold a company he Co-founded to Coull and managed The Tearaways, a gifted power pop band.
In a recent article in Forbes, authored by the entrepreneur, he spoke about the importance of under promising and over delivering. This is hugely important for an entrepreneur to grasp, because getting carried away with excitement and expectations can be incredibly damaging when you realize you can’t come through.
“Your commitments to stakeholders must be significant enough to compel them to work with you. However, investors, suppliers and even potential employees routinely encounter startups which overpromise and then apologize for not achieving their milestones.”
He adds “Address this reality by always maintaining a positive perception slope with your stakeholders. For example, if you indicate that you will generate $1 million in sales and subsequently deliver $750,000, you will be viewed as having failed. However, if you forecast $500,000, your $750,000 outcome will be considered an outsized victory.”
Raj Jana
Raj is the Founder of JavaPresse Coffee Company, a lifestyle brand that transforms ordinary coffee rituals into extraordinary daily experiences. In addition to this, he also hosts the Stay Grounded Podcast to help listeners achieve more happiness in daily life.
In a recent Entrepreneur article which was authored by the versatile entrepreneur, he speaks about why it is important to “Unlock the passion that fuels you, regardless of obstacles.”
“Struggle has a transformative power to unlock passion and purpose,” states Jana. “It helps you discover the fuel that makes fear obsolete and defines core values that empower you to never give up. Hardship forces you to dig deep and figure out what you’re fighting for. You won’t gain understanding into the deepest parts of your soul when everything in your life is amazing. Clarity is a gift reserved for people who have decided to transform pain into a lesson.”
Lauren Cascio
And finally, we have Lauren Cascio, co-founder and COO of Abartys Health, a health insurance tech company that created a system that allows seamless data flow and communication between insurers, doctors and patients in Latin America and the United States.
In a recent podcast with Nathan Lustig, the driven entrepreneur discusses what it is like to have started a company while raising a family, and what she has learned from her mistakes over the years, among other things in the 50-minute interview.
When discussing why founding a startup when you have a family is not the easy way out, she states “Everyone thought I was crazy, you have to be very comfortable living uncomfortably and be a risk taker. That is an innate part of my personality. You have failures and those are inevitable, but you have successes too. But you have the possibility of huge gains. So staying optimistic, to create things that have not been created, you have to be optimistic. It is very important not to be too down about small failures. And it is still hard, even though I don’t struggle financially like I used to, it is still hard when I lose a client or something goes wrong.”
When asked about what she has learned from her failures she believes that if “you mess up in front of a client you, don’t test a system the way you were supposed to, you learn from saying the wrong thing in a sales meeting, I am definitely guilty of that. You learn what not to say, all of these mistakes you learn from, and there is reciprocity in between your personal life and your business life.”
Disclosure: This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company
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