The Cost of Neglecting Business Principles & Ignoring Advisors
You went to the doctor today complaining about kidney pain. The doctor instructed you to drink ten cups more water and take the following medicine every day.
Are you going to disregard the doctor’s advice and just get some over-the-counter painkillers? No! You’d follow the doctor’s advice, at least I hope so.
We often treat medicine, law, engineering, and other fields like principled systematic disciplines. But when it comes to business, the impression is that it’s pretty much about luck and a few handshakes.
It’s essential for anyone who wants to build successful businesses to realize that business is a discipline, and that it is governed by its own principles, much like any other discipline.
For some reason, though, in business, advice and the voices of expertise are often disregarded.
When new founders face challenges in their ventures and seek guidance from experienced mentors and receive advice, they sometimes take the advice as optional and fail to follow through.
I have been starting and growing businesses for over twenty years and advising entrepreneurs for over fifteen. By now, I usually know what kind of founders struggle with what and what kind of founders excel at what.
Over the years, the ones who followed the principles I pointed out reduced their risk, cost, and effort, while those who didn’t, wasted time, money, and other resources.
The principles I am referring to are business principles such as the following that have withstood the test of time:
- Ideas are a dime a dozen – execution is what is difficult
- Iterate your offering on the go – don’t wait for a perfect service
- A vast and untargeted audience equals no audience
- Business partners increase chances of conflict but also increase chances of growth and provide complementary skills
- An entrepreneur constantly learns, is resilient, and gets up after falling
