10 things I learned the first year running my own business

During the last year I have learned A LOT running my own business. I am still learning and adapting, and it is super fun and thrilling (most of the time) to wear all the different hats as a solo entrepreneur.

In this article I want to share some of my learnings. I hope they will help others that are about to or just have started their own business. Feel free to add your advice, tip, and learnings in the comments field.

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1. Own your business

Maybe it feels like your business is your hobby, which is great, but make no mistake; you are running a business to help customers not yourself. Customers pay you.

You are the CEO. Step up to the responsibility. Commit. Change your mindset and language; instead of trying to run your business, run your business.

Also, invest in working on your business (learning, evaluating, adapting, strategizing) and not getting carried away be only working in your business.

2. Say yes – but also no

A bit contradictory here ?? When you start out you have an idea about what customers need and how you want to help them. But your idea needs testing out in the real world with real customers. Maybe customers need something a bit different or at a different time or price than what you expected. Maybe you can also help with adjacent services or products. Say yes to interesting jobs that come your way that are adjacent to what you offer, but feel free to also say no when you are sure that this is not something you want to offer. It is after all your business.

3. Stay positive

This is probably easier said than done, but you need to be able to stay positive (at least most of the time).

There will be many smaller and larger rollercoaster rides and bumps. Everything is new and you will experience frustrating IT-problems, you will lose jobs, you will have clients where you need to practice saying no, you will have bad days, you will struggle with bookkeeping, you will hit ‘post’ on a message or newsletter with spelling errors or missing attachments, you will feel lonely, you will feel useless, and you will feel like giving up. And you will experience a lot of other things where it just helps being able to say ‘ok – I will learn from that’ and then move on.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Building a healthy business takes time and a lot of effort. So, hang in, and stay positive. Then you will be much more likely to succeed.

4. Know your worth

Price setting can be super difficult. It is balance that needs to be found and for some it is uncomfortable to discuss money. Remember that your price should both reflect the value you create for your customers, your experience and expertise, and the effort you put in.

5. Nurture and grow your current network

Probably no surprise here; your network is invaluable!

Grow your network for business opportunities, inspiration, sparring, and socializing.

Be generous, share, help, and nurture your network. It will come back tenfold.

Build a network of other entrepreneurs working in similar and other industries and use each other for sparring. They will be your new ‘colleagues’ that you can reach out to, meet for coffee, and who knows, Summer Party, Christmas Party and Friday Bar, so it is not too lonely being the only employee in your company.

6. Ask for help

This one is also related to network. Use your network for sparring. Chances are that most of them are more than willing to help you. Reach out. Ask for help. Go have coffee meetings. Lots of coffee meetings ?? If you are not a coffee drinker, but tea drinker like me, no worries; no one will hold you up on not drinking coffee at coffee-meetings.

Generally, people really want to help other people and want to see them succeed. And quite often they are flattered that you ask them for advice and want to help.

7. Perfect is a party killer

You need to throw ‘perfect’ overboard. You will never reach perfect anyway

If you always need to do one more test, be better at this, wait for this and that to happen, learn this new tool, you won’t get anywhere.

Most often there is only you to drive progress in your business, and if you keep fearing getting out there because something is not ready or perfect yet, you will never get feedback so you can learn, adjust, and grow. 90% finished are often good enough.

8. Make use of free resources

Chances are you will have a very limited budget to start and develop your business in the beginning. Luckily there are lots of free resources for entrepreneurs out there to help them in the challenging start-up phase; guides, courses, incubators, sparring sessions, funds, network groups, talks, competitions, challenges etc.

Google what’s available in your local community and ask around in your network. When you know what is trending, you will find a lot of resources focusing on these (sustainable businesses, digitalization etc.).

9. Know when to in- and outsource

You probably can’t afford paying others to help you with all the things you don’t know how to do when starting out, so arm yourself with patience and embark on the steep and broad learning curve that entrepreneurship is.

You will need to learn a lot when starting your own business. You will be head of Operations, Sales & Marketing, IT, Finance, HR, New Business Development etc. This can be challenging but also fun. Find YouTube videos and how to guides, use your network for sparring, and let the learning begin.

10. Money isn’t everything

Some months it may be scary and bring a lot of uncertainty that the income is low or that the number of leads is unstable or non-existing.

Again, stay positive, and remember to count all benefits into the total equation. Money isn’t everything. Of course, you need to have a decent income at some point, but reaching that golden income-target that you aim for, may not be that important if you succeed in having a high job satisfaction, flexibility, feeling of freedom, meaningfulness in what you do - and what you don’t do.

Remember to enjoy all the perks that come with being your own employer, and don’t get fixed on copying the ‘normal’ 9-5 job.

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