Lessons You Must Learn for the success of Your Startup

This article is written by Munira Hussein, a Contributor Author at Startup Istanbul.

As a startup, you are bound to make mistakes.  For your company to succeed, you will constantly have to fall and rise. Here are a few things you should know about the startup journey.

Fear is Inevitable

There is always a positive role that fear will play in the life of a startup. Living in the fear that resides at the back of your head will lead to failure. Find a way to move from that forward part of your brain which is about the spirit of optimism.

You Have to Fail First

The worst fear possible is that you would fail, but the better side is that you can try again with a greater understanding of why you failed and how you can do better. That doesn’t mean that you will not face other fears even after you have succeeded but the more you fail, the better lessons you learn and the stronger the foundation you build for your company.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

                                      Samuel Beckett 

Skills Can Be Acquired

As you start out, you will realize that there are various skills you lack. This lack of experience and some skills can be scary but you have to understand that you can’t learn everything and you can acquire the skills that are pertinent to your startup by hiring skilled people.

Create a Culture

A skilled team that doesn’t get the idea of the company is likely to be a setback rather than a success.  When Mark Little found his company, Storyful, that he later sold to News International in 2013, the idea was to verify and discover content that meant something to the world, then hand it over to news organizations and support great quality journalism at a time of great change. Ensure your team gets the idea and understands the vision, then take risks together.

Culture beats strategy.

Success Can Be a Danger

Even though the idea of every startup is to succeed, sometimes success is not your friend. Failure is a friend in many cases. It is allowing you to learn. Success gives you overconfidence that might make you not check on your expenditure. This is the most dangerous place for any entrepreneur to be in because most times, you will discover how big a mistake you have made when the company is already bankrupt or on the edge of bankruptcy. Grow a structure around the lessons learnt from failure.

In conclusion, even with all the success tips and lessons you read, the most important lesson you can learn is that it is a mental game. Your startup is made or broken in your mind. It is about the human judgement and client feedback. Let the customers guide you on the journey. Get a mentor who will be your company’s honest opinion. Always think about the end point and what success looks like to you and for your company.