Successful Startup 101 Magazine - Issue 7 Read online

SUCCESSFUL STARTUP 101 MAGAZINE

  Volume 1, Issue 7

  Published by

  Tabitha Jean Naylor

  Copyright

  Distributed & Published by

  Tabitha Jean Naylor

  www.successfulstartup101.com

  Copyright 2014 by Tabitha Jean Naylor. All Rights Reserved.

  Table of contents

  * Letter From The Editor

  * 12 Tips For Achieving Massive Success In Your Life & Business -by Tyler Basu

  * Pros and Cons of Joining a Business Accelerator Program -by Jerry Jao

  * You Can’t Do It All, So Expand Your Leadership Circle -by Peter Economy

  * Does Education Trump Experience When Starting a Business? -By Rieva Lesonsky

  * Lessons for Entrepreneurs From A Navy Seal -by Martin Zwilling

  * The Threat from Within- When mobile imperils Your Business Security -by Philip Whitchelo

  * Building a Startup Empire -by Kriti Vichare

  * The Secret to Winning the Content Creation War -by Je­ Bullas

  * An FBI Agent Reveals 5 Steps To Gaining Anyone’s Trust -by Shane Parrish

  * Lead Generation: Website Best Practices -by Andy Crestodina

  * Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business Model -by Nichole Kelly

  * Manage Your Marketing: Remember You’re in Sales -by Margie Clayman

  * Dear Brands, This Is The End of Our Friendship. Sincerely, Your Customer -by Vincent Teo

  * How Do You Have an Effective Social Media Presence and Not Get Sued? -by Mark Schaefer

  * 7 Sure-Fire Success Principles -by Daniel C. Steenerson

  * 5 Free Online Tools Too Valuable to Ignore That Will Help You Growyour Business -by Didi Zheleva

  * Fear - The Entrepreneur’s new Fuel -by Tabitha Jean Naylor

  * Even Small Businesses Can Have Remote Employees -by Richard Weinberger, PhD, CPA

  * Who Advises the Entrepreneur? -by Kerrie MacPherson

  * What Small Business Owners Should Know About Brain Health -by Andrew Greissman

  Letter From The Editor

  My name is Tabitha Jean Naylor. I am the publisher of Successful Startup 101 magazine, the founder of the Successful Startup Series and owner of TabithaNaylor.com. You likely wouldn't know me if we passed each other walking down the street, so I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself, as well as shed some light on the inspiration behind Successful Startup 101 Magazine.

  To say that entrepreneurialism is in my blood is an understatement. I grew up around small business; my great granddad started a small hardware empire in the mountains of western Maryland and West Virginia back in 1864. It’s a family-run business that’s still in existence today. As a child, I witnessed firsthand the challenges that small business owners face, including the sacrifices that sometimes need to be made. I was also fortunate enough to see the rewards of the blood, sweat and tears of those same sacrifices. Commitment, dedication and hard work were all things that my parents taught me at a very young age.

  After a successful sales career in the mortgage industry, I opened my first business – a mortgage company based in center city Philadelphia – in 2006. There were many highs and many lows, and quite frankly, no amount of planning in the world could’ve prepared me for the business lessons I learned along the way. In 2009, I closed the company on a high note to pursue other endeavors outside of the real estate industry. A little over a year later, I started TabithaNaylor.com, a marketing firm that delivers ‘big agency’ quality at rates that are affordable for startups and small business. I've made more mistakes along the way that I care to admit (or even want to count!), which is where the inspiration for Successful Startup 101 stems from.

  The goal of Successful Startup 101 magazine and the Successful Startup Series is simple: to help. We live in an age of information overload. 571 new websites go live A Minute and 2 million blog postes are written PER Day. The days of doing a quick search online and finding an answer to a burning business question are long gone. Instead, if you head over to Google and do a search for “Small Business Finance,” you’ll be greeted by 775,000,000 results. Even if you have the time to read through the top 10 search results (which let’s be honest here, you probably don’t), you’re not guaranteed to find the answer you’re looking for. The information could be outdated. It could just be wrong. The content you read may contradict with what you've seen or heard elsewhere. So how do you know what to believe? Where do you begin? They say analysis is paralysis, but when wer’re talking about something as important as your business, can you REALLY afford bad advice?

  Successful Startup 101 cuts through the clutter. The articles in the magazine are carefully selected to help you – the budding entrepreneur, the startup founder, the small business owner – get the information you need to help your business succeed. All authors are thought leaders and experts in their respective fields so you can rest easy knowing that the information is accurate, current and of the highest quality.

  I consider myself a lifelong student. I love learning new things. And I love my business. I am fortunate and blessed to be doing something that I love... I help businesses with their marketing and branding strategies every single day, which in turn, helps them grow. Now, I am extending that helping hand even farther and wider that I ever dreamed possible. That you for your interest, and most important, your support in Successful Startup 101.

  I sincerely hope that you enjoy the magazine.

  All the best –

  TABITHA JEAN NAYLOR

  Publisher

  12 Tips For Achieving Massive Success In Your Life & Business

  By Tyler Basu

  One of the greatest drives of all human beings is the drive to succeed – the drive to improve, to make progress. It is by making progress that we feel a sense accomplishment. After all, if we’re not getting ahead, we’re actually falling behind, and nobody likes to feel left behind. But what if you could get ahead faster? What if you could achieve all that you want and more? What if you could achieve massive success, and do it in a short period of time?

  Well the good news is that it can be done, and many people have done it before. There are numerous examples of individuals who have completely transformed their lives, their relationships, their health, their businesses, and their income in surprisingly short periods of time.

  If you want the same to happen for you, here are 12 tips to help you achieve MASSIVE SUCCESS in your life and business:

  1. Believe that it’s possible for YOU

  The first step towards achieving massive success is to believe that it’s possible for YOU. It’s easy to believe that achieving massive results in a short period of time is possible for others, because you can simply look at real life examples for the evidence you need to support that belief. But to believe that it’s possible for you before you’ve created the results to prove it can be a challenge. The average person believes something only when they see it.  But the person who succeeds must believe in something before they see it. Your belief in yourself must come first, and it is precisely that belief that will fuel your motivation to take action.

  2. Act like the person you want to become

  The person that you are today is precisely the person that has created the results you are currently experiencing. Achieving new, massive results will require a personal transformation. You must begin to transform yourself into the person you want to become. You must be willing to give up the person that you are for the person that you can be.  Start by visualizing how that person talks, what skills they have, what their habits are, how they handle setbacks, etc. Then start acting like that person. If you c
ontinuously act like the person you want to be, soon enough you will become them.

  3. Put your stake in the ground

  Putting you stake in the ground means deciding precisely what you want to achieve, how you’re going to do, and sticking to that. Don’t jump from one industry to another, or from one opportunity to another. Claim your territory – stand firmly, stand proudly. Choose one course and stay on that course until successful. Say no to all the things that take you away or distract you from your chosen course of action.

  4. Vocalize your vision

  Many people believe that you can “speak things into existence”. What this means is that what you put out into the world you attract back to you. Vocalizing your goals is therefore one of the most effective ways to achieve them. When you vocalize your goals, you attract people and resources that can help you with their accomplishment. A public declaration of your intentions is so much more powerful than a private commitment. When you make your intentions public, it helps to hold you accountable out of fear of not wanting others to see you fail.

  5. Refuse to tolerate negativity

  One of the greatest killers of success is the pull of negative people who try to hold you back from getting ahead. Whether they are your colleagues, friends, business partners, or even family members, you must severely limit the amount of time you spend with people who are negative and whose attitudes do not support your success. You must also refuse to tolerate any negativity from yourself. Monitor your thoughts and your attitudes, and when you catch yourself thinking or reacting negatively, stop yourself and re-frame your perception immediately. Refuse to tolerate complaining, blaming, and criticizing in both your personal and professional life.

  6. Have a “No Plan B” mentality

  Will Smith, a highly successful actor/entertainer, once said that “there is no need to have a plan B, because it distracts from plan A”. In order to achieve massive success, you must think and act as if failure is not an option. If failure is an option, or if you do have a “back up plan”, then you are more likely to give up when things get too tough. But when you have no other choice except to succeed, you force yourself to keep going even when its extremely uncomfortable. When a person’s back is against the wall, they can do amazing things.

  7. Expect turbulence before take off

  If you’ve ever been on a plane, you know that the take off is often more uncomfortable than the flight. The same is true of any new endeavor. When you first begin taking new actions to achieve a new goal, it is often uncomfortable in the beginning. Expecting things to be easy or comfortable right away is a recipe for failure. Embrace the discomfort of new experiences and of acquiring new skills and habits. Expect a few setbacks before take off.

  8. Go full throttle

  To achieve massive success, you must take massive action. A little action here and there won’t cut it. In order for a plane to take off it must go full throttle. If it doesn’t go full throttle it will never lift off the ground. The same is true in life and in business. In order to “get off the ground” you must go full throttle in the beginning. Going full throttle creates momentum. You can’t afford to ease off the gas until after that momentum is created, not before.

  9. Use the language of success

  To become a success you must think and talk like a success. You can easily tell the difference between someone who consistently succeeds and someone who consistently fails by the language they use. The successful person says “I’m committed” while the unsuccessful person says “I’m going to give it a try and see what happens”. The successful person says “I’m going to make this better” while the unsuccessful person says  “I really hope things get better”. The successful person says “I’ll figure it out” while the unsuccessful person says “I wish I I knew how”. You must speak the language of success before you can expect to become one.

  10. Focus on getting better every day

  Another major key to achieving massive success is to focus on getting just a little better every single day. Consistent minor improvements over a long period of time have a major compounding effect. If you improve by just 1% every single day for an entire year, by the end of the year you will have improved by 3,778%.  Each day, strive to become just a little bit better than you were yesterday. This simple habit will have a profound impact on your results in the long run.

  11. Don’t take advice from people who aren’t getting the results you want

  A crucial principle for achieving massive to success is to reject the advice of anyone who is not achieving the results you want. Common sense tells us that we cannot learn to do something from someone who has never done it. Make sure you get your advice from the right people, and never take advice from someone who is more messed up than you are. If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, find someone who has lost at least 10 pounds and ask them how they did. If your goal is to make $1,000,000 this year, find someone who has made $1,000,000 and learn from them.

  12. Accept no excuses

  The final tip for achieving massive success in your life and business is to accept no excuses. Average people have a habit of letting just about any excuse stop them from achieving their goals. You can have excuses or you can have results, but you can’t have both. Successful people know that it only takes one good reason to motivate you to achieve what you want to achieve. It only takes one good reason to overcome a thousand excuses.

  About the Author

  Tyler Basu is an avid blogger, marketer, and online entrepreneur. As the Founder of https://www.chattingwithchampions.com and host of the Chatting With Champions podcast, he is committed to helping others achieve success in life and business. He is also the author of several books available on Amazon.

  Pros and Cons of Joining a Business Accelerator Program

  By Jerry Jao

  Joining a business accelerator program isn’t the right choice for every entrepreneur, and it doesn’t guarantee success. For a selected few, however, it provides a much-needed jumpstart towards a more promising future. My third company, Retention Science, is a graduate of MuckerLab, a mentorship-focused accelerator based in Santa Monica, California. Here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of accelerator programs.

  Pros

  1. Curriculum and Clear Structure

  Business accelerator programs typically consist of three to six months of crash courses, speaker series, and professional workshops designed to help you learn a lot in a very short period of time. Certain accelerators conclude their programs with a Demo Day, where entrepreneurs publicly debut their products to a group of peers, tech reporters, and investors. By establishing a clear schedule of classes and milestones, the program helps entrepreneurs stay focused and reinforces the need to be agile and move fast.

  2. Marketing and PR

  ou can count on your accelerator to be one of your biggest advocates to the outside world. The accelerator helps develop your marketing strategy and identify the right positioning for your products. And, when it is time, it helps you identify the proper outlets to publicly launch your company. If you’re part of a well-respected accelerator, chances are tech reporters, potential customers, and even investors will be more interested in your company news. This is why the reputation of your accelerator matters.

  3. Funding

  Accelerators typically provide $20,000-$50,000 in startup capital to each company. Different accelerators have differing policies and funds. While funding is important, I’ve heard many entrepreneurs share this repeatedly: do not choose one accelerator over the other because it offers you $35,000 versus $25,000. Your decision should be solely based on the quality of the partners, network of mentors, and curriculum – in the grand scheme of things, a few thousand dollars will not save your company, but knowing the right contacts will.

  4. The Perks: Discounts, Freebies, Social Events

  Each accelerator offers different perks, but examples may include free legal advice, financial planning support, access to design agencies,
discounted package for web servers, social events, and many more.

  Cons

  1. Company Equity

  On average, accelerators require between 5–10% of company equity in exchange for all of their great benefits. This is a lot of company equity – do your research so you know for a fact that you will gain a lot of value by joining the accelerator.

  On a side note, I’ve heard of unique cases where accelerators take less equity than normal. For example, if a company is already far along in development (i.e., significant number of customers or users), certain accelerators might negotiate with you. It’s worth a shot.

  2. Unsuitable Network for Your Business

  Not all accelerators are created equal. Some might not have the right network to add value to your business. For example, an accelerator may have considerable experience in building e-commerce businesses, but know little about scaling mobile apps. Quality accelerators should not offer you a spot if they know they cannot make a meaningful impact on growing your business. But, don’t just count on them to make the call. Do your research.

  3. Less Support Once You Graduate

  While accelerators are great for launching your company, you shouldn’t expect the same level of support after you graduate from the program. It’s imperative to maximize all of the resources during the official program, because once you’re no longer working out of the shared office space, fewer opportunities will exist.

  4. Commitment & Risks

  Joining an accelerator is a serious commitment, and it does not guarantee success. For some entrepreneurs, it sometimes means leaving family behind for a couple of months, relocating to a different city, or taking out more loans to support themselves. While the goal is to accelerate your company growth, there are still many companies that drop out of the program or fail to complete building a product that meets market demand. Keep in mind that accelerators can help you a great deal, but they do not mitigate your risks of failing.