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9 things every hustler must know


As an entrepreneur, one of your most valuable assets is time and how to manage it. Because you cannot do everything at the same time, you must learn to prioritise and focus on the areas that will make a difference to your business.

Instead of running around with a brilliant idea and no plan, here are the things that you should remember as you try to make your business work.

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, there is no such thing as work-life balance 

I am not advocating that you spend a disproportionate part of your life working on your company.

I am simply reporting that this is what the most successful entrepreneurs do. I have never found an exception.

The best entrepreneurs don’t come up with great ideas, they solve market needs

You and I can come up with wonderful ideas all day long but unless they satisfy a large enough need that can support a business, they don’t do any good.

All successful entrepreneurs have a great desire to make their idea a reality

What entrepreneurs need most of all — above motivation, focus, hope, financing, marketing skills, or even a brilliant idea — is the will to bring their idea into existence.

Unless you truly want to make something happen, the odds are nothing will. Without that desire, nothing else matters… or occurs.

Action trumps everything

Stop thinking and get going.

Take small, smart steps to get to your goal 

Contrary to the popular press, the most successful entrepreneurs are not bet-everything-on-one-roll-of-the-dice types.

They are extremely conservative. They take a small step toward their goal, pause to see what they have learned from that step and build that learning into the next small step.

Then they pause to see what they have learned from that second small step, build that learning in and then take another small step and so forth. They don’t take large risks.

Give up control

You can try to micromanage but the business will never grow bigger than one person — you, the CEO — can handle effectively.

The company won’t move quickly since everything will have to flow through you.

You will create a bottleneck and won’t get the best ideas out of your people. Once they understand the company revolves around you, people are not going to take the time to develop their best ideas.

“Why should I?” they’ll ask. “He is just going to do what he wants anyway.” And it’s exhausting.

Forget about working on your weaknesses, play to your strengths 

This is what will make you successful in the long-run.

What about marketing?

Marketing, when you strip everything away, is extremely simple: Figure out who you want to sell to, and then determine what it is that will get them to buy.

Here’s the only market research you need:

Get your product out in the marketplace and see if it sells

But if you insist on doing market research anyway, show potential customers a prototype, or describe your service and ask: “Is this something you would buy?”

If they answer yes, ask for the order then and there. If, they place an order you are probably on to something. If they aren’t, you still have work to do.

Adapted from Forbes Magazine