Tai Lopez succinctly put three of these four elements together in his 67 steps program you can subscribe to at www.tailopez.com. I added the last one since I think it is a key element to surviving the hurdles that always accompany a startup.
- Knowledge – you must be an enormous consumer of information on all aspects from operations to marketing in your particular industry. Malcom Gladwell states that it takes 10,000 hours for anyone to become an expert. Do you know the best industry sources for knowledge? Do you have mentors in the industry? Are you consuming daily industry updates?
- Strategy – Taking your knowledge and transforming it into a strategy is the next key element. Identify the financial needs, human capital needs and customer needs. How will you differentiate yourself? Price? Quality? Delivery?
- Execution – This is where a lot of entrepreneurs fail. They have tremendous knowledge and put together a great strategy but fail on execution. Sometimes they freeze when it gets time to move forward. Other times they don’t have the expertise on one key part of the business. For example, in one Shark Tank episode two individuals had a technology business they were trying to raise money to launch. Not one of the founders had a technology background. Needless to say they did not receive funding.
- Passion – All startups go through hurdles whether financial, employees, customers or production. While the first three elements are the mode of transportation to build your business, Passion is the fuel to keep it moving especially through the difficult times.
