From speed of implementation to small bets: 7 powerful mindsets for entrepreneurs

The world's most thriving businesses are run by entrepreneurs who harbor the precise habits to make sure their prolonged existence and staying power in the marketplace. The truth is that so much of our performance comes from the routine that we employ on a daily basis, successfully determining our potential to excel in any line of work. 
Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? 

1. Speed of implementation: “sooner” is better than “perfect”

Whatever amount of time you spend perfecting something, the first version will suck. There is nothing wrong about that, even the best plan for this:

Every time we show a film for the first time, it sucks. — Ed Catmull from Pixar

You will learn nearly as much on a quickly implemented version than on a perfected one, so why waste the time and energy? Focus on delivering as fast as possible. Ignore the details. Implement the essentials. Don’t multi-task.  Spending time “Thinking about it”, “researching”, “reading”, “waiting”, “considering options” won’t give you the answers you need.

If you don’t know which path to take or which ideas to choose, just pick one randomly.  Since there is no way for you to know which is best before learning some facts, it doesn’t matter which one you choose. If it doesn’t work, try the next one.

2. Improve only after you have found a potentially viable idea

Great ideas almost never appear into people’s minds completely formed. They develop through a discovery and improvement process.  Once you have found a potentially viable idea, gather insights from what you have built and improve on it incrementally as fast as possible. Always try to confront what you have built with reality. This is how Pixar’s movies start at “sucks” and finish at “great”.

[At Pixar],  being able to go from suck to nonsuck when developing a new film is a process of ongoing prototyping.— from Little Bets by Peter Sims

3. Leverage your strengths and resources

Make the best out of what you’ve got. What are your own strengths? What resources are available to you? What are the strengths of your network? Make a list of everything you bring to the table.

You will achieve more by leveraging your strengths than trying to fix your weaknesses. In order to do that, you have to spend time understanding what your strengths are. You could start with strength finder /HIGH5 and take the test included. It helps a lot in clarifying top strengths.

4. Use effectual thinking rather than causal thinking

A causal thinker asks: what do I need in order to achieve my goal?

An effectual thinker asks: what goals can I achieve with the resources available to me?

Effectual reasoning is a little weird at the beginning: you don’t start by focusing on only one goal, but it is very powerful when you are just starting and you have limited resources. If you focus on all the things that you are missing to move forward, you will feel stuck. Effectual thinking avoids that by forcing you to focus on what you have and suggest that you explore the possibilities of what you can achieve with them. You can read more about it in the article What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial? 

5. Make many small bets rather than a big one

Try to make every move a small bet: take many small risks whose loss you can afford rather than betting the house. Building a complete product without feedback along the way and expecting people to buy it is a big bet.  Building simple versions and interacting frequently with potential customers is a series of small bets where you can correct course as early and often as possible. By keeping losses affordable, you are also more ready to experiment and explore. Since you know you will lose from time to time, you have to take these contingencies into account in your process. Capitalize on your small wins and learn from your failure.

Test Fast, Fail Fast, Adjust Fast.— Tom Peters

The book Little Bets by Peter Sims explains this mindset in detail. It provides examples that range from how stand-up comic Chris Rock build a new show to how Pixar create such incredible movies.

6. Failures are not bad if they are learning opportunities

Whatever you do, failures will happen. You must plan for it. If you always make your bets small enough so that you can afford to lose them occasionally,  then you shouldn’t be afraid of failure. You should also reframe every failure as a learning opportunity.

Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward…. — Thomas Edison

7. Start really small if necessary

Something that held people back for a long time is the implicit belief that they needed to build a company from day one; that they needed all the pieces of the puzzle figured out, build everything and just throw the switch to “on”.

It’s is not the way one has to build the company. One can build it layer by layer, starting very small. If you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, try to think of a small part of the problem and focus on it. You will figure out things as they come.

What now?

Doing something is better than thinking about it. Try something now. Don’t look for excuses; have a habit to make things happen. Don’t worry about being perfect or getting it “right”. The best time to take actions on something that will move you closer to success is always now