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today we're going to talk about some
mistakes that I made in starting a
business and these are not all the
mistakes I made because I made a lot I'm
just going to talk about 3 and I have a
feeling some of them are gonna be a
little bit contentious some of you
watching might disagree that these are
mistakes I think it's important to try
and learn other people's hard lessons
the easy way and these are some hard
lessons for me things that cost me
dearly in making them as mistakes so
here we go mistake number 1 we did not
start with enough money now this one is
going to upset people who believe in
lean who believe in starting something
scrappy not being kind of bloated by too
much money but the problem is money is a
resource and if you don't have enough
resource in terms of money you have to
find that resource somewhere else
chances are that resource is going to be
you and your labor you're gonna have to
work harder then you'd have to if you'd
had a little bit more money now I'm not
saying you should go out and raise
enormous amounts of money I think too
much money can be even more of a curse
than not enough but but not enough is a
problem and I don't think that the
business would be that much bigger than
it is now if we'd started with more but
it would be better and it would have
been a much better experience to started
it would have been less painful less
hard this one you could disagree with
but for me I think it's important that
that whatever you think you need you
should add fifty percent or even a
hundred percent to that to give yourself
breathing room give yourself a chance to
become profitable without having to
compromise yourself or your business
along the way now this does tie into the
second mistake that I made and this one
there's really no question I fell for
the myth of the heroic entrepreneur I
fell for that story that we tell that
the right thing to do the correct thing
to do is to work every hour God's hands
right you should be doing a hundred hour
week minimum to start your business
successfully you should be grinding you
should be hustling and it's wrong and it
really messed me up it nearly burnt me
out it turned the thing that I was the
most passionate about into something
that I resented now when you start
working every hour feels amazing it
feels really good it feels so good to
get home from work and work a little bit
more because it's yours the challenge
here is that how long do you want to run
a business for five years ten years 20
years the rest of your life you can't
keep that pace up this remains for me
probably the mistake I regret the most
like it was physically damaging to me
mentally damaging to me and I watch it
happen over and over and over again to
people in so many industries it's it's
back to that kind of classic work
smarter not harder
and the other thing is that if you give
yourself a hundred hours a week if you
give yourself twelve plus hours a day to
do your work that'll be how long the
work takes no one no one can work really
hard a hundred hours a week no one can
and yes some of what you do
it is quite laborious quite physical you
can't really hurry that up but lots of
the work you do on your business rather
than in your business well that's the
work that just swells to fill the time
and you end up with no life outside of
work and not being a hugely fun person
and not having a lot of friends and not
being particularly happy but it feels
good so beware and that's that's a
really big mistake for me and like I
said I like to try and learn people's
hard lessons the easy way and that way I
didn't make a huge number of mistakes
that I see a lot of other people make in
part this was because I was given some
great recommendations before I started
my business and I'm gonna give a
recommendation or two to you now because
this video is sponsored by audible that
means that if you sign up using
audible.com slash James Hoffman or text
James Hoffman to five hundred five
hundred in North America you get a
30-day free trial that includes one free
audiobook or two audible originals and
here's my recommendation I would
recommend Michael Iger bers the e-myth
revisited don't judge a book by it's
cover this is a phenomenally good book
someone who is passionate about a thing
let's say coffee and they want to make a
business out of that thing
I avoided so many mistakes that people
make who try and transition from doing a
thing they're passionate about into
running a business that does that thing
and if you want a different
recommendation because you're not
planning to start a business then I
would recommend winners take all buy an
and gear Dadis this book fundamentally
changed the way that I see this industry
and how it approaches inequality its
efforts to change it while at the same
time its efforts actually to preserve it
it is a hugely important book that is
incredibly relevant and important to
anyone who's working in coffee who wants
to make a change and the great thing
about audiobooks is you can listen to
them on your way to work your lunch
break on your way home you can turn your
commute into an investment in yourself
so if you wanna give it a try click the
link in the description down below and
I'll tell you now about a third mistake
that I made the third mistake was that
we kind of ran a business in the early
days like a family and maybe that sounds
like a weird thing but it's easy to
create a family dynamic inside a small
business and the problem with families
with everyone's family is that families
are dysfunctional there is an inherent
dysfunctional nature to them in a
practical terms in business terms family
feeling generates loyalty loyalty to an
employee and loyalty from the employee
or team member to the business and that
feeling of loyalty can often cloud
decision making someone may choose to
stay in a role that doesn't really work
for them out of loyalty to the company
to the people inside it or you know an
employer may keep somebody in a role
that doesn't work for them out of
loyalty to that person that's not really
to the long-term benefit of either the
employee or the company but it's done
with the best intention through this
kind of familial thing and relationships
inside family units can easily become
emotional and complicated I'm not saying
that you can't have healthy
interpersonal relationships with the
people that you work with I'm not saying
you can't like them I'm not saying that
that's bad but I'm saying that the
dynamic of a family is quite a separate
distinct one to that of a small business
potentially and I think allowing a
family dynamic to form is probably a
mistake
and it certainly was a mistake for me
that I felt cost the business and
actually was detrimental to a number of
people that worked as part of that team
and I feel bad about that I regret that
and I see it as a mistake for that
reason and now outside of a family kind
of dynamic I think you can have a really
healthy culture inside a company based
on mutual respect based on collaborative
working but it's not a family dynamic
and I think it's hard to talk about but
I think if you've experienced it either
as someone inside a business like that
or someone who ran a business like that
then you'll understand what I'm talking
about
but this is the point where I I'd really
like to hear what you have to say did
any of these resonate with you either as
someone who runs a business or who works
inside one do you disagree do you agree
that I really miss something I would
love to hear your thoughts down below
and again do you want to hear more of
these stories of my mistakes of my
failures from the past there are a lot
and I'm more than happy to talk about
them so let me know leave me a comment
down below I'm gonna say thank you so
much for watching and I hope you have a
great day
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you
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