Question: What's one surprising thing you wish you knew before starting up?
Lead From Love
"It might sound hippy-dippy, but I led my company from a place of anxiety for years. That hindered growth. Once I discovered how to lead from a place of love and gratitude, the landscape of RTC changed. We started attracting a higher caliber of clientele, our quality improved, our processes improved, and overall our company was infused with more joy. Anxiety still creeps in, but now I have a plan."
@CoreyBlake9000
No One is Good at Everything
"It's really easy to think of yourself as a Jack-of-all-trades and believe you can handle any task that comes your way. But you can't. There will always be tasks that you don't have the skills to complete, and it's okay to outsource those. It's better to spend some money on an accountant than to try to learn payroll. "
@vtamethodman
Organization Is Key
"As we become a larger company, we are realizing how chaotic it is to manage all the paperwork. I never like to delete stuff in case we need it in the future. Nevertheless, it became severely overwhelming and made us inefficient, so we decided to invest in Box, a high-speed scanner, and interns to help us organize and digitize everything. It was worth the time and money. "
@derekcapo
Write Down Reliable Processes
"You start up with so much energy, so many ideas and endless possibilities. You quickly maneuver and start to grow. In that growth phase, however, nobody told me how incredibly important it is to implement reliable and repeatable processes. You should write everything down and take note when something goes well. When you have a process in place, your capacity for scale is unparalleled."
@arjundarora
The Vision Will Change
"My co-founder and I started with a very strong, clear vision of what we wanted our business to become. That vision shifted over time as new opportunities arose, and we learned from trial and error. Initially, I resisted changing course because I felt like we were giving up on our vision. But eventually, I realized we were creating a better, much bigger business than we originally imagined."
@martinawelke
Work Smart, Not Hard
"In the beginning, I thought I was being effective by simply working 80 hours a week. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The adept startup owner should instead focus on ways to get things done effectively in a shorter period of time."
@moneycrashers
It's All About the Team and Systems
"Realizing the importance of having the right team (company culture) and right structure in place was crucial. Create systems that rely on processes and not on people. "
@mmogill
