I interviewed an entrepreneur that started a cyber security business. As a means of privacy, I am withholding her name.
Main Topics Covered:
- Starting the Business
- Non-Competes
- Work Ethics
- Planning
- Finding a Good Team
- Startup Capital
- Conversion from Beginning Stages to Management
- Managing the company
- Exit Strategies
Main Lessons Learned:
- Make sure that you know you want to follow through with your business before starting. Too many businesses go under for you to afford a business lose for something you don’t want to do.
- Plan far in advance, and make sure you communicate your expectations for your business and future with your family, so they are prepared for your business venture.
- Along with this recommended to not use your house as a bargain chip with the bank for deals, because if your business fail you don’t want to lose your family’s home.
- Your name is very important when doing business, make sure you establish a good reputation.
- Make sure you live up to non-compete agreements.
- Make sure you have a good face to face relationship with the bank, and make sure you are not just a name on a computer screen.
- Make sure you have a group of people to compliment you in your business ventures. You don’t want some one that is the same because then there will be power struggles, and you will not know
- Make sure what you do evolves with your company
- Goes along with making sure employees are in the right positions for their skill set.
- Recommends using a line of credit instead of loans (this is a personal opinion).
- “Allows the company to be its own guarantee”.
- Number one rule should be to “take care of your people”.
- Whether this is employees or customers, if you show them utmost respect and loyalty they will return the same.
Takeaways:
One thing that really stuck with me was the golden rule: “Take care of your people”. She placed such a strong emphasis on how if you treat your colleagues, employees, customers, and suppliers with respect, they will return not only respect, but loyalty to your company. She believed that ethics and morals are a very strong part of what makes her and her company successful. Many people that signed non-compete agreements with her original employer ignored their contracts, and cut corners in making their business. She made sure to stick to the high ground, and by the way I have heard one of her employees talk about her, it is extremely effective. Another thing that stuck with me was she entrepreneurial habits that she displayed very early on in her life. By the age of 7 or 8 she had already made her own newspaper, and was selling it for profit. I think this was strongly influenced by her father, a very successful entrepreneur himself. It appears that the entrepreneurship characteristics had been instilled in her family, since all her siblings have shown signs of success in their own business involvements. She also gave many helpful tips that she used to help herself keep her business successful, and with out the possibility of turning around and cutting into her families living expenses/home/marriage. Over all I would say it was very worth while investing my time in finding an entrepreneur that is working in the field of my major (computer science and engineering)