ReportWire

Tag: Bootstrapping

  • The Anti-Venture Capital Playbook: How to Build a Brand Without Losing Your Soul

    The dominant startup script is simple: raise fast, scale faster, exit fastest. For luxury brands, this often produces hype instead of lasting value.

    Lafco, the luxury home fragrance company, took the opposite approach. After 33 years without outside capital, their candles sit alongside premium competitors at Neiman Marcus, core sizes retail around $50 to $115, and the brand has expanded from candles into body care while maintaining its positioning.

    Here is what its journey reveals about building brands that actually matter.

    Market timing vs. speed

    Here is the paradox of bootstrap growth: you need to move with market intelligence, not just speed. There’s a difference.

    Venture-backed companies optimize for speed: rapid iteration, fast scaling, quick pivots. Bootstrap founders need market timing: recognizing strategic windows and acting when conditions favor their positioning.

    “We do not have the luxury of trying lots of marketing strategies and product introductions, of throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks,” founder Jon Bresler explains. “We must be incredibly thoughtful about our initiatives.”

    Constraint can create advantage. When Lafco launched the Absolute Collection, featuring mouth-blown glass from a centuries-old Bohemian factory, they recognized the market moment: consumers craving authenticity and craftsmanship in an increasingly digital world. One product launch did the work of an entire campaign.

    The lesson: when you cannot afford to buy attention, you need to spot strategic windows where your story matters most. Market timing forces thoughtfulness that speed alone often skips.

    That same discipline shows up in how Lafco thinks about branding.

    The logo test

    A simple diagnostic for long-term value: would you want your logo on your product?

    Lafco deliberately leaves logos off its glass vessels. As Bresler puts it, the pieces should function as decor that quietly elevates a room. That choice signals confidence that the product itself, not a badge, will build equity over time.

    When you’re optimizing for quarterly growth, everything becomes a short-term trade-off. When you’re building for decades, you can make decisions that compound in value over time, even if they don’t show immediate returns.

    This long-term thinking also shapes how they navigate retail changes.

    The democratization strategy

    Retail has shifted. Prestige beauty that once lived only in department stores now meets shoppers in mass channels. Smart brands use this to their advantage.

    The insight: meet customers where they are while maintaining premium positioning through how you show up, not only where you show up. That means resisting quick promotions that boost this quarter and erode the brand next year.

    For bootstrap founders, every partnership and channel decision either builds or erodes your positioning. When you can’t afford to rebuild brand equity, you have to be more careful about preserving it.

    Decision-making frameworks matter

    When mistakes are expensive, criteria beat vibes. Lafco filters opportunities through three pillars: Artistry, Integrity, and Luxury.

    This is not corporate wallpaper. Instead of “Will this increase revenue,” the first question becomes “Does this align with our pillars.” Sometimes that means walking away from short-term profit so every decision compounds in the same direction.

    This patience becomes even more powerful when it’s time to expand.

    The patience advantage

    After three decades of equity-building, Lafco is expanding thoughtfully into adjacent categories where its competencies translate naturally, such as body care and room fragrance accessories.

    The driver is not investor pressure: it’s confidence. Patience creates optionality. Instead of diversifying out of desperation, you expand from strength.

    Why this matters now

    The funding environment shifted. Money is more expensive, exits are harder, and profitability matters earlier. Many growth-at-all-costs playbooks will stall.

    At the same time, consumers are skeptical of brands that feel manufactured. Companies built with patience and product substance often outperform those optimized for theatrics.

    The real choice

    The decision is not bootstrapping versus venture capital: it’s financial engineering versus building something that lasts. Some businesses genuinely need outside capital. Others benefit from the discipline that bootstrapping demands.

    “It has always been important for me to control our own destiny at Lafco,” Bresler says. “To make the products we believe represent us as a brand, and that our customers want from us, even if sometimes the products are not immediately profitable.”

    Building brand longevity

    Ask yourself: Are you building a business you want to own for decades, or an asset you want to sell quickly. The answer should determine your approach to growth, decisions, and brand.

    In a world obsessed with unicorns, the radical move is building a business that does not need myth to succeed. Sometimes the strongest brands aren’t chasing unicorn status: they’re proving, candle by candle, that lasting businesses don’t need wings to fly.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Shama Hyder

    Source link

  • Why Mark Cuban Says You Shouldn’t Take Money from a Shark Like Him

    Over the course of 15 seasons, the Sharks on ABC’s Shark Tank have invested more than $200 million in the companies that have pitched them. But Mark Cuban, who sat on that investor panel almost every season before leaving the show earlier this year, says the smartest founders focus on sweat equity, rather than hunting for investors.

    Speaking at the Clover x Shark Tank Summit in Las Vegas Monday, Cuban listed the strengths of starting a business without any sort of external capital.

    “The only reason I’m a billionaire is because I started off bootstrapping,” he told Inc.’s editor-in-chief Mike Hofman. “So many people get caught up [thinking] ‘I have to raise money.’ No, you have to get customers. And if you’re able to get customers, you’re able to grow your business. And if you’re able to grow your business, even if it’s slower, then you’re able to own your business.”

    Few people can truly say they own their own business, Mark Cuban said. There’s a romanticism that goes with attracting outside investors—but that’s not always the best direction for the company.

    “I think we have the Silicon Valley ethos too much,” he said. “We’re got to raise money first.” A smarter move, he says, is to build the business first.

    By focusing on that, you avoid putting yourself in the position of having to decide between the lesser of several potentially bad funding offers that might require you to give up a significant ownership stake. The more you’re able to build the company organically, the better your position will be when the time to raise money finally arrives.

    “If you come on Shark Tank and you have $100,000 in sales, Kevin’s going to make you an offer that says, ‘I want 75 percent of the company and a 97 percent royalty.’ And Lori’s going to jump in and say, ‘Oh, that’s crazy, I’ll take 60 percent of your company, but only a 2 percent royalty.’ You don’t want to be in that position … The longer you can hold out before you raise money, the richer you are going to be,” said Cuban.

    When the time does come to raise money, he said, there’s nothing wrong with avoiding venture capital or even Shark Tank Sharks if you can get it in other ways, whether that’s crowdfunding, grants, or some other nontraditional means.

    Any chance you have to get nondilutive funding is one you should take, he said. However, as you accept that money, think about how you’re going to pay those people back.

    “Whatever source of funding you get—investors, equity, crowdfunding, whatever—remember, it is an obligation,” said Cuban. “Raising money is not an accomplishment, it’s an obligation.”

    That’s a lesson Mark Cuban learned personally right before the turn of the century.

    He and his partner Todd Wagner started a company called Broadcast.com, which he says was the first streaming company. It IPO’d in 1998 and immediately set a record for first-day growth.

    The stock opened at $18 per share and spiked within seconds to $72. It closed on that first day at $63.75.

    “I was freaked out in two ways,” he said. “One: Shoot, I’m rich! Two: Somebody paid $72 for our stock and now it’s $63. We need to get to work and make sure she makes money.”

    The way to do that, he says, is to focus not on sales, but cashflow. The topline is the least important number. Focus on things like margins and keeping costs low.

    “The #1 trap that startup entrepreneurs fall into: They’ve just got to get to $1 million in sales,” he said. “That’s the stupidest number in the history of stupid numbers. Tell me you want to get to $1 million in cash and you started with a lot less, and I’m like you’re my kind of entrepreneur.”

    Chris Morris

    Source link

  • We Built a 7-Figure Business Without a Single Investor — Here’s Why Saying No to VC Was Our Smartest Move | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    You’ve heard this story before: a couple of college kids launch a startup from their dorm room. Surrounded by engineers, finance majors and future founders, venture capital wasn’t just common — it was expected. So when my co-founder and I launched Prepory, our college admissions coaching company, we assumed we’d need funding to be taken seriously.

    We entered a pitch competition and came in second. No check. We reached out to investors. No bites. We had a choice: give up or keep building.

    We kept building.

    What started as a one-person operation helping students in our local community has grown into a seven-figure, global company with nearly 100 team members. We’ve supported over 14,000 students, partnered with school districts and institutions in multiple countries and built one of the most trusted brands in college admissions — all without a single outside investor.

    Here’s why we said no to VC, and why bootstrapping was the smartest decision we never planned to make.

    The pressure to raise

    In elite academic circles, starting a business often goes hand in hand with chasing venture capital. I pictured the high-stakes pitch rooms, the dramatic investor meetings — scenes straight out of The Social Network. But after our early efforts fell flat, we stopped trying to win someone else’s approval and turned our focus inward.

    We obsessed over our product, our client experience and our outcomes — not “scale.”

    One month before our one-year mark, we hit $100,000 in revenue. It wasn’t a headline-grabbing number by Silicon Valley standards, but it proved something more important: we didn’t need permission to grow. We just needed to execute.

    Related: Most Startups Ignore This One Asset That Makes or Breaks Their Success

    What bootstrapping taught us

    In hindsight, bootstrapping didn’t just work — it shaped the business in ways VC money never could.

    Every dollar mattered, which meant we tested fast and paid close attention to what customers wanted. Client feedback shaped everything. We pivoted early on from a B2C model to B2B — realizing that one school contract could bring the same revenue as ten individual clients. That insight wasn’t born from a boardroom; it was born from necessity.

    Bootstrapping also made me a better leader. I didn’t start by managing dozens of people. I started with one, then five, then ten. That kind of slow, intentional growth gave me room to develop as a leader — learning how to listen, communicate clearly and lead with clarity and care. There was no pressure to scale overnight, so we could prioritize culture, values and quality.

    The hidden cost of raising too soon

    VC can be a powerful accelerator — but if you raise too early, it can also be a trap.

    Many founders take funding before they’ve found product-market fit. They shift their focus from solving customer problems to pleasing investors. Instead of building a strong foundation, they’re stuck managing burn rates and expectations. Teams get stretched. Quality suffers.

    We built slowly. That meant we stayed close to our mission and recruited talent who were energized by the opportunity to build something meaningful. Today, we outperform companies twice our size because we’ve built a team that shows up with purpose — and we’ve stayed aligned with what matters most: helping students reach their full potential.

    Related: How to Scale a Business Without Wasting Millions (Or Collapsing Under Your Own Growth)

    Should you bootstrap?

    Ask yourself this: What do you actually need the money for?

    If you’re building a product that truly requires upfront investment — hardware, tech or time-sensitive development — funding may make sense. But if you’re starting a service-based business, you might not need capital to get traction.

    Bootstrapping requires resilience, patience and a tolerance for delayed gratification. But it gives you full ownership of your company, your vision and your decisions. Today, we have the freedom to invest in growth on our own terms.

    People still ask if we’d raise money now. My answer? Not unless we have a strategic reason to. Not because I’m anti-VC, but because we no longer need it.

    Bootstrapping gave us something far more valuable than capital: it taught us how to build a resilient, values-driven, adaptable business. And if we ever decide to raise, we’ll do it from a position of strength — not survival.

    You’ve heard this story before: a couple of college kids launch a startup from their dorm room. Surrounded by engineers, finance majors and future founders, venture capital wasn’t just common — it was expected. So when my co-founder and I launched Prepory, our college admissions coaching company, we assumed we’d need funding to be taken seriously.

    We entered a pitch competition and came in second. No check. We reached out to investors. No bites. We had a choice: give up or keep building.

    We kept building.

    The rest of this article is locked.

    Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.

    Daniel Santos

    Source link

  • How to Build a Thriving Business Without Venture Capital | Entrepreneur

    How to Build a Thriving Business Without Venture Capital | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    After recent conversations with Y Combinator alumni and other promising entrepreneurs, I hear many of them have no plans to raise venture capital — ever. While raising funds is often crucial, bootstrapping is an approach every entrepreneur should consider.

    Contrary to the “move fast and break things” mantra that echoes through Silicon Valley, bootstrapping often means adopting a steady and deliberate approach. This allows for a deeper understanding of your market and more meaningful connections with early customers.

    For instance, instead of chasing rapid growth, Tuple focused on building a product users would truly love. Their strategy revolved around a relentless focus on user feedback and incremental improvements. By prioritizing the quality of their screen-sharing functionality, a critical feature for developers, over the rapid expansion of their feature set, they created a loyal user base that fueled organic growth.

    Related: What I Wish I Knew Before Bootstrapping My Startup

    Steering your own ship

    Bootstrapping isn’t just about money; it’s about maintaining the purity of your vision. When you bootstrap, you retain complete control over your company’s direction, culture and values. This autonomy can be invaluable, especially if your vision doesn’t align with typical investor expectations.

    Keep in mind that maintaining control doesn’t always mean rejecting all external input. Mailchimp, which bootstrapped its way to a $12 billion acquisition by Intuit, did seek advice from outside experts. The difference was that the founders had the freedom to choose when and how to implement this advice.

    Can your model fuel itself?

    The ideal bootstrap-friendly business generates revenue quickly and requires minimal upfront investment. This often leads bootstrapped startups to focus on solving immediate, painful problems for customers willing to pay for solutions.

    Gumroad, a platform for creators to sell products directly to consumers, built its business model around immediate monetization. Gumroad aligned its success directly with its users by taking a small cut of each transaction.

    Being bootstrap-friendly often requires creativity in finding ways to generate early revenue. Pieter Levels, founder of Nomad List, bootstrapped his company by creating multiple small products and services for digital nomads. This diversified approach allowed him to generate revenue streams that collectively funded the growth of his main platform.

    Related: Bootstrapping vs. Seeking Venture Capital — How to Decide the Best Avenue for Your Business

    Walking the line between brave and foolish

    Bootstrapping often means betting on yourself — sometimes quite literally. It requires balancing necessary risks and avoiding reckless gambles. This often involves personal sacrifices and a willingness to operate with a much thinner safety net than funded startups.

    When Sara Blakely started Spanx, she kept her day job selling fax machines while developing her product at night and on weekends. She invested her entire $5,000 savings and even wrote her own patent to save on legal fees.

    The key is to be realistic about your risk tolerance and financial situation. It’s about finding creative ways to extend your runway and validate your ideas before going all-in. This might mean starting as a side project or finding ways to generate supplementary income that aligns with your long-term goals.

    Building big while starting small

    One of the most pervasive myths in the startup world is that certain ideas require massive scale from day one, necessitating significant upfront investment. However, numerous examples prove that it’s possible to build a large, impactful company from humble beginnings.

    Shopify, which now powers over a million businesses, started as a simple online store for snowboarding equipment. They bootstrapped the company initially, only seeking outside investment after they had a proven product and clear market demand.

    This paradox is often resolved by focusing on a specific, underserved segment of your target market. By dominating this niche, you can build the resources and reputation necessary to expand into adjacent markets or scale up to serve larger clients.

    Turn constraints into advantages

    One of the most powerful aspects of bootstrapping is how it forces creativity and efficiency. With limited resources, bootstrapped startups often find innovative solutions that end up becoming key competitive advantages.

    Referring to Basecamp’s journey again, their limited resources led them to focus on doing a few things exceptionally well rather than trying to match every feature of their competitors. This constraint-driven innovation resulted in a product known for its simplicity and ease of use — qualities that became major selling points.

    Related: Starting a Business? Before You Seek VC Money, Here’s Why Bootstrapping May Be the Better Choice.

    Building a team with more than money

    One of bootstrapped startups’ biggest challenges is attracting and retaining top talent without high salaries and extensive benefits packages. However, many bootstrapped companies have found innovative ways to build strong teams despite these constraints.

    By openly sharing the company’s revenue, salaries and equity distribution, Gumroad attracted talent that was aligned with their values and excited by the opportunity to work in such an open environment.

    Many top performers are motivated by factors beyond just salary. Autonomy, mastery, purpose and work-life balance can be powerful attractors, especially for those disillusioned with the high-pressure environments often found in heavily funded startups.

    Defining success on your terms

    The bootstrap path can lead to unexpected and often more favorable exit opportunities. When you bootstrap, you retain more equity and have more control over the timing and terms of any potential exit.

    When Intuit acquired Mailchimp for $12 billion, the founders owned 100% of the company, a feat unheard of in tech unicorns. Their bootstrap journey allowed them to grow the company at their own pace and exit on their own terms.

    An “exit” doesn’t necessarily mean selling or going public. Success can be defined in many ways — building a profitable business that supports your desired lifestyle, creating a company that makes a positive impact on the world, or, yes, eventually selling for a significant sum.

    Arian Adeli

    Source link

  • Bootstrapping vs. Venture Capital — What’s Best for Your Business? | Entrepreneur

    Bootstrapping vs. Venture Capital — What’s Best for Your Business? | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Every person who’s founded a business knows that financing your idea is one of the hardest but most important early steps. In fact, creating a stable financial nest for your new company might be the difference between a company that thrives and one that fizzles out.

    There are two primary methods of financing: looking for venture capital and bootstrapping. Choosing which financing method you go with is a crucial decision that may have long-term impacts on your business.

    So, how should you decide which method to pursue?

    Related: 9 Advantages Of Bootstrapping Your Company

    Bootstrapping

    Bootstrapping is the process of starting a business with no outside funding. This is an achievable way to start your company because you can focus on building your team and product exactly how you want. Further, bootstrapping typically means you’ll reach an initially smaller audience, so you’ll have time to get feedback from early users before launching to a wide audience.

    The advantages of bootstrapping include a bigger focus on customers. Because you don’t have a huge nest egg, pleasing your early customers is your lifeline. So, you’ll focus more on user retention and building long-term customer relationships.

    Disadvantages of this creative financing option include slower growth. Because you’re funding yourself, you’ll have less access to expensive technology that affords fast production processes. Further, you’ll have to rely more on personal savings or debt in order to jumpstart your business.

    Seeking venture capital

    On the other hand, you may opt to seek venture capital. Venture capital is a type of financing through private equity. In other words, investors put money into your business, betting that it will become a successful venture. By going with venture capital, your business will grow faster, resulting in a quick return on investment.

    The benefits of venture capital include less personal risk. You’re not pouring your own money into the business, so you don’t risk losing your own money. Additionally, getting a loan from a credible investor will increase your own credibility.

    However, drawbacks of venture capital include the expectation to grow quickly and the initial reduction of your stakes as an owner of the business.

    Related: 6 Important Factors Venture Capitalists Consider Before Investing

    Choosing the best financing option

    The decision between bootstrapping and looking for venture capital depends largely on the state of growth that you’re in. In fact, many great investors often want to see evidence that you’ve successfully bootstrapped for the first stage of your business.

    But why? Because successful bootstrapping serves as evidence that you’re smart and hardworking — and that you’ve got a good idea.

    However, say your business is in an industry that requires a large amount of upfront research, such as the biomedical or electric car companies. In this case, you’ll need a huge amount of capital, which will likely require raising money from outside investors. But if you can bootstrap the formation of the company and proof of concept, you’ll face less dilution in the venture capital process as the founder. Further, it means you can embrace a lean-and-mean, efficient philosophy toward operations.

    In this case, you prove that you’re efficient when it comes to using capital. It also proves you’re more resourceful than some business owners and entrepreneurs. Further, it shows that you can be innovative out of necessity.

    So, if you’re creating a good product and your business is successful, you’ll begin to gain traction in your industry. Then, there will inevitably come a time when you start to outgrow the resources that are available to you on your balance sheet. As a result, your own bootstrapping funds will cease to be able to fund your business’s growth as aggressively as necessary.

    When this happens, it’s likely best to raise outside capital. In fact, this is often the best way to take advantage of the opportunity you’ve created for yourself. In this case, you should have an easier time finding funding.

    Why seeking growth capital is easier than seeking startup funding

    Historically, it’s easier to find growth capital than it is to seek startup funding. So, because you’ve bootstrapped for a period of time, you’ve given yourself the opportunity to prove the viability of your idea. As a result, seeking venture capital will be easier as you can approach investors with successful results about your company.

    At the end of the day, how you fund your business is up to you. Your own evaluation of the state of your business, the viability of your product and the potential of your business to generate profit should help you determine which avenue is best for you. Bootstrapping and seeking venture capital both have significant benefits and drawbacks. So, you should evaluate where you are in your business when choosing between the two.

    Most likely, the best option is a combination of the two. Consider the stage that your business is in when deciding whether to choose bootstrapping or seeking venture capital in order to guarantee the highest level of success.

    Related: How I Bootstrapped to $100 Million Without Venture Capital Funding

    Cyrus Claffey

    Source link

  • How I Bootstrapped to $100 Million Without VC Funding | Entrepreneur

    How I Bootstrapped to $100 Million Without VC Funding | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Venture capital (VC) funding has plummeted in 2023 due to high interest rates and less enthusiasm from investors. Research shows that VC funding almost halved globally in the first six months of this year, ushering in what some have called a VC winter.

    Despite this, entrepreneurs shouldn’t give up hope of making their dreams a reality. Even though VC funding has slowed to a trickle, good ideas to launch a successful business have not.

    You don’t have to immediately go into debt to start a business — I didn’t. All I had when I started was a phone, a computer and my own personal credit cards. I took my idea, ran with it, and now we’re bringing in over $100 million in annual revenue.

    Of course, it’s always more ideal when you have the help, but there are ways to jump-start your business without VC funding, and I’ll give you some pointers.

    Related: How This Entrepreneur Went Global Without VC Funding

    Hit the reset button on all of your expectations

    You don’t need a pile of cash to get started. In truth, there is some benefit to going at it alone. Without investors at your side pumping influence into your company, you have full control and less pressure from outside forces.

    But the consequence of this is adjusting your expectations in the beginning to get things moving. After all, Steve Jobs lived in his parents’ garage for years while developing his computers.

    Starting a business is a difficult undertaking and greatly affects your work-life balance and day-to-day comforts. When I started PostcardMania in 1998, I drove an old Nissan Pathfinder that was paid for (so I didn’t have a car payment), didn’t have a weekly salary, and I didn’t go on vacation. I worked very long days, seven days a week.

    At times, it was difficult to pay for living expenses, so I negotiated repayment terms to cover bills and maxed out a credit card or two to get by. I even bartered a room in my home to get free childcare because I had two young children at the time.

    I was funneling as much money as I could into PostcardMania, and once we had enough clients to get a building, I took money out of my own home to help pay for it. After about five years — once we finally reached eight figures in annual revenue — I finally decided to reward myself with a little luxury: a Mercedes convertible.

    Everyone wants to skip the hardship and get to the part where they become a millionaire. Overnight success stories hardly ever happen though, so strap in and get ready for some challenges. The hard work will be worth it to reach your destination.

    Related: You Don’t Need VC Funding to Grow Your Startup. Here’s How to Turn Customers Into Investors.

    Market your business more than most people think is sane

    Oftentimes, people look at large companies with huge ad budgets and think, “Well of course they spend a ton on advertising — they have the money to!”

    What most people (even entrepreneurs) don’t realize is that those companies are spending big chunks of their revenue on marketing out of necessity, not luxury.

    Another hard truth: Investing hard-won money in marketing doesn’t always result in huge returns. Any marketing strategy you use to generate leads, like Facebook advertising, podcast sponsorships or direct mail, is not 100% guaranteed to deliver results. It’s a constant, ever-evolving game of figuring out what is working and what isn’t.

    That is one reason why many business owners are so reluctant to spend money on marketing services. It’s not a straightforward purchase like buying work boots or supplies.

    You’re going to win some, and you’re going to lose some.

    It takes time and effort to find that special marketing formula for your business that works and brings in revenue. This is also why it’s so important to invest in quality marketing services, stay consistent with it over long periods of time and test multiple methods all at once to see what works best.

    The Chamber of Commerce, a research company for entrepreneurs, states poor marketing initiatives as the #1 reason for small business failure. I can confirm this throughout my 25 years of experience serving small business owners. The ones that thrive don’t give up on marketing. In fact, they spend insane amounts of their resources on it.

    Related: Can You Scale a Startup Without Venture Investment?

    Cultivate and maintain the best talent with a meaningful business purpose

    Promoting my right-hand woman, Melissa Bradshaw, to president of PostcardMania was a huge moment for me. I remember when I first started my business — with her right there by my side from day one — she helped drive my kids to school and answer phones. Today, she’s buying large digital printing presses and establishing entire new departments in my company.

    She’s the perfect example of why you need to focus on finding the right people and then allow them to grow into the roles they were meant to hold. Not only was Melissa a key person in helping me make my dream into a reality, she also paved the way for finding more people to join us and turn PostcardMania into the thriving business it is today.

    Melissa has two key qualities that I look for in every employee at PostcardMania: willingness and ownership. Willingness to do whatever is necessary to get the job done and the desire to take full ownership of any task she took on. When you are building a business, you need to find people who not only have the right skills for the job but also passion for your purpose.

    If you want your staff to take ownership, you have to offer them more than just a J-O-B, and you have to allow them the autonomy to make decisions necessary to get their job done. In addition to that, establish a purpose for your business that goes beyond offering the “the best” products or services. At my business, we sell marketing services, but our purpose is to help small businesses grow, because a strong small business class is a better economy for all of us. And we feel it! We love when our clients succeed!

    We’ve focused on hiring people who believe in this purpose for years, and we recently reached an all-time high for retention.

    Lastly, once you have those people, treat them like gold, and don’t be afraid to give them space for their own successes and failures. I’ve had my share, but they’ve made me into the person I am today.

    Joy Gendusa

    Source link