Jennifer Hill of SixtyVocab recently presented her webinar “Taking the Plunge Into Entrepreneurship: How to Dive in Intelligently.” For those who weren’t able to watch the live version, we have the recording and slides available below. Note: While this is a good overview of Jennifer’s presentation, we recommend you read the slides and especially listen to the recorded presentation for a better understanding.
- Jennifer described her background, which is not only extensive in credentials, but also her experience working with other startups and in her own community.
- Being ready is more than just having the business idea. An entrepreneur must be ready to sustain the risk they’re taking, financially, emotionally, logistically—the list goes on. Essentially, the more time you spend planning, the more successful you’ll be at.getting feedback from customers, support from friends, family, and an advisory board, and doing research before a public launch. Prep and planning includes taking stock of finances, finding out your idea’s viability, having a timeline to scale your business, knowing which resources to use, figuring out a team dynamic, and an exit strategy.
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Figure out your strengths and passions (don’t just pick it out from your resume). These could be totally unrelated to the business idea. Think of these skills as what you’ve done to prepare yourself up until the very moment you launch, and even past that.
- Three questions to ponder: What motivates me? What scares me? What’s for dinner? I was surprised to see the last one, but Jennifer explained it in a way I think is brilliant. The way you think about preparing (or not preparing) dinner reveals your behavior when under some pressure or just simply your work ethic. Do you take the easy way out—order pizza? Do you go all in and obsess—do you use every ingredient in the recipe and garnish the dish? Do you work with what you’ve got—bread + cheese = sandwich? The point is to understand yourself and think about what you’d be like when self-employed.
- Jennifer emphasizes that the legal and accounting side of a business must be in order. Entrepreneurs should get quality legal advice about how to establish their business entity for best tax-related purposes, as well as how to protect the intellectual property they’re actively creating and have already created. She says she’s glad that there are companies like Traklight that are here to help in that situation (Thanks, Jennifer!).
- For the sake of your mental well-being, remember that tomorrow doesn’t look like today. In one of the audience questions answered, Jennifer also talks about what she thinks of negativity and doubt in the business idea.
All entrepreneurs can benefit from Jennifer’s advice by getting their intellectual property (IP) sorted, and Traklight is here to help you begin your IP journey. Click below to find out your risk of IP theft.