THE MYTH OF THE SOLOPRENEUR

“No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.”           Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn

No matter what business you are in growing a profitable business means working well with other people, whether they are clients, customers, investors, strategic alliances or outside vendors. These people along with future employees are your team.

As an Academic Associate at ASU I work with students and faculty that want to start a business. Once they create a basic “vision based” business plan, the next step is to encourage them to build a team (of ASU students and faculty) that will help them realize their vision. Each team member selected brings a different skill set that we determined is necessary to grow this business. Some team members to it for the experience and others with the hope of earning an ownership position.

In growing a team we prepare answers to the following questions:

• What benefits do we offer future team members?
• How will they improve their lives by associating with this venture?
• What makes this venture different from other similar ventures?
• How is your leadership, as the founder of the business, different from other leaders?

The current mentality that I find among many small business owners is often stated as: “I can do it alone”,” I don’t trust other people,” or “ I don’t think that such an effort will work.”

Building a team requires an owner to have a “giving mentality.” They should stop asking how will such an association help me, but to ask themselves how can I make their lives better by our association.

This is your last chance to join our re-launch preparation classes which starts next Tuesday. Call me at 602-989-1592 or sign up with an e-mail at nick@strategicduck.com