Entrepreneurship Tips

Simply put, generally, no, but there are various scenarios and circumstances.  So, this is really not a yes or no question and requires more information to answer. Legally, any Officer of the company (a legal status according to the Secretary of State filings in the state in which your company is incorporated) has the right to commit their company legally to any contract, and hence to hire someone.  This status comes with a large “Fiduciary responsibility” to act in the best interest of the company and its stockholders.  It also means you have liability in certain circumstances.  You have a...

Training like this is best done with an ongoing Management Development (MD) program. This is also often called Learning and Development (LD), or Management Development (MD). Management is an art, not a skill. Hence, only actual practice and experience increases someone’s abilities. Of course, a foundation of knowledge of best practices, styles and some structure is very helpful and that can be learned.  Models, rules of thumb and reading will help a lot. It will just not be enough.  Any company over about 10 employees should have ongoing monthly or quarterly education goals for managers, or ideally all employees. This...

Sure, but only a certain percentage. Usually 5% to 15%. These are the ones willing to work hard, develop themselves, learn more rapidly and develop EQ and people skills. Google The Peter Principle to understand better. Management is an art, not a skill. An art requires vast experience, and literally rewires your brain neuroplasticity over the years. See Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink. You cannot learn it in school. Only practice it for many years to hone your talents there. The fact is, most people are lazy and do not want to continue to develop, think for themselves and excel. Only that...

Easy. COOs deal with short-term management and daily, weekly and monthly issues. This is the “Care and feeding” of employees to coordinate resources and track results. CEOs work more on the long-term from 1 to 5 years out. CEOs also spend their time, maybe as much as 50%, on proper staffing at the management level, coaching this team up and developing these managers to grow professionally to take on more responsibility with that growth. Often the CEO will spend 50% of their time divided between: Strategy development, customer contact (direct input), and optimizing processes for marketing, sales and finance. In...

The short answer is you never should. You should slightly adjust your business model or target market to be differentiated. Read this article to learn how.  A startup should never really have a direct competitor. Its target market, where it can do something that others cannot, must be unique at the start to establish a beachhead in a niche. You need to target another niche market (often an intersection and application and industry sector) where you have a Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA). Sometimes geography can be this difference if a service is delivered locally, or you are going after a country where...