By Reggie Bradford, Senior Vice President, Startup & Accelerator Ecosystem, Oracle
Starting your own business is exciting, intense, difficult, and sometimes scary. In the first few months or years, when you are not sure whether you will succeed, it can be easy to be a little pessimistic.
It is natural that there will always be challenges to be an entrepreneur. But if you are not focused, you may lose one of the most important assets you have in your business: optimism.
1. The enthusiasm behind your optimism is what people like most
In fact, optimism is the key to success, as well as having a good idea. When you are creating a company, raising capital, hiring employees and selling to consumers, everyone is betting on you and your company. The enthusiasm that comes from your optimism is what people like most. If it doesn't exist, if you don't show that you believe in the idea and the potential, they will not be attracted.
I've been there. At the same time that I now work for one of the biggest IT companies, I have spent most of my career as what people in Silicon Valley call a “serial entrepreneur”. In each of my companies, from the beginning, I saw everything as a “glass half full” and did my best to see challenges as opportunities.
But understand that I consider myself a “pragmatic” optimist. You can't be so blinded by your vision that you don't recognize potential problems and solve them. You don't want to create a buzz, nor do you want to be a victim of yourself. But you need to have a contagious optimism that makes people not only believe in the idea, but also persevere when challenges arise.
If this sounds like you should turn optimism into a part of your organization's culture, you are right. Since optimism starts with the leader, you will be more successful in creating a horizontal organization, conveying optimism to everyone.
2. It can be more challenging to maintain a culture of optimism as you grow
When I was working at my own company, I used several communication channels so that I could keep everyone connected and excited. Everyone had a Yammer account and we kept in touch all the time. We held meetings with everyone present every three weeks. I took a bell into the office for salespeople to ring each time they closed a new deal - it was just a way to share the excitement and keep the optimism alive.
It can be more challenging to maintain the culture of optimism as you grow. When you reach a certain size and scale, you need to create processes, with remote branches and employees. This makes it much more difficult to keep your culture intact than when everyone is in the same room or under the same roof. But that does not mean having to lose your culture, you just need to reinforce it in different ways. You should always give everyone two or three culture-related KPIs (performance indicators) that they need to believe in and go for.
3. Don't get too excited in the good times, or be depressed in the bad times
Technology can be of great value in this case. Not only can it keep you grounded, but it can also help you assess opportunities that present themselves based on the data. Having information at your fingertips is great and nowadays with the cloud, a company of any size can afford the digital solutions necessary to transform optimism into a solid business result.
I received some advice a long time ago that I still follow: don't get too excited in the good times, or be depressed in the bad times. The problems you are facing today are not so great for life. Life, like business, is a marathon. Be around people who are mentors, support and believe in you. And keep your optimism!
It is natural that there will always be challenges to be an entrepreneur. But if you are not focused, you may lose one of the most important assets you have in your business: optimism.
1. The enthusiasm behind your optimism is what people like most
In fact, optimism is the key to success, as well as having a good idea. When you are creating a company, raising capital, hiring employees and selling to consumers, everyone is betting on you and your company. The enthusiasm that comes from your optimism is what people like most. If it doesn't exist, if you don't show that you believe in the idea and the potential, they will not be attracted.
I've been there. At the same time that I now work for one of the biggest IT companies, I have spent most of my career as what people in Silicon Valley call a “serial entrepreneur”. In each of my companies, from the beginning, I saw everything as a “glass half full” and did my best to see challenges as opportunities.
But understand that I consider myself a “pragmatic” optimist. You can't be so blinded by your vision that you don't recognize potential problems and solve them. You don't want to create a buzz, nor do you want to be a victim of yourself. But you need to have a contagious optimism that makes people not only believe in the idea, but also persevere when challenges arise.
If this sounds like you should turn optimism into a part of your organization's culture, you are right. Since optimism starts with the leader, you will be more successful in creating a horizontal organization, conveying optimism to everyone.
2. It can be more challenging to maintain a culture of optimism as you grow
When I was working at my own company, I used several communication channels so that I could keep everyone connected and excited. Everyone had a Yammer account and we kept in touch all the time. We held meetings with everyone present every three weeks. I took a bell into the office for salespeople to ring each time they closed a new deal - it was just a way to share the excitement and keep the optimism alive.
It can be more challenging to maintain the culture of optimism as you grow. When you reach a certain size and scale, you need to create processes, with remote branches and employees. This makes it much more difficult to keep your culture intact than when everyone is in the same room or under the same roof. But that does not mean having to lose your culture, you just need to reinforce it in different ways. You should always give everyone two or three culture-related KPIs (performance indicators) that they need to believe in and go for.
3. Don't get too excited in the good times, or be depressed in the bad times
Technology can be of great value in this case. Not only can it keep you grounded, but it can also help you assess opportunities that present themselves based on the data. Having information at your fingertips is great and nowadays with the cloud, a company of any size can afford the digital solutions necessary to transform optimism into a solid business result.
I received some advice a long time ago that I still follow: don't get too excited in the good times, or be depressed in the bad times. The problems you are facing today are not so great for life. Life, like business, is a marathon. Be around people who are mentors, support and believe in you. And keep your optimism!
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