KARM SUMAL
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO OF DAILY HIVE
Being an entrepreneur can be extremely rewarding and extremely difficult — and that’s all before lunch.
You never know what the day, week, or year can bring. Innovation is an integral part of staying relevant, so if you’re thinking of taking the entrepreneurial leap, here are 3 pieces of advice I’ve learned along the way.
1. Don’t pretend to know everything. Because you don’t.
Starting out, I thought I had to have all of the answers, otherwise people wouldn’t respect me or take me seriously. Now, I’m the first person to admit when I don’t know something. I’ve realized it’s not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of strength.
The alternative to pretending you know it all is that you alienate your staff from offering sound advice or expertise that could make a difference to your business. It also empowers those around you to be a part of the solution. It’s a lot more stressful to be the person who has all the answers. I’d much rather be the person who has all the questions. That’s how innovation happens.
2. Carve out time to think.
When you run your own business, you can be so bogged down with the day-to-day that you have little to no time to actually think. However, it’s so important to keep your company at the forefront of your industry. Ideas are how innovation happens. That’s why I schedule time in my calendar each week where I simply just think about where my company is, what other industries are doing, and how we can reinvent and innovate what we do.
3. It’s okay to make mistakes — except when you make them twice.
When you’re trying new things, you’re bound to make mistakes. And that’s okay. Sometimes mistakes are easy to recover from. Others can seem catastrophic. You’re not going to get it right the first time every time, so don’t beat yourself up if you misstep. It sounds cliché, but the most important thing is that you learn from what went wrong.
The trouble is when you find yourself repeating the same mistake over and over again. That’s where you need to pay closer attention. Are you continuously hiring the wrong people for a role? Are there continuous delays in your services? If so, hone in on where the road bumps are and take the steps needed to stop repeating the same cycle.
