Five Things You Need to Create a Highly Successful Startup
An entrepreneur’s journey is never easy. It requires perseverance to make it through the tough times and vision and commitment to stay true to yourself when the unexpected happens. Failure should be an expectation, something that happens every day, from hiring the wrong person, to accepting money from the wrong investor, to watching your first development team burn through all your budget – bad things will happen. Amidst the challenges you’ll encounter you must also have the ability to inspire others – to find good people to join your team who may have had other opportunities but chose you because of your vision. Clearly communicating that vision to your team and to your customers is critical from day one.

In my experience founding and growing numerous companies, I’ve followed these five guiding principles:

• Smart people – Hire people smarter than you are and knowledgeable about the things you do not know about.
• Patient investors – Have investors who bring value and share the same vision as your company. It’s not just about the money.
• Humility — Know that you will fail before you succeed … ask for help, know that you will be wrong and that you will make mistakes.
• Perseverance — Don’t let your mistakes and initial failures overcome your belief in yourself and your mission.
• Culture — As you grow, do everything you can to maintain the original culture you wanted in your company — don’t let information become siloed, or turf battles erupt.

Having had success as an entrepreneur, I’ve also learned that the world needs more kindness and that business needs more gratitude. There are a lot of people who play a role in your success and recognition of those acts, small or large, are what creates lasting relationships that will further your work. Relationships in business are everything – value them, appreciate them and remember to always say thanks.

Larry Rubin is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Thnks. Larry has 30 years of media operations, management, M&A and board experience. He also co-founded and operated the PE-backed Cross MediaWorks family of companies. Larry graduated with a B.A. from Northwestern, M.A. from Columbia and holds a J.D. from the Vanderbilt School of Law.