Trevor Blake - Secrets to a Successful Startup: A Recession-Proof Guide to Starting, Surviving & Thriving in Your Own Venture

Contents

Praise for Secrets to a Successful Startup

I wish Id had this book when I started my own business twenty years ago! Trevor Blake walks you through every stage of the process of launching and running a viable business. He writes in an easy-to-understand style, avoids jargon, and has a track record of success in business. What more could you ask for? If you want to start your own business and need a road map for success, read this book and follow its wise counsel.

Bruce Weinstein, PhD, The Ethics Guy, author of Ethical Intelligence: Five Principles for Untangling Your Toughest Problems at Work and Beyond and The Good Ones: Ten Crucial Qualities of High-Character Employees

By touching on everything from ideation to fundraising, planning to managing cash flow, and building trust to selling, Trevor Blake offers an excellent 30,000-foot view for the startup entrepreneur. Additionally, he offers important tips on managing our mental states to improve our odds of success.

Jonathan K. DeYoe, author of Mindful Money: Simple Practices for Reaching Your Financial Goals and Increasing Your Happiness Dividend

This practical and wise guidebook will prove invaluable to anyone who wants to start their own business. And if there is a recession, Trevor Blakes readers will have a special advantage!

Michael J. Gelb, author of The Art of Connection: 7 Relationship-Building Skills Every Leader Needs Now

Praise for Three Simple Steps by Trevor Blake

An inspirational and thought-provoking read about how control over your mind and thoughts can yield a more fulfilling life.

Publishers Weekly

[Trevor Blake] shows readers, once and for all, how to get unstuck and effect dramatic changes in their lives, whether its remaking ones career, becoming financially successful, or giving up a bad personal habit.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Offers sound advice and clear steps that could be applied to ones own life.

Lani Relucio, Examiner.com

Also by Trevor Blake

Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life

Copyright 2020 by Trevor Blake

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Blake, Trevor, author.

Title: Secrets to a successful startup : a recession-proof guide to starting, surviving & thriving in your own venture / Trevor Blake.

Description: Novato, California : New World Library, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A successful executive and serial entrepreneur examines why some startup companies succeed and others fail. Includes case studies, real-life anecdotes, and accessible explanations of basic corporate practices.--Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019042403 (print) | LCCN 2019042404 (ebook) | ISBN 9781608686667 (paperback) | ISBN 9781608686674 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: New business enterprises. | Success in business.

Classification: LCC HD62.5 .B554 2020 (print) | LCC HD62.5 (ebook) | DDC 658.1/1--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042403

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042404

First printing, January 2020

ISBN 978-1-60868-666-7

Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-667-4

Printed in the United States on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10987654321

To Lyn and our many office companions:
Barnie, George, Freddie, Mabel, Albert, and Mavis.

And to startup entrepreneurs everywhere,
who are the lifeblood of any economy.

Contents

S ecrets to a Successful Startup is about how to conceive, plan, and launch your own business, one that is resilient enough to survive and thrive in todays marketplace. I am a serial entrepreneur, and I have built four successful businesses from scratch that have become $100-million entities. I have also written a previous guide, Three Simple Steps, about developing the right mentality to succeed in life. In this book, I focus on how to use that same mental approach to develop winning ideas and turn them into winning companies.

, and the majority are single-person ventures like mine have been. Yet the failure rate of startups is shockingly, and unnecessarily, high. For every new startup, another established one fails. Of course, the reasons are varied, but I believe the most important are within your control. My hope is that Secrets to a Successful Startup will be the practical guide you need to help you succeed where so many others struggle and too often fail.

In my opinion, there is never a wrong time to start a company, and it is never too late to reinvent yourself. , and 18 percent were over sixty. In addition, women owned 40 percent of all companies, up from just 4 percent in 1972. Since 2007, the number of women-owned businesses has surged 58 percent, while total businesses have only increased 12 percent. Further, technology has freed us from being slaves to a building. We can work from anywhere, even while traveling, and we can sell to anywhere and to anyone. In the United States, 69 percent of entrepreneurs start their businesses at home.

On its first day, a new startup can immediately attract a global customer base. There has never been a better or more exciting time to start a company, and achieving financial independence through your company has never been more attainable.

However, I have promised you secrets. Here are the first three. The first and most important ingredient for startup success isnt a talented team or the perfect product. Its not tons of cash, an eye-catching website, or a brilliant marketing strategy. Its you. Your mentality and approach, the way you think, make the crucial difference. If so many companies fail despite all the startup advisors, blogs, and courses, despite all the angel investors and MBAs, then there has to be something wrong with the way the majority of entrepreneurs think. Cultivating the right mindset is vital both for coming up with a winning idea in the first place and then for building a winning company out of it and thats the focus of .

Here is the second secret: No matter what theyre selling, where they are located, how big or small they are, or the state of the economy, the reason that most companies dont make it and go bankrupt is due to cash-flow problems. Entrepreneurs sometimes doom themselves right from the start because they dont structure their business, or manage their resources, in sustainable ways. Their expenses outpace income, they hire too many people, or they expand too fast. In , I look at how to structure a business in order to survive the treacherous early days.