Lessons Learned

The quickest way to learn life's lessons is to travel or start a business. These are just a few I learned with my first business, Trematon UK Ltd.

1. Have a good accountant - if you can afford to hire someone part time to maintain your books, its an excellent investment. Don't be afraid to sack your "CFO" if they are no good. A bad accountant can run a business in the ground. Or worse, it can take years to recover from a year of bad books.
2. Be prepared to do every role in the business - from cleaning the loo's to sealing up the $1M deals, you have to do it all. So be prepared to drop the plunger and go shake on a deal all in the matter of minutes.
3. Read a book about - be sure to read up on the following subjects
• small business accounting
• sales and negotiation,
• marketing
4. Co-locate rather than host - if you have the IT knowledge, get your own server and co-locate rather than pay for hosting services. It gives you power over your IT which you WILL need eventually.
5. Your Accountants and IT Services are your best friend - they have the power to make or break your business, so stay in the good and ALWAYS know what they're up to.
6. Be your business's best sales person - if you can't sell the business, no one can. It's the only way to get ahead.
7. Always know what the competition is doing - and befriend their employees. Take them for a beer. You'll learn a lot. And they may come to work for you one day.
8. Take advantage of the freebies - there's so many free ways to market your business online. Here's just a few
• Create an account on Myspace
• Network through LinkedIn
• Keep a Blog about your business
• Submit your blog entries to Digg
• Make a video about your business and submit it to YouTube.
9. Join a lot of clubs and network - and don't just be a member, take control. Give speeches and become known as the expert.
10. Be a master of creativity - always pursue a different perspective on your business to develop creative ideas. I use the S.C.A.M.P.E.R. model to view my business differently (substitue, combine, adapt, modify, maximize, or minimize)