A Founder’s Mindset: Do You Have What It Takes To Succeed In Business?

The common denominators

Out of the thousand plus serial entrepreneurs we have helped get started in ecommerce the very clear common denominator between those who make a success of our stores is, what’s know as, a growth mindset. I recently asked all Startup Streams members if they have the right mindset for business - a growth mindset - and 100% of respondents said yes.

If you have such a mindset, you would be able to think of and ask the right questions whilst you perform due diligence checks into a new business niche; you are forever willing to learn and wish to continually improve. You would also typically have an ‘internal locus of control’ aligned with the mantra ‘I am in control of my own destiny’ and a ‘winner’s mindset’. This means you would tend to blame yourself before others and look to improve yourself as a result. You would also accept that you don’t know everything, seek advice and can constructively take feedback and criticism. 

Even the US Military has taken note of the more preferred ‘internal locus of control’ and sets to install it into new recruits by getting them to make more decisions for themselves and taking less orders.

The flip side of the coin is called a ‘fixed mindset’ and an ‘external locus of control’, arguably linked with a ‘victims mentality’. If you have this mindset, you think you know everything, can’t take feedback and are quick to blame others and all other external factors before taking personal responsibility. This mindset is not optimal for starting and running a business, and often proves as a liability.

Setting expectations continued....

Gone are the days of simply launching a website and “they will come”. The digital world gets more crowded every day (it is estimated there is one blog for every seven people on the planet) and although you may be searching for that illusive ‘passive income’, it is going to take effort. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Whilst running a business, you will experience a rollercoaster of emotions - the highest highs and the lowest lows. When you are the boss, no two pay checks are ever the same. It is for these reasons why your mindset needs to be flexible.

It is unrealistic to expect to see a sizeable return on investment for a store within the first month (like some people do when they start), unless of course you already have a target market at your disposal to sell to - for example if you are a social media or YouTube influencer. You would also be wary of the fact that there are other people selling the same product as you at Startup Streams, which is why we recommend treating our stores as foundations to improve upon. But, in the same way thousands of people sell the same products from drop shipping, you too can make a success of our businesses by working intelligently.

You would also be aware that being rewarded in business is non-binary. This means there is no correlation between the amount of hours you put in and the reward you get in return, but as Samual Goldwyn put it “The harder I work, the luckier I get”.

Podcast key takeaways

We at Startup Streams hope that you are willing to learn, adapt and overcome in order to make a success of your new business. We believe we have set you up for success and provide lots of actionable information, but you are going to have to action that information for yourself. We are absolutely against ‘get rich quick schemes’ and as such you shouldn’t seek to find any here. We believe in working hard and smart with a long term goal in mind, whatever yours may be…

And as the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.