So exciting… this is my third blog entry as a female founder!
In this blog, I’m gonna explain my journey as a female entrepreneur. If you are interested in reading about the importance of testing and appreciation – continue reading…
Hi everyone,
Since my last entry several things got moving. YAY!!I learnt something these days that I want to share with you: don’t be too hard on yourself. People who own a business are usually high achievers and will most likely never settle down for anything other than the best possible version they can deliver.
That is great – but it can also hinder you from going one step further and JUST DO IT and work towards your goals. Try to be an optimistic minimalist and do one step at a time.
Therefore, you should start praising yourself – also for small achievements but in particular for the very big ones! Go tell yourself that you did a great job writing the sales e-mail or pitching to potential customers. You probably did the best you could and can BE PROUD OF YOURSELF. I mean it – think about how you would be talking to a puppy or a little child with words like “good girl, well u did an amazing job, you can be proud of yourself, very well done, you deserve a great output”. Say it and mean it, because I am 100% sure you have every right to be proud of yourself.
Maybe it helps you to write down your achievements that you are proud of – that’s also one of the reasons why I want to log every achievement and step in my blog so I can inspire people to do the same and just go ahead with founding their business.
Just to keep you updated on my achievements and sharing with you what I am proud of these days:
- My webhosting provider finally got the transferred amount and my profile was updated so I could actually start to link my domain with the webhosting.
- Also something very excited happened: I sold my first official order of 10 pieces to my first customer! YAY!!
- I have spoken with the designer of my products who lives in Portugal in order to further work on the product design. So I sent her a video explaining my thoughts on how the product could be improved. Honestly, my first prototype was not yet mature because the filling of the instant-mask was quite difficult. I’ve seen in product testing rounds with potential customers, especially older people had difficulties with opening and closing the MaskKey.
Lessons learned:
Even when you are right at the beginning of your business idea, you should test the first prototype you have available. Don’t scare yourself with other thousand other steps you should be doing and don’t over engineer your product. Start with your closest friends and family which care about you but will give you honest first feedback. Then you can go ask other people you know about how they feel using your product and if it addresses their needs. Then you should be asking people you don’t know – strangers walking by the library in the university, or people you know from work or your leisure activities you can ask about what they think of your product. In Sydney when I was doing my MBA, I also had the chance to take part in a HatcheryDIY course where students would be motivated to found their own business. The mentors there urged me to go and do user testing even with the first prototype (back-then it was an app). Therefore, you can quickly adapt, improve aspects and finally produce in a direction that is targeting your customers needs.
Another learning is don’t get frustrated if things move slower than you expect them to move. Be pushing and do the best you can – it will totally pay off. For instance, I was in the line today three times with the domain / webhosting companies and in the end asked my best friend Laura for her advice (she is a tech-IT-nerd and I’m so proud of having her). So don’t be afraid to ask for advice.
Most likely you will be working with other individuals. Tell other peoplewhen they did a great job and appreciate their work. I was just telling the seamstress who sew my products that she was a genius because she instantly got what I wanted to improve on my prototype number two. She felt instantly motivated for producing me the products even until this weekend – without me asking for it! In my current day job I receive almost no appreciation at work. Feeling that my time gets wasted by someone else just keeps me less and less motivated to work for this company. Therefore, I made a promise to myself to never make the people around me feel like that.I want to enable people to make their own decisions and to motivate them to get the best out of themselves by appreciating their work and caring about them.
Stay positive even on the days where your energy level is low and you have the feeling that doing nothing is exactly what you need. Everyone has these days where you can’t focus and feel demotivated. Those days where you chill will even give you the push on those days where you are working on your website until 1am, just like I do right now.
Last but not least, to finish the blog entry with the first recommendation of the day:I have to say – I’m proud that I did such a good job in the last 4 days. Good job, Carmen!
Some insights: