TemplateMonster CEO, David Braun: “10 Lessons I Learned Over the Past 15 Years”
We are all taught from childhood that people learn from someone else’s mistakes. I was taught this, too. When I was a child. When I grew up, I was taught another lesson, this time by business - we don’t learn from somebody else’s mistakes, we only learn from our mistakes- but at least, we learn.
Solving your mistakes makes your way of thinking more entrepreneurial. #entrepreneurship #tips
[/tweet_box]After 15 years of entrepreneurship, I still have a lot to learn. Considering the increasing speed at which the world is evolving - the number of things that my team and I will have to learn gets bigger and bigger. However, there are some basic principles which will be working for you and us most of the time, regardless of the business field, your age or experience. Here are 10 lessons which I have learned during my 15 years of running TemplateMonster.
Most of the greatest pieces of advice in the world are really quite basic. However, words have no weight until experience has taught you what they really mean. Explore the possibilities, make your own mistakes, gain your own experience and DO THINGS! Do great things. Do big things. Do meaningful things. What I can say for sure, after all this time, is doing only what you really love will bring you great benefits.
Lesson #1
Start not with a product, but with a customer.
Think about your prospective customers: who will they be tomorrow and how are they different from yesterday? A huge part of our TemplateMonster audience now is the Millennials. However, in the not too distant future, a generation Z (those who were born between 1996 and 2010) will represent a huge segment of our audience, too. This generation is totally different from the previous ones. Using gadgets from your childhood changes your behaviour and your thinking patterns.
The way you choose a product - like the resources you use to make a decision on the purchase, the time you spend choosing, the quantity and the quality of the information that you process before the purchase - all these factors impact your decision making. I have a baby daughter who is under 1 year - she uses an iPad better than I do in my grown-up years. When she grows up, her behavioural patterns will be different from those of the previous generations. This is why businesses need to start with their customer first. Knowing their needs will direct you along the right marketing and entrepreneurial path.
[tweet_box]Businesses need to start with their customer first. #entrepreneurship #tips
[/tweet_box]Lesson #2
Keep a loyal team with you. Good people are hard to find.
The whole Web world faced a switch of technologies - from Flash to HTML in 2007. We faced it, too. We needed to switch to using a new technology fast, but our team didn’t have the required skills. We found ourselves faced with a hard decision. Whom do we keep and whom do we replace. However, we decided not to do that. We re-trained the whole team to accommodate a new technology, and managed to keep the old employees by upgrading them with new skills.
[tweet_box]Upgrade skills of your #employees. #entrepreneurship #tips
[/tweet_box]Lesson #3
It’s a team synergy that matters. Discuss things.
A huge number of TemplateMonster’s best products and best marketing ideas have come from the team. We keep an open-minded spirit in the company where anyone can suggest an idea and we implement it if we can. Creating multipurpose templates for each CMS, running our marketing campaigns, making a Monster family - all these and many other ideas were suggested by TemplateMonster team members.
We are lucky to have a great team of motivated people who think outside of the box. And the synergy of the team, the power of discussing how you could make your product and service better, can accomplish entrepreneurial miracles.
[tweet_box]#Motivate people who think outside of the box. #entrepreneurship #tips
[/tweet_box]Lesson #4
Never outsource your strategic competency.
This was probably the only mistake that we learned from someone else and didn’t make ourselves. The good news is this: because we didn’t make it, we didn’t face the problem of outsourcing. So - it worked.
[tweet_box]Never #outsource your strategic competency. #entrepreneurship #tips
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Lesson #5
Don’t celebrate before your success is certain.
That was a great lesson we learned at the very start of TemplateMonster. Way back in 2002 we were new to eCommerce, and we were starting to receive a really large number of orders. We thought it was a gold mine. The next day we learned that we had been subject to a fraud, and we had lots of problems with that. We managed to solve this later and find the way to avoid that in the future, but the lesson stayed with us forever, Don’t celebrate before your success is certain.
[tweet_box]Don’t celebrate before your success is certain. #entrepreneurship #tips
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Lesson #6
Don’t rest on your laurels.
This lesson is more like a continuation of the previous one. Even when your success is certain, don’t rest on your laurels. Of course, you should celebrate to reward your team and to enjoy the feeling of achievement and the great results of their work, but you cannot dwell on your past success. The success you experienced yesterday is just that…. “Yesterday”. It is in the past. That’s a great thing to remember. If you are in an eCommerce business, enjoying your success for too long means 2 things: you stop developing and, as a result, you lose your audience.
[tweet_box]Don’t enjoy your success for too long. #entrepreneurship #tips
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Lesson #7
Be passionate about what you do.
It’s not some inspirational Jobs-like motivational quote. It’s the most down-to-earth idea ever. Let me explain: entrepreneurship requires a boundaryless thinking. No limits. Taking risks. You can only take a leap of faith when you truly believe in what you do. And you truly believe in what you do only when you are passionate about your work. Do you understand this?
Besides, when you don’t like what you do, you concentrate on “not liking” what you are doing, not to mention coming up with good marketing and business plans. See? That’s really simple. You need to be really passionate about your business, this is the very foundation of your success.
[tweet_box]Be passionate about what you do. #entrepreneurship #tips
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Lesson #8
Follow your gut.
In short, I messed up with what might possibly have been a great decision in the growth of TemplateMonster. Would I do something different if I knew then what I know now? Probably. However, that was a lesson for me. Following your gut is incredibly important.
[tweet_box]Follow your gut! #entrepreneurship #tips
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Lesson #9
Listen more than speak.
I’ve already mentioned the situation with a technology switch from Flash to HTML. That case taught us another lesson - we should listen more than speak. At the moment when Steve Jobs released his letter about Flash dying, we didn’t pay attention to this. Most of our sales were Flash, that was simply not possible. Too much self-confidence may cost you your business. What happened next, you already know from the lesson #2.
[tweet_box]Too much self-confidence may cost you your business. #entrepreneurship #tips
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Lesson #10
Always have a good lawyer.
At various stages in your business life, you will be in need of a good lawyer’s help. If you are good at business, you cannot necessarily have a good knowledge of the law. Make sure you have a good one, because often the destiny of the whole business depends on him and his expertise.
[tweet_box]Get a lawyer. You'd better #CallSaul. #entrepreneurship #tips
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I like putting things in order and sorting stuff to make it easier to find something useful. That's why I like creating template listings. Besides that, I do researches on different interesting topics on web design and seek topics that could inspire readers. LinkedIn
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