Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This post is one in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.
By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity
3. Don’t be blinded by your passion.
When you spend eight to 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, entirely focused on your company, it’s very easy to see it as your holy grail and a groundbreaking product. If you’re anything like me, you start to ignore the potential hurdles in your business plan and instead focus on the best-case scenario.
For example, I spent a lot of time refactoring code to ensure we could handle an explosion of customers instead of considering how we would handle managing customers that didn’t have preexisting data. Essentially, I was so confident in my initial idea that I failed to see the many flaws that existed. It wasn’t until I had a mentor familiar with my industry, who was able to rip holes in my business model, that I could be convinced to reevaluate my plans.
As an entrepreneur, when you come up with an executable idea with a lot of potential, you want it to work out so badly that you begin to look past the red flags. It is very important to avoid this blindness and identify any shortcomings or potential hurdles within your business model.
There will be hurdles that you will encounter, no doubt about it. What is important is that you identify these obstacles early on and plan for them. Worst-case scenario: If you identify a flaw that can’t be overcome, it’s better to pivot early on than later in the life of the startup.
Next: Pivot.
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