There are seven critical success pillars to your business and if you manage them proactively you’re assured of having the success you want within your business: 

 

• Finance
• Marketing
• Sales
• Operating procedures
• Team
• Products/Services
• You (the entrepreneur)

 

Looking at are the critical pillars that affect the wellbeing of your startup as it exists today. Write down these seven pillars and identify where you’re at in the stage of evolution of your startup as you are. Prioritize before you get very complex on investing in software, sit down and make a note to yourself.

 

The steps to establish Operations in a very early stage startup: 

 

• Keep it nice and simple
• Write down the seven pillars and identify where you’re at in the stage of the evolvement
• Prioritize before investing in softwares
• Decide what tools do you need
• Share to others
• Focus on the things you’re very good at
• Create additional steps

 

Bonus tip:

 

• Understand tand figure out what has to happen at each of those seven pillars for them to be fully efficient, then you can create systems to make sure that happens. 

Hi, this is AJ Mirabedini. CEO and Founder of Entrepreneurs RX, where we offer alternative prescriptions for systematic business health to small and medium business owners throughout the world. 

 

I’m here to answer some questions that were sent to us. Through out Entrepreneurial 911 helpline where we offer the ability for you to submit your questions about anything you’re stuck in in your business.

 

And our experts will come back to you with a set of responses that hopefully will guide you forward. Today I’m answering a question that was sent to us by Jules. 

 

The question is I’m creating a marketing startup to support early stage startups. I come from a corporate background, so I know the importance of operations, but have not established these pillars and processes myself. 

 

How would you approach this?

 

First congratulations Jules for looking at this such an important step of your business so early on, and instead of going further down and then trying to retroactively build operational systems within your organization. 

 

The needs of a startup are very unique and much simpler than a more advanced company.  And I would caution you that coming from a corporate background with layers of operational efficiencies and systems and do’s and don’ts, you’re not quite there yet. 

 

So you need to keep it nice and simple. You need to have a very, very elegant and very fluid set of business operations so that you can manage them, pivot to them, evolve them as you go on. 

 

At this stage of your game, what you need to be looking at are the critical pillars that affect the wellbeing of your startup as it exists today. So as you know, are success pillars? Are finance? Are the people in your organization? Are the products and services of your organization? 

 

Is the marketing of your company and the sales of what you create and how you sell what you sell, creating business operations and an operational roadmap. And finally you yourself as the entrepreneur. So write down these seven pillars and identify where you’re at in the stage of the evolvement of your startup as you are. 

 

And make sure you prioritize which ones those are. Once you have that before you get very complex on investing in software and whatever programs. I would suggest you sit down and make a note to yourself.

 

When it comes to say finance, where are you in the stage of finance? 

 

Are you purely investing in starting up a company or are you actually doing business?

 

Are you actually selling and receiving payment? So where you are today has a very set of procedures for how you do what you do. If you’re investing at this point in time and you haven’t gone to market just yet, there are very specific steps that you need to take about what you’re going to spend money on, what you expect from that return on your investment.

 

And what is the timeframe that you have for the usage of the funds that you have. 

 

Write these down in a notepad. Very simply for yourself. Number them. First step, second step, third step, fourth step. And make sure that once you write them down, it makes sense to you and you have the capability of actually executing on those things.

 

Once you do that, I suggest you use some sort of tools- Zoom, Skype, Loom, whichever tool you want to have, and actually record yourself guiding someone on how you do what you do. If it’s a particular place that you have to go to, if you have to access a certain account, if you have to use a certain procedure record all of that.

 

So then it’s archived. Once it’s archived, it’s not set in stone, it’s still fluid, but yet you can share that with others, as you add more people to our organization. And you want someone to understand what you’re doing. And instead of telling them, you can show them. And that has the ability for you to be able to free yourself from that aspect of it and focus on the things that you’re very good at doing and instead of trying to develop operational roadmap. 

 

So at this stage of the game for you is to keep it simple. Identify the most important criteria for a startup, which again are very different than established business. And I’m not sure again where you’re at. So my guidance is assuming that as a startup, you haven’t gone to market just yet.

 

And that you’re trying to identify how you go to market and what that happens. So the needs for that are very specific. Identify those. Prioritize the steps that it takes. Record them by video. So then you have a archive of your systems and procedures, and then empower others to be able to follow that.

 

And as the business evolves and as your systems get more complex and as the procedural needs for the company evolves, you need to do the same thing and create the additional steps that you need for the different steps of it. If you’re not familiar with those, and I certainly would seek out some counsel. 

 

I would find experts that can tell you on exactly what the best path is to having good financial efficiencies from recording to understanding, to evaluating, to making decisions based on your finances and evolve your complexity of your operational roadmap at this point in time. 

 

So keep it simple. Take it a step at a time. Identify the most important steps and where the stage of life you are now.

 

List them out. Create a recorded video of it, so then you can share it with others and monitor it as you go on and evolve it as you need. And define the other steps that you need to have. 

 

The seven pillars, whether it’s a startup or  a public company are the most important aspects of your business.

 

And if you understand these and you figure out what has to happen at each of those seven pillars for them to be fully efficient, then you can create systems to make sure that happens. And even if the system is hiring someone else to create the system, but you know, you then understand how you’re recording it, how you archiving it and how you share.

 

I hope that helps. I really am proud of you for starting your new endeavor. The best of luck to you. We’re of course, here to support you and answer any other questions you have along the way. And we wish you the best of luck. And we thank you for being an entrepreneur. Here’s to your business health.