How to build an entrepreneurial mindset?

Few ingredients to creating an entrepreneurial mindset are

• Starting-up is a marathon, and not a sprint
• Help your customers delight their customers
• Work “on” your business
• Observe. Make. Test. Improve
• Planning is more important than plans
• Ideas don’t change the world. Action does.
• Focus and learn to say “no”
• If you just build it, they may not come
• Build great work culture from Day One

Here is an action plan in creating such mindset

ACHIEVE:

• Develop an entrepreneurial mindset of curiosity, action and reflection
• Save time and money by following a road-map with clear milestones
• Evaluate business opportunities from customers’ perspective
• Situate the startup objectively with the broader competitive landscape
• Build products or services that address validated customer needs
• Discover robust business models for the venture
• Build a cohesive and dedicated initial team
• Launch with limited resources
• Focus not just on starting-up, but on achieving lasting success
• Focus on intrinsic robustness that naturally attracts funding attention
• Empower the team to manage scale and complexity

AVOID:

• Having a solution-looking-for-a-problem approach
• The frustration of not understanding customer needs well
• The confusion of starting-up with many untested assumptions about the product, customers or partners
• Friction between co-founders
• Cash burn while trying to juggle the many tasks related to starting up
• The anxiety associated with pursuing ideas with weak revenue and growth potential
• Reluctance of the founders to “let go”
• Either taking too long to launch or launching in haste without adequate preparations
• Over-focusing on the product or service development, at the cost of market development
• Chasing external funds without clarity on the startup’s purpose and strengths.

This is an extract from Ajay Batra's book -The Startup Launchbook (www.startuplaunchbook.com), published by Wiley