Being a Great Founder Series: Performance
Performance, also known as execution, is key to how well your company or product competes in the market. The difference between just having a great idea and actually building it is how well you execute and promote that idea. This means that performance can make or break your startup.
One way to perform better is to turn any perceived weaknesses into strengths. How do you think differently than your competitors? For example, despite facing more barriers to fundraising from both investors and banks, female entrepreneurs tend to significantly outperform male ones. Research from the World Bank indicates that women-owned companies in the U.S. are growing at more than twice the rate of all other companies and contribute almost $3 trillion to the economy. According to Forbes, some of that may be due to women founders emphasizing values that are not traditionally considered important in business, including higher levels of communal tendencies and a greater need to contribute positively to society. But these very values are leading to more successful companies.
For more wisdom on building your business, be sure to check out my bestselling book, Build the Damn Thing, on Amazon.
As you plan and build your product, strive for excellence every step of the way. Set high standards for your partners, employees, and especially for yourself. But make sure not to let perfectionism slow you down. Early versions of your product or company won't be perfect, and that's okay. In future newsletters, I’ll teach you how to use feedback from these early attempts to make your company even better.
With each new iteration of your company, focus on the experience of your stakeholders and customers. How can you make their experience better? When you are able to think like them, you'll deliver a product experience that's tailored to their needs and desires. And the more you make your customers happy, the better your company’s performance will be.
Out in the World
On April 18, I’ll be a keynote speaker at the eMerge Americas conference in Miami on the power of Thinking Big. I’ll discuss what it truly means to dream on a grand scale and how everyone can discover the essential steps to cultivate a big-thinking mentality and embrace boldness and ambition in pursuit of their goals. I’ll also be hosting a VIP Unplugged Conversation and book signing. You can register for eMerge Americas, the conference that is shaping the future of tech, here!
Build the Damn Thing Podcast: Get Season 3 in Your Ears Now!
Season 3 of the Build The Damn Thing podcast, based on my bestselling book, is on Apple Podcasts, Audible, and Spotify! In Episode 7, The Power of Resilience, Torian Richardson and I discuss how to handle setbacks, failures, and doubt head-on. We explore the internal growth and resilience you need to cultivate as a founder to become both a better entrepreneur and a better person.
And in Episode 8, What It Takes to Support a Black Woman Leader, I sit down with founder of Black Girls Code Kimberly Bryant to discuss why Black women leaders are rarely given the mentorship, guidance, and grace to be truly successful and how we can work to change that paradigm.
In next month’s newsletter, we’ll be talking about the art of the pivot–or how to know when to abandon an idea that isn’t working in favor of something that has more potential.
Keep Building the Damn Thing!
Kathryn