Good advice for entrepreneurs from photographer Lotte Gudbrand

Advice for new entrepreneurs was what I asked photographer Lotte Gudbrand for in this short interview clip from November 2011. I was travelling around talking to Danish entrepreneurs abroad, and Lotte from Palm Beach in Florida featured in the first little piece I shared as a test of the format.

Advice for new entrepreneurs: Find a genuine gap in the market

I asked Lotte what more general advice she’d give someone starting out. She didn’t believe in simply starting because you thought you had a good idea. You needed to think it through.

When she and her team started, they’d seen a gap in the market where they were. There was money and people willing to pay for what they did. That quickly gave them a sense of a real business opportunity.

She also thought a business plan was important so you had something to steer back towards if things went wrong. But she was honest about her own story: They’d thought they’d have time to make the plan more detailed. They didn’t.

So she hadn’t had the kind of finished plan that needed to go through a bank or serve as a fixed management tool. In their case, it had gone well anyway. They had, however, needed to adjust along the way when something hadn’t gone as expected or finding customers was harder than anticipated.

Think it through, but don’t think yourself out of starting

You can make all the plans you want and still be overtaken by reality. Lotte could easily have been the type to keep fiddling with details and never get off the starting line.

So her other point was to get started and really give it something. She didn’t believe you could do it half-heartedly and expect the same success or earnings, if that was your goal. You needed passion for it, or it would be a hard battle.

I summed up her advice like this: Find a gap in the market that interests you, don’t overthink everything, and get started. I discuss my own experiences of starting as an entrepreneur in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

The best technical skills alone don’t bring customers

Lotte was very open that there were photographers technically better than her. But in the groups she followed, she also saw really skilled photographers without customers.

They could sit perfecting things or photographing their children and be enormously good at it. But if they weren’t out where the customers were, it didn’t necessarily become a business.

She emphasised being there and talking to people. You needed a determination to make it work and seek out opportunities. Otherwise, you could lose some of both the fun and the success.

Take the leap for your own sake

At the end, I asked whether there was anything important I hadn’t asked. Lotte wanted to see more Danes take the leap and get going if they longed to live abroad or felt ready to start something.

Again, she said: Think it through. You didn’t need to stake your home and everything you owned. But if you were passionate about something and had the opportunity to pursue it, she thought you should.

You shouldn’t let other people’s opinions take over or keep thinking perhaps you didn’t have exactly the right qualification. Do it because you enjoy it, or because you want to make money. Do it for your own sake, was her advice.

She talked about getting up in the morning happy with what you did. Being in charge of your own life, achieving something and moving forward every day. Even when something was a little scary and gave you butterflies.

It wasn’t for everyone, she said. But then starting your own business wasn’t necessarily for everyone either.

I thanked her for the good story. Lotte wished us luck with the trip and said they’d miss us in Florida. I replied we’d have to drop by. Then we’d see what the future brought.