Facing resistance? Have a latte and go bust..

Resistance as an entrepreneur isn’t a reason to sit down and wait. If one task is blocked, find something else you can do. Get another customer, improve something yourself or learn what’s needed. It’s about maintaining momentum even when you have no more resources to draw on.

Here in September 2010, I’m busy getting ready for Denmark and preparing talks for the entrepreneur fair in Copenhagen. I’ve written a newsletter too. When I’m stressed, I’m not particularly creative, so I’ve been a little quiet.

I don’t want to sit in front of my iPhone just because someone expects a video. You’ll get something when I think I have something to say. And now a situation involving a friend came to mind that touches on something important.

One customer mustn’t become your whole world

My friend over here is starting a business that will provide Facebook advertising for SPAMfighter, among other things. He’s entrepreneurial and starts lots of things, but he hasn’t had a big success yet.

He’s waiting for various people at our company to deliver material. It’s fair enough that he’s keen and asks whether things are ready. But while he waits, the project itself almost grinds to a halt.

I get tired of that way of handling it. If he needs something from me or my people, there are still other things he can do.

He can sit feeling sorry for himself, eat a big pizza and stare out of the window. Or he can say: Okay, fuck it, I’ll find something else to work on.

I can’t be the only customer in the world. Pitch another customer. Work on the system that’ll manage the Facebook adverts. There are tons of tasks that don’t need to wait for our material.

Resistance as an entrepreneur requires another way forward

I often see it in entrepreneurs who don’t succeed: There’s a stone in the road, and they sit staring at it.

Instead, you need to jump over the stone, go around it or start something in parallel. I’m harsh in my assessment of my friend’s project because I don’t think it’ll get far if he keeps reacting like that.

The same applies to people saying they’re waiting for their logo to be designed. Why the hell don’t they do something else? There must be something in the business they can move forward even though the logo isn’t ready.

In that context, a logo is pretty irrelevant compared with all the work that can be done. Get moving.

My own developers have plenty to do too

I face problems and limitations all the time myself. Right now, I’m working a lot on Amino.

We have two developers in Denmark with enough tasks for the next three months. I’ve given them the details they need, and they’re getting on with it.

The team in Manila also has tasks for two or three months. So right now, I don’t have any more development capacity to put to work on new ideas.

In principle, I could say: Now I can’t do any more. Development has stalled for me. But then I need to find something I can do myself.

I found my own route from RSS to Twitter

Amino Events has more than 300 great events for entrepreneurs, but not many people visit. That annoys me.

So I began thinking about making them more visible without asking the developers to do another task. What about promoting the RSS feeds already in the service?

I found a tool online that could turn an RSS feed into tweets and created Twitter accounts for the different areas.

Then people could be notified when a new event appeared on Funen, for example. They could follow the RSS feed or get the message on Twitter.

That’s a solution from the technical reality here in 2010. The point isn’t the tool itself. The point is that I could find a way to make something happen without waiting for more development time.

I did the same with the expert blogs

If you look at Amino’s expert blogs at this point, a little Twitter icon has appeared on the right. Here, people can get tweets when a particular expert or others in the same area write a new post.

Who made that? I did.

It wasn’t particularly difficult, but I had to come up with the idea and do the work. Create accounts for e-commerce bloggers and startup bloggers, for example, group the content and find a tool that could forward RSS to Twitter.

Then I had to find the icon, add it to the blogs and link it correctly. With around 35 expert bloggers, that sort of manual work naturally takes a long time.

I can also feel annoyed that I can’t afford an editor to write the newsletter. But then I have to do it myself. That’s how it is.

The individual task isn’t the whole gain

Does creating those Twitter accounts achieve an enormous amount by itself? I actually don’t think so.

What I gain is momentum. I keep working and looking for what I can change, improve or do differently. You’ll find more of my experiences of moving forward as an entrepreneur in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

I keep moving. I look for new opportunities and openings. I pass tasks on and engage other people because I keep something going myself.

It also shows the outside world I’m committed to my business. That I believe in the idea and have something to offer. That’s the energy I think matters when you’re an entrepreneur.

There’s always something you can tackle

The developers are working, and your PR person is writing the press release. What do you do meanwhile?

Do you go to a café and complain things are hard? Or put up notices about the business in Irma, learn a little programming or find another practical task you can handle yourself?

I think much of the difference between successful and less successful entrepreneurs lies in how they handle precisely those moments when resources feel exhausted.

If you turn waiting into an excuse to lean back, you risk losing momentum. And if things then go wrong, it’s easy to blame society, the economy and the crisis.

But my message is: Get stuck in. You mustn’t lose momentum. Find the next thing you can make happen yourself.

You must NOT lose momentum! Get notified on Twitter if there’s an entrepreneur event in your local area