How to let your Startup Business act like a Grownup

Trying to grow your startup business can be a daunting task. No one believes in you, yet everyone expects you to do a great job. At the end of the day, the "ball is in your court." Why did you really start this business? Where did you see it going? How do you ensure that it gets there?

If you can ask yourself these three questions on a daily basis, you will have started to transform your vision and dream into a formal business model and structure.

Learn from the founder of IBM. Once a startup, he learned to transform his business into this recognizable brand and model by following a few concepts.

When Tom Watson, the Founder of IBM, was asked about the attributable factor to the success of IBM, it is said that he replied,

IBM is what it is for three reasons:

1. The first is that at the very beginning, I had a clear picture of what the company would look like when it was finally done. You might say I had a model in mind of what it would look like when the dream-my vision, was in place.
2. The second reason was that once I had that picture, I then asked myself how a company which looked like that would have to act. I then created a picture of how IBM would act when it was finally done.
3. The third reason IBM had been successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there. In other words I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one...each day we attempted to model the company after that template. At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, discovered the disparity between where we were and where we had committed ourselves to be, and at the start of the following day, set out to make the difference. Every day at IBM we were devoted to business development, not doing business.

Are you looking at disparities in your business and trying to change? Are you constantly thinking development?

Startup advice: Let your business "act like a great company long before it becomes one."

Tip: You have to keep the "real reason" you started your business in the back of your mind daily. There will be opportunities that present themselves; making it easy to get sidetracked. Take this startup lesson from IBM: Remember who you are in business and the clients you serve, and your startup business will grow up to advance your vision.

About the Author: Cheryl Isaac is the writer of this blog and a Startup Business Consultant & Owner of Isaac Business Services, an agency that offers startup concierge & business planning services for small businesses.