If you’re wondering how to become a tech entrepreneur, but you’re worried that it’s too late to start — think again.

Countless people wonder how to become a tech entrepreneur in the face of adversity. You fear that the age of billion-dollar startups is behind us, and the world is destined to be run by the major corporations those original startups have become. Or maybe you just think you don’t have enough technical know-how to avoid common entrepreneur mistakes and succeed.

You’re about to see how to become a tech entrepreneur, no matter where you are or how you see yourself right now. Keep reading to learn more.

Develop a Great Idea

Obviously, coming up with a great idea is the first step in how to succeed as a tech entrepreneur. If you think that all the valuable ideas are already taken, you couldn’t be more wrong. After all, what is a valuable idea?

A valuable idea is a specialized idea. And everyone, including you, is a specialist on something.

So, coming up with a winning idea for your area of expertise is largely a matter of solving an old problem in a new way. If you have thought of a way to do something cheaper, faster, or more effectively than anyone else is doing now, then you are on to developing something great.

Talk About It

Many people who get started in tech entrepreneurship think they have to keep their big idea to themselves or else someone will steal it. Spoiler alert: they won’t. Not because people don’t want valuable ideas, but because most people are too scared to act on ideas at all.

Instead, you should try to talk about your idea at every opportunity. Don’t just gush about it. Really explain it to anyone who will listen, and see how they react. If their eyes light up and they respond with something like, “Wow, that’s a neat idea!” this is a good sign.

Even better, try to share your idea with people who ask good questions and see things from new angles. As you share your big idea with more people, you may end up finding a business partner or tech expert who can help you bring your idea to life.

Start Small

This statement is often the bane of entrepreneurship dreams, but it shouldn’t be: don’t be afraid to start small.

Did you know that 69% of all entrepreneurs in the United States started their businesses from inside their homes? Likewise, you should strongly consider establishing yourself in whatever headquarters you have available to you rather than springing for an independent building.

When you start out, just focus on refining the idea. The business infrastructure has to be built around a great idea to last.

Get Funding

When you have clarified and refined your idea, it’s time to think about getting funding.

Instead of trying to get investor funding right out of the gate, you may be better off getting your parents, friends, or loved ones to back your idea at first. Use your own money, too. Avoid expensive sources of credit, such as credit cards, whose high interest makes them impractical for most business ventures.

The best thing about using your own money and that of your personal acquaintances is that you’ll have skin in the game. When it’s personal like that, you can’t afford to back out, so you will be incentivized to succeed.

Now you know the basics for how to become a tech entrepreneur. You have a lot to learn, but it’s sure to be an exciting and rewarding journey.

Starting a business is a terrifying yet exciting journey that 69% of entrepreneurs in the United States embark on from their homes. As a tech entrepreneur, finding and solving a problem with technology is exhilarating and fulfilling. The excitement, however, does not exempt you from making mistakes, even if you’re the founder of your own business. Everyone experiences missteps along the way, but for a fledgling business, each new error might be your last.

As the founder, your decisions will place your startup in a losing or winning direction. Thus, you must learn from those who have gone before you in order to avoid costly mistakes. Here’s what you should avoid in order to succeed as a tech entrepreneur.

1. Premature Expansion

Every entrepreneur who starts a business ultimately wants to see it grow. But for a tech entrepreneur, knowing when it’s the right time to grow their business is a mission-critical element. It has been said that more companies die from indigestion than starvation. What this means is that ill-timed growth will kill your firm faster than a lack of adequate business. If you make the mistake of growing too early, you will tie up your finances and complicate your operations faster than you can resolve them.

To avoid making this mistake, focus your resources on only the essential aspects of growing your startup. Until you find optimal product/market fit, hold off on scaling in order to sidestep one of the most common entrepreneur mistakes.

2. Not Having the Right Co-Founder

A technology business calls for a strong founding team. The tech entrepreneurs you rely on must complement your skills and vice versa. Start by identifying your strong suits and bring on a co-founder who is strong in areas where you have trouble. For example, it is common to find a business-savvy entrepreneur to open your shop and work out important financial complications. This allows you to do what you do best: develop new products for your clients.

Ask for referrals and take your time building relationships that can lead to a co-founding arrangement.

3. Hiring the Wrong Team Members

No startup can hope to get off the ground without the right team to back them up. In today’s market, there is a relatively abundant level of technical talent you can tap. However, one of the most critical entrepreneur jobs you’ll face is hiring a great team.

Studies show that employees who feel that “they belong” tend to be 12 times more productive than those who don’t share the sentiment. Look only for potential team members who relate to your startup’s mission, culture, and core values. Talent is essential but does not prioritize it over their capacity to fit into the firm’s culture.

4. Inflexibility

One of the oft-repeated entrepreneur mistakes when starting out is becoming too attached to your first business model. Your first model is rarely the one that will bring victory to the business, and you will end up iterating several times before you find the right system that works for you. Thus, you need to be flexible in pivoting when the market’s feedback indicates the necessity. If you can’t respond to customer needs and align your firm accordingly, you will fail as a tech entrepreneur.

Avoid Commonplace Tech Entrepreneur Errors When You Want to Thrive

As a founder, your early decisions will place the company on a winning or losing path. Thus, you need to identify the typical errors entrepreneurs in your position have made to avoid plunging your firm into the dark. When you’re ready to get your startup off the ground, rely on the experience of Rafferty Pendery for guidance.

Succeeding as an entrepreneur isn’t easy. In fact, first-time business owners only have a 16% chance of succeeding in the business world.

Why do so few entrepreneurs succeed? It’s because they fall victim to common entrepreneur mistakes that cost them both personal and business success. If you want to make it big as an entrepreneur, you’ll need to avoid these entrepreneur mistakes and be smart about how you approach your business.

Entrepreneur Mistakes You Need to Avoid

Success as an entrepreneur isn’t just about passion and talent. It’s about following the right practices and avoiding potential pitfalls that could undermine your efforts. Here are some basic mistakes you need to avoid:

1. Thinking You Can Do It On Your Own

One of the biggest entrepreneur mistakes you can make is taking on too much. Just because you know your product, and are arguably the most passionate about it, doesn’t mean you know how to run a business. Taking it all on alone will result in burnout and blindside you to any shortcomings your product or business effort may have.

You should surround yourself with people who are knowledgeable about your product and the competitive field you’re trying to break into. You should also have an experienced consultant or mentor who can give you perspective on your business and product market.

2. Not Setting Attainable Goals

It’s okay to be a dreamer, but if you want to succeed you need to devise a list of business goals you can actually accomplish. If you only think about the big picture and don’t set short-term and long-term goals, you will ultimately fail. So, set specific goals, come up with a list of ways to accomplish them, and be flexible enough to change them if you have to.

3. Hiring the Wrong People

As a business owner, you’re only as good as your employees. So, the last thing you want to do is hire people who are unqualified, or unable to accomplish the things needed for the business to succeed. Avoid hiring unqualified family and friends, and try to find people who support your product and vision.

You can set your business up for success by hiring talented and experienced employees who can help get you to the next level. It may be tempting to hire cheaper employees to cut costs, but hiring unqualified employees is a huge mistake that will only hurt your business in the long run.

4. Think Your Product is Unique or Unlike Anything Else

Many entrepreneurs fail because they believe their product is unlike any other one on the market. But the reality is, you most likely have many indirect or direct competitors who already have brand awareness and a loyal consumer base. Not acknowledging them, and failing to identify your niche will result in your ultimate failure as an entrepreneur.

What you need to do is identify that there is a consumer need for your product, and then determine how it’s different from similar offerings. By knowing how you’re different, you can sell your product in a way that will speak to customers.

Final Thoughts

If you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to be smart about how you approach your business. And while it may be tempting to turn to these bad behaviors, doing so will only hurt your business efforts in the long run. By avoiding these common entrepreneur mistakes, you can get one step closer to accomplishing your business dream.

Are you an entrepreneur? Have you ever fallen victim to these common mistakes? Let us know in the comments!

Are you an aspiring tech entrepreneur looking to create new technology-oriented markets and strike business success? Well, the good thing is you don’t need technical expertise to succeed if you have a great idea for a tech company or a product idea that will positively impact the tech market. But you do need to know a few things if you want to succeed.

In this article, we’ll share some must-have tips for succeeding as an entrepreneur in tech.

5 Things Every Tech Entrepreneur Should Know

What are the keys to success as an entrepreneur in tech? Here are 5 pieces of advice you need to know before you embark on this new and exciting career path.

1. Research the Tech Landscape You Want to Invest In

The reality of entrepreneurship is that there are very few new ideas. Chances are you’re going to go up against a variety of competitors with very similar products or solutions.

So before you invest your time, money, and resources, you should look at the tech landscape and see what competitors are offering, and think about how you meet a different niche. You need to know how your tech product or service is unique, and how you can emphasize these differentiators to potential customers.

2. Take Advantage of Industry Experts

If you know people in the tech industry, you should ask them questions about your potential product or service and take any advice they give you to heart. Pick the brains of industry experts, learn from their mistakes, and know that they don’t need to be offering the same product as you to have meaningful advice.

Studies have shown that sharing knowledge and chatting with other professionals is essential for business growth, but only 25% of executives are really doing this. By taking advantage of these networks, you can carve a spot for yourself as a tech entrepreneur.

3. Surround Yourself with the Right People

One of the most important things you can do as a tech entrepreneur is to surround yourself with people who are as passionate and ambitious as you are. Your employees will be the backbone of your business, so make sure you look for people with insight into your industry, as well as a passion for your product and what you stand for as an entrepreneur.

4. Validate Your Offering

Curious why the majority of tech startups fail? It’s because they weren’t providing a product or service that consumers actually needed! As an entrepreneur, you need to verify that your product or service is something consumers will want to pay for and use.

To increase your odds of success, you need to validate your product offering, determine your target demographic, and figure out how you can target them most effectively.

5. Be Smart & Plan for the Future

At the beginning stages of your business, you need to be smart about how you invest your time and money. You’ll need to sharpen your time management skills, cut corners when it comes to finances, and figure out the lowest cost way to get your product or service out to customers.

Once you do this, you need to come up with a detailed business plan that will help you prepare for any market changes and changes in company growth and profit margins. By doing this, you can help your business survive and later thrive.

Final Thoughts

Succeeding in the tech space isn’t easy, but it’s possible if you’re smart enough and have the right amount of talent and passion! By following these 5 tips, you can have a fighting chance at building a business consumer will love.

Are you an entrepreneur looking to invest in the next big tech? Have any tips or questions we missed? Let us know in the comments!

Did you know that highly engaged employees are more than twice as productive, yet 70% of American workers are not engaged at work? Several polls confirm this testament to the importance of great hr processes.

You can greatly improve employee engagement by developing and maintaining the right company culture.

Company culture drives employee motivation and behavior. Maintaining the right company culture leads to higher performance and more loyal employees, bad company culture does the opposite.

Let’s take a look at how you can adapt your hr processes to create a workplace where employees thrive, care and take pride in their work.

Refine Company Culture

You can’t develop a good company culture without a well-thought-out structure and end goal.

Start with alignment. Gather management to define company culture. When you have a clear idea of your ideal company culture, assess out how it fits your business strategies, and how well employees think it matches their experience in the workplace.

Adjust and make plans to fix any misalignments. Make sure the leadership’s picture of company culture mirrors how the employees really see it. Otherwise, your management is leading in blindness and unable to make optimal decisions, and your workers feel mistreated and ignored.

Learn from your employees and adapt your hr processes, because the company will only go as far as the workers take it.

Hiring and Training

Handle prospects and new recruits as people, not just labor. Imagine them with the group, and their relation to your company culture. Are they a good fit? Make company culture part of the hiring process and bring new employees smoothly into the community.

Activity doesn’t equal results. The position you’re offering is more than an activity. Focus on results, what this person will achieve for the company. Both in their immediate tasks and as a part of your team with a mission.

Using perks for motivation is inefficient if you haven’t established perks that are tailored to your workforce’s needs and wants. Hear them out, adjust as needed, and save money by cutting out unwanted perks.

Keep employees happy to keep them motivated and efficient. Satisfied employees will spread a good reputation for your business. Fewer employees quit, more people seek employment with your business. Thus you’ve made future hr processes more efficient.

Ensure an environment of happiness and you maintain motivation, independence, trust and belief in the company.

Eliminating Clashes

Carefully assign leaders with a clear sense of direction for the team, project, and company culture. Choose ones that care and take pride in their work.

Think of what state of mind you want your workers to maintain, and pick leaders that brilliantly represent it.

Remember that high-performers easily lose motivation. Don’t keep them thinking they’re doing more work with more accountability and less help without due compensation.

Ensure that great work is recognized and rewarded to prevent animosity between workers, and inspire more workers to strive for higher performance.

More Tips on HR Processes and Much More

Rafferty Pendery is a tech entrepreneur, VC and International speaker whose companies have worked with major brands like Hilton, HP and Time Warner.

On this blog, you’ll find lots of great information for entrepreneurs and business executives.

If you have any questions about this information, send a message here.

According to the Harvard Business Review, the ability to inspire and motivate others is the most important skill for leaders and managers at every level.

In order to do that, you’ll need to be able to captivate your audience and inject energy into it. In this article, we’ll tell you exactly how to do that.

Read on to find out how to improve your inspirational speaking skills.

How to Improve Your Inspirational Speaking

1. Know Your Message

In order for your public speaking to have an impact, it needs to have a clear message. If you’re not sure what that is yet, it’s time to get brainstorming.

If there’s one thing that you want people to take away from your speech, what is it? Once you define what that message is, you can work on delivering it in the most effective way possible.

2. Practice Improvising

When you’re trying to give a compelling speech, reading off a script or reeling off memorized lines just won’t do.

There will inevitably be moments when your mind goes blank or a wrench is thrown into the works, sending you off your usual course. When that happens, you’ll need to come up with something on the spot.

This requires improvisational skills.

Hone your improv skills, and you won’t have to worry about being caught off-guard. One great way to do this is by trying out some stand-up comedy.

It can even make you a better leader!

If you can handle hecklers, you can handle anything. Besides, it helps to get all the extra stage practice you can, no matter what you’re doing while you’re up there.

3. Be Passionate

Your audience won’t believe your words unless you do. That’s why passion is important for public speaking.

Emotion is what will make your speech captivating, drawing people in so that they hang on your every word. It could come through in body language, tone or just quality of storytelling.

However you do it, make sure it’s authentic.

4. Adapt to Your Audience

Your inspirational speaking approach should differ depending on the type of audience receiving it. You can’t talk to every group of people in the same way.

Try your best to get to know as much as you can about your audience before an event. The more you know, the more you’ll be able to gear your speech towards their tastes, wants and needs.

That way, they’ll be able to relate to what you’re saying, and your words will have a bigger impact.

Be Better at Business

With these tips, you can become a great public speaker. As well as improving your business and making you a better leader, it could also turn into a lucrative side gig. If you’re really good, you could even become a professional inspirational speaker.

Work hard enough, and you’ll find that people will come to you, offering to pay you to speak at their events.

To find out more, read our post on 5 tips on becoming a paid international speaker.