Do I have any tips for other starting companies?
Of course, I do. As a Microsoft regional director, I’ve been working closely with the
Microsoft for startups and I actually do mentoring of other startup companies and there are four things I focus on.
Number one is crucial. It’s the most critical part and that is having good accounting, yes, because if you don’t have the insights into your ups and downs, your costs versus income, then you can go bankrupt at any moment that’s the consequence.
But if you have a good overview over your accounting, how you’re doing, you can also do course corrections quickly and be honest with your employees, be honest with your investors about how it’s going and also think about worst case scenarios so do accounting correct.
Number two: Learn how to pitch your message. Be on point, be practical and when presenting to senior management, always start with the conclusion and then dive into the details because you need to capture their interests first.
Collaborate with someone like Contenting because they make you look good and look like an enterprise even though you are a startup. I think that’s really important.
Number three: Learn how to manage your time. Make sure that you can combine sales, marketing, consultancy, development, troubleshooting, but also be conscious about where you want to go, what kind of activities will get you there, because then it’s easier to say no of activities that derail you from your goal so make sure you know how to both manage your time and say yes to important tasks, and no to other tasks that’s not interesting to you or for the direction you’re going.
Number four: Think like an enterprise. Even though you’re a startup, make sure that you think like an enterprise on IT. Make sure you do secure productivity. My suggestion, is use Microsoft 365 business premium because you get secure productivity, enterprise grade productivity, enterprise grade security, and this is important that you have that base when you are starting to grow, when you’re starting to get some real customers because they expect you to handle data in a good way. Think about GDPR, think about data integrity, make sure you have it in your backbone from day one.
