Launch lessons: Advice from a new entrepreneur

If you've ever thought seriously about starting your own business, you probably know something about what real fear feels like. And with good reason: The statistics on small-business ownership aren't so encouraging.According to the Small Business Administration, only about half of the companies with fewer than 500 workers make it five or more years. Yikes.

That said, there's also something undeniably appealing about putting your own idea out into the world and doing things your way. That's why so many of us take the leap.

When, after years of mulling it over, I finally decided in March 2012 to start the process of launching my own business — a website, ih8exercise.com, that encourages people to find an easier, more realistic and fun way to work out — I turned to books, webinars and workshops from successful entrepreneurs to help me. Even so, I made plenty of mistakes along the way.

Here are a few lessons that cost me time, money and morale, and some ways to save yourself from my mistakes.

1. No woman is an island.

I am not a social butterfly. I'm not a hermit either, but my idea of a good time is definitely not schmoozing and business-card swapping. When you're trying to get a business going, though, you will need to summon up your most extroverted self and work that room.

Businesses, after all, are not built by one person; they're built by teams with different strengths and passions. "You have to come to terms with the fact that you are the CEO and the salesperson," says Ari Horie, founder and CEO of Women's Startup Lab, based in Menlo Park, Calif., the heart of Silicon Valley. "Many tech people are introverted and when they become a CEO that can be a hindrance to their growth. … But you need to accept that when you become an entrepreneur, (networking) is just part of it."

Horie says the key is to think of it as a part of your job. "I'm a very private person," she says. "When our organization was getting bigger, I would be overwhelmed with responsibility, with the sheer fear of being a public figure. I realized that I had to see it as playing a role for the impact I'm going to make."

I had to learn that, too, and I realized the faster I partnered with other people (and that means helping them, too), the faster my business was likely to grow.

2. Some days you'll feel a lot of self-doubt.

Unless you're a trust- fund baby, you're probably taking a big risk by starting your own business, so know that it's natural to cycle between highs and lows. There have been times — like the day a very talented programmer agreed to work on spec to code my entire site, simply because he believes in me and my idea — when things went so smoothly I was convinced the universe was sending me a sign that I had found my calling. Then there were periods when nothing went right, as when I sent out hundreds of personal emails asking for support for my site launch — and got a trickle of a response. Ouch.

What I wish I had known was how to not let self-doubt turn into paralysis. "Action cures indecision," says Tim Clark, author of Business Model You and a personal entrepreneurship teacher. "If you're wondering, 'What am I doing? Does this even make sense?' you need to take action in some way. The way to do (this) is in the form of testing."

If you have doubts about your business, get the idea out of your head and onto paper or mocked up on your computer in a rough prototype, Clark advises. "You've got to express the idea in some tangible way," he says. "Then you have to share it and talk about it with people who have no emotional investment in you at all. Find people who ... can give really hard-hitting feedback."

What worked for me is interviewing strangers about my site for helpful (and honest) insights into its functionality.

3. The pace that works for other people may not work for you. And that's OK.

I wanted to call this lesson "Entrepreneurship isn't a sprint; it's a marathon," but after talking to Horie, I realized that sometimes starting a business is a sprint. "It's not that going fast is wrong," she says, "It's that self-care matters. Every founder has to set the criteria that matter to her."

This was important for me. Not only am I afraid of driving myself into the ground by pursuing super-fast growth for my business, for now I still need to keep my day job to earn a living. So I have to strike a balance that also includes time for my boyfriend, friends and family, exercise and downtime. But this doesn't mean I'm less serious as a business owner (even if potential investors might see it that way).

Horie recommends setting self-care goals that you measure, right along with your goals for profits, customers and growth.

4. Some kinds of professional help are worth the money.

Creating a budget for a new business is a lesson in harsh realities. So the natural thing to do is pinch pennies where you can, right? That is a good strategy — except when it's not.

Three positions that I suggest never DIY'ing or low-balling are a good designer, a good website developer (or other technical folks) and a good lawyer.

Xochitl Cortez, a Los Angeles attorney who's worked with many start-up founders, advises new business owners to research the legal requirements and then seek an attorney's assistance. Once you've found an attorney you trust — referrals are always the best way, she adds — that person can be a big help because she has an especially good vantage point: She sees businesses succeed and fail all the time.

5. A closed mind is a death sentence for your business.

This probably sounds obvious, but the plain truth is that when you are so close to something you believe in — and in which you've poured your energy, life savings and untold hours — it's hard to stay open-minded about where it needs to go to be better.

"What you're trying to do is discover a viable business model," says Clark. "You start with an idea and thematically it's correct and makes sense, but it's almost always wrong in some way. So the adjustment that takes place is adjusting the business model."

Since I'm still in the midst of learning this (hard) lesson every day, Clark's advice really resonates. It helps me see what I'm doing as a discovery process, not one of failure, so mistakes are to be expected. That means the lessons I'm learning are — I hope — bringing me closer to a viable business, built on an idea I love.