Time is fortune: Eight mistakes for entrepreneurs to waste energy

There are two ways to start a business: one is to start from scratch as an innovative brand, and the other is to expand a brand with a development foundation. The biggest difference between the two is to seize the opportunity. Every day there are hundreds of opportunities in front of you. Which one do you choose? Grasping one of these opportunities means you will give up the hundreds of other temptations. Therefore, the most important skill for entrepreneurship is to seize the opportunity.

As a mature enterprise, it will face various opportunities in the development process. These opportunities may allow the company to gain more benefits under the premise of paying less, some will promote the company's great development. These timing will be decided by many things, for example, there are enough active users who will give you feedback on the market information, find a role model for your reference and learning, and find an optimization solution that can promote the achievement of your goals.

Looking back at the six months I started my own business, I found that my choice of timing was really bad. I often spend a lot of time on a job, but I have no effect on achieving my goal. I am especially fond of short-term (one to two weeks) projects that seem fun and do not cause any harm. If such a project is too much, you will find that it is a waste of time.

The following are some of the things I used to make the wrong choice:

1. Invitation to access the system.The invitation to access system is one of the strategies to stimulate users' interest in products. But for me, what I do is to make users angry, because I didn't make them use my products in the shortest time. Now, I want to block users out of my applications in the hope that they will like my applications better. In addition, implementing the invitation Access System wastes a lot of time for engineers.

2. Real-time traffic observation.I used gosquared (chartbeat) to observe the user information on my web application in real time. I can see the number of users on the website, where and where the world is located, through which web pages access my website, and what web pages they are on. In fact, this is just vanity, So I spend a lot of time every day to view more than a dozen real-time data statistics. Now, I have ignored real-time statistics. I only use Google
Analytics to view historical data.

3. User Management Panel.I have created a management panel where I can view the detailed social information of all registered users through the qwerly API. For example, if a new user, Fred Bloggs, registers on my application through Facebook, I can see Fred's LinkedIn information, Twitter information and his photos. The purpose of developing this function was to find influential users who could be further connected, but it has not yet been achieved. When my application has thousands of users, this management panel is no longer available.

4. Try advertising too early.I am eager to make money by using advertisements. When I put ad links on the front pages of my website, my website has only a few thousand daily visits. Of course, this advertisement only has about 10 clicks a day, which is definitely a lesson. Your website needs something that really attracts users before it can attract advertisers.

5. Amazon affiliate link.This is another attempt I should not try to make money. However, I was inspired by an unfounded idea and thought that users would like to buy recipes when browsing my website. I used this function for a few days, such as learning the API rules of the Amazon Alliance, writing code, and matching recipes. In the end, my daily profit is less than $1. I have never seen anyone who makes less money than Amazon affiliate users.

6. TechCrunch.TechCrunch is a well-known technology blog in the United States. It is an excellent platform for tech entrepreneurs to gain favor from investors and gain popularity in the technology industry. But according to my experience, it is not necessarily suitable for everyone. I spent a lot of time and energy reporting that my startup was able to be reported by TechCrunch, but it was actually reported. However, in terms of the article itself and the traffic brought by it, not what I expected. I think there is something wrong with my choice. I should choose a site that is not very high-tech enough to attract my audience, such as lifehacker.
And kottke.org.

7. One-time cooperation projects.I spent two weeks using my API to build a customer blueprint, in order to reach a partnership with another company. This relationship has never been reached, and it can be said that it has ended before it started. Of course, this kind of mistake is sometimes necessary. You must make some gambling actions when trying to get a huge benefit. However, at the beginning of the business, two weeks are really precious. We should make our products more mature, rather than eager to thank our partners.

8. Work at home.In the first year of my business, all my work started from the Home Office. Then I moved to a shared office in the center of the city. Since I moved, my work efficiency has increased by two to three times than my home office. For this phenomenon, I don't know how to explain why my home office efficiency is not high, I always felt that there was an inexplicable obstacle in my mind, which made me unable to work quickly and efficiently. If I work outside on my first day, I think my company will go further. Although this was thought of only afterwards, I think it should be correct.

It is easy to criticize errors after they occur, but I believe these errors can be avoided in the first place. These errors have led me to deviate from my development goals in my entrepreneurial journey. However, we still need to learn how to choose, update the product version, listen to feedback, and strive to make the product better.