One of the biggest challenges for a start up is the waiting. It is driving me mad. Waiting for Investors to meet, waiting for supplies to arrive, waiting for peoples diaries to open up. Until you are a going concern with there will be wasted time. The issue is – your start up is your world, it’s the only thing in your world. It’s not for them. They have other interests, meetings, businesses to attend to.
It comes back to creativity, the ability to make something out of nothing. To find a something worth doing with you spare capacity.
Here is what I have been doing:
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Learning to make great café lattes (at least when business associates meet at our premises they are very impressed with my quality espressos)
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Going to the gym daily (couldn’t achieve this while in cubicle land)
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Reading all the business section in the newspaper
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Reading the best marketing and business blogs
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Thinking up new business ideas should this fail (It’s called contingency planning!)
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Thinking up new ways to drive my business and innovate within it
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Occasionally whingeing to others about how hard this start up thing is (I’m only human)
Doing this in your spare time keeps you positive and healthy. It is quite valuable. Don’t berate yourself if for having down time, just use it wisely. More to the point, you need to stay stimulated, fit and keep your brain in creative mode.