NOTEBOOK: Brian Hemeseth rounds up his biggest failures at Accelerate DSM
KATE HAYDEN Apr 6, 2018 | 7:06 pm
1 min read time
217 wordsBusiness Record Insider, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, The Insider NotebookFew people like talking about their failures the way Brian Hemesath does. “This is an extremely hard topic to talk about,” Hemesath acknowledged on Thursday, as a speaker at Accelerate DSM.
He took on the taboo anyway, listing the most common failures experienced by himself and the companies he works with at the Global Insurance Accelerator.
- Founder divorce: A breakdown in communication between startup founders can be just as difficult as the end of a relationship or marriage, Hemesath said.
- Along those lines, write up a buy-sell agreement for when your business will end ahead of time, and consider how you may feel toward your co-founder if the “divorce” gets messy. Plan ahead to make things easier.
- Don’t let your financials slide — use a third-party auditor regularly or hire a bookkeeper. Those records will be a valuable judge of your company’s worth during sale negotiations, Hemesath said.
- Don’t neglect to get a good lawyer for your business — and understand your own contracts.
- Innovation is listening to your customers — don’t ignore their feedback.
- Avoid serial entrepreneurship and put your focus into building your business.
- Lastly, don’t send a pizza to a client’s home address. But stay calm if you have done so: You’ll get a laugh, or a conference anecdote, from it someday.