RE/MAX Elite CoLouth’s Post

The first 5 years are the hardest. True for me and most founders I know.  By year 6, founders should have achieved a few important milestones that remove a lot of the insane stress of the early years: 1) Hired at least one solid leader to run a large part of the business. 2) Earned enough money or funding to pay themselves a reasonable salary. 3) Gained enough traction to know the business is likely to survive, if not thrive. Years 0-5 are extremely hard - physically, emotionally, professionally. Hats off to all the founders still in this tough phase. Weirdly, those are the days that 10+ year founders are nostalgic for, so realize that you're lucky to even have the opportunity. If you’re still in the grind, know this: It’s brutal—but you’re lucky to even have the chance. Keep going. #founderlife #startupjourney #growthmindset

Unpopular opinion - Quitting ≠ Failure. The mantra "Winners never quit" is outdated. Remarkable innovators know quitting is sometimes the smartest strategic move. They adapt, objectively reassess, pivot or quit dead-end paths. Steve Jobs quit Apple in 1985, started NeXT and Pixar, then triumphantly returned to revive Apple later. The Starbucks founders quit selling coffee machines to successfully sell coffee itself. Even Israel's tech hub lauds "chutzpah" - the bold mindset to radically change course when needed. Quitting frees resources for more fruitful pursuits. Self-awareness identifies which battles drain limited resources versus which are worth fighting. Sometimes you must quit today to win bigger tomorrow. It's not failing, it's evolving strategy through an innovative, bold mindset. Is pushing forward or pivoting the higher ground move for you right now? #pivot #entrepreneurship

Delivering Happiness: The Tony Hsieh Way 🤯 Just finished rereading [3rd time] "𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬" by the late, great Tony Hsieh, and it's still one of my all-time favorite business books. 📚✨Hsieh, the visionary founder of Zappos, was absolutely obsessed with company culture. And guess what? It paid off BIG TIME. 📈 Zappos became known not just for shoes, but for its incredible customer service and employee happiness. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭: Culture is KING: Hsieh believed that a strong culture focused on customer happiness was the foundation for success. It wasn't just a nice-to-have, it was EVERYTHING. 💯 Hire for culture fit: Zappos famously offered new hires $2,000 to quit if they didn't feel like a good fit. Talk about commitment to finding the right people! 🤯 Empower your team: Hsieh encouraged employees to be themselves, make decisions, and have fun at work. Who wouldn't want to work in that kind of environment? 🎉 Hsieh's unconventional ideas may seem crazy to some, but they worked wonders for Zappos. He proved that putting people first (both customers and employees) is a winning strategy. 🥇 If you're building a startup, or even leading an established company. ___________ I talk more about building an amazing crowd in my upcoming book: Step Zero - Before the Hustle 💡 #TonyHsieh #DeliveringHappiness #Zappos #CompanyCulture #CustomerHappiness #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #StepZero

Team problems contribute to over 18% in early startup’s failure. Companies who have prioritized innovative practices that focus on employee satisfaction and team building are seen to have a higher retention rate. For example: Netflix has an employee retention rate of 95%. Zappos Family of Companies has an employee retention rate of 64/100. After analyzing the practices of such companies: At Stockify Fintech Pvt. Ltd., me and my co-founder Rahul Khatuwala made some strategic decisions to build a good company culture for the long term game. Here are my 3 secrets learnt from building a good company culture: 1. Identify leaders - We hire people who take initiative on their own without any external pressure. - The enthusiasm and ethic of our employees contributes more to our growth. 2. Happy employees = Healthy company - Our employees are free to work from their comfortable location. - This makes them not to feel work as a burden and we see an increase in productivity. 3. Share your vision - Most companies fail as they hire people who don’t really know the long term vision of the company. - An aligned vision with our employees made the process easy for us to progress. Building a good company culture has been one of our biggest goals from the beginning. Now, we are proud of the way we are building a beautiful space for our employees to grow along the company. What was your biggest goal in your entrepreneurship journey? Comment below #stockify #preipo #unlistedshares

In the three years since we started Every, not a single employee has voluntarily left the company. (Except for one, but he is coming back) One reason is that when I hire people I ask them what their motivation for coming to work at an early stage company is. If the conversation immediately turns to compensation and potential stock upside, it is almost always going to be a bad fit. In the early days of a startup, the financial position can be a roller coaster and those people will often get off the ride early. When you hire someone that is motivated by building for the sake of building, and by the desire to bring something awesome into the world, you know they will be in it for all the twists, turns and loop-de-loops. This changes when you are Series A onwards, so I wouldn’t apply this unless you are at the seed stage.

One of my goals this year was to have fun. Yes, you read that right. As a founder pursuing ambitious growth targets, this might sound borderline irresponsible. After all, aren't we supposed to be Grinding 24/7, sacrificing everything on the altar of success, and measuring our worth solely through revenue metrics? Well, here's the plot twist: my year ended with a gut punch - an email on December 31st announcing the cancellation of a multi-six-figure deal due to client layoffs and reorganization. Classic startup life, right? But here's why having "fun" as a goal turned out to be my most strategic decision yet: Throughout the year, I facilitated workshops from a pool in Grenada (yes, really!), celebrated milestone birthdays with my wife and friends, and worked from various corners of the globe. These weren't distractions - they were fuel for innovation and resilience. The entrepreneurial journey is a marathon disguised as a sprint. When you're building something meaningful, the highs are euphoric, but the lows? They can be crushing. That's precisely why having non-financial goals isn't just nice to have ↳ it's essential for survival and success. These moments of joy didn't just make me a better leader ↳ they gave me the emotional reservoir to handle setbacks with grace. When that year-end email hit my inbox, instead of spiralling, I had the mental fortitude to see it as a chapter, not the story. For my fellow founders, your company's success and personal happiness aren't opposing forces - they're synergistic. Happy leaders: • Make better decisions • Inspire stronger teams • Build more sustainable businesses. Because sometimes, the most radical thing you can do is choose joy. #Entrepreneurship #Leadership — — — — 📣 Know someone who could benefit from my content? Re-post this with your thoughts. 🔔 Want to work with us ✉️us at hello@mindsetshift.co.uk 🌐 Website - www.mindsetshift.co.uk

Over the last 10 years I've had a saying among my various teams, "all-learning is better than all-knowing, all the time." This saying exists because I learned most people don't actually want to get better, they just want to sound smarter, which does absolutely nothing for a business, especially if it's a #startup. Nicholas Prum may have taken that a little too seriously since he eventually joined an L&D team ;) You can be like Nick but you don't have to. In the long run, if you want to break away from the crowd then keep putting yourself in environments where development is rewarded more than politics. If you lead the #team, #department, or #company then reward your high performers with opportunities to learn and grow. This will set the tone for everyone else.

Perspective Matters: A Journey of Growth and Resilience 🙌 I want to share a little story about my journey. There was a time when I was working with a startup. My main agenda was to set up an entire vertical, a domain I had no prior experience in. Initially, I felt overwhelmed and unsure about where to start—whether to gather the team or build a rock-solid foundation. One day, I directly asked, "There are many people in the organization with more experience and in the same position as I am. Why have you given me this significant responsibility to create something new from scratch?" He smiled and said, "The day I hired you, I knew I had found someone who could align with our goals and perspective. That's the uniqueness I saw in you." From that day, it took me just 15 days to set up, create, hire, and align a new vertical. I gave opportunities to newcomers who had the hunger to get things done and hustle. Within two months, my vertical became the highest revenue generator. Learn from your setbacks to come back stronger. 💫 ~ a.s.R writes #growthmindeset #leadership #resilience #Perspective #hustle 

In the vibrant land of Startuplia, FastGrowth Co. embarked on a quest to conquer the market. But their journey was often interrupted by the wrong hires and sudden quits. Just when hope seemed lost, MadFour appeared, like a guiding star. We meticulously documented each hire and ensured replacements that fit like a glove. FastGrowth Co. continued their quest with renewed vigor, knowing we were there to support them. Let us be your guiding star on your business quest. #corporatelife #corporate #hrconsulting #hrinsights #hrservices #businessgrowth #businesssupport

Yesterday I discussed with my friend and by the way the top manager interesting approach on how she chooses the company to work with. She believes that one of the most critical factors is the alignment of values that shares the candidate and founder or founders of a company. It's more than just a strategic career move, it's about finding a true partnership that resonates with your core beliefs and aspirations. And such alignment serves as the great foundation for every decision, strategy, initiative within the team. She even prepared a list of several questions which she asks founders on one of the final stages during the negotiations about a job. Mostly she works with start-ups. Key questions are: • What is your life story and how have your experiences shaped your values?  • How would your friends or colleagues describe your strengths and weaknesses?  • What are you proud of having accomplished (can be work-related or not)?  • What are companies, founders, or products you really admire - especially ones that you want to model this company after?  • What were your experiences like at your past start-ups? What did you like and not like about how the companies were run? What lessons did you take away?  • What are your long-term goals in life? What is your overall life-plan and how does this startup fit into it?  • What makes you most excited about working with me?  • What makes you concerned about working with me?  • What’s the best way for me to give you feedback?   • When you feel stressed, do you tend to want to talk about what’s going on or avoid talking about it? But she honestly shared that most of founders she talked to are not ready for such discussion and her experience shows that they prefer to skip that dialogue. What do you think about such approach and would you go into such discussion with a candidate for a c-level role or any other role if you were a founder of a company?