Advice From A Serial Entrepreneur

How do you know if you’ve got a good business idea? According to serial entrepreneur Mathias Keune, he’s rarely heard a bad one. Most just need creativity, good execution and some experience to guide the way. And Mathias is offering his experience as part of his new venture, LiftOff.

Image Credits: Med Badr Chemmaoui / Unsplash

After more than twelve years working in brand consulting and launching his own startups, both here in Luxembourg and in his home country of Germany, Mathias has decided it’s time to share his experience with others. He plans to do this through his latest project, LiftOff. This offers an all-in-one package providing the essential elements needed to help a new business achieve ‘lift off’. From creating a logo to developing a pitch deck.

The concept came about after a number of people approached him with ideas they’d been working on but were struggling to take forward. “It’s definitely one of my talents, starting a brand or product only with what is really needed,” Mathias explained. And what’s needed isn’t a lawyer or tax advisor, as many new entrepreneurs are led to believe. Instead, it’s finding a web domain, building a landing page or creating a pitch deck for investor meetings. What’s needed is action.

Developing a viable business quickly and efficiently

He’s keen to avoid the label of ‘consultant’ for this very reason. From his experience, startup consultants offer too much talk, and not enough action. With LiftOff, however, Mathias aims to help people build a viable business in a quick and efficient way.

“Some people might spend a year on developing an app, before they realise that they should actually start selling and marketing it.”

The programme starts with a kick-off meeting, to understand the idea and the people behind it. This first meeting might also offer a dose of reality: Has it already been done? Are there regulatory issues to consider? Will it scale? This is where Mathias’ experience of creative thinking comes in: turning a simple idea into a good one.

By the end of the programme, they will have created something tangible for their business: a website; merchandise; a product.

What makes a good entrepreneur?

The people Mathias plans to work with through LiftOff aren’t entrepreneurs. More likely they will be people who work a regular 9-5 job, who have a great idea, but don’t have the skills, experience or time to start. That doesn’t mean they can’t turn into entrepreneurs.

And what makes a good entrepreneur? “You need to be very independent but extremely focused… You need to know what’s important,” he explained. It’s easy to “work and work on something for weeks and then realise you’ve been working in the wrong direction.” Having a wide overview of the whole project, and understanding the smaller projects within it is crucial. “Some people might spend a year on developing an app, before they realise that they should actually start selling and marketing it.”

It’s also important to be able to find a work-life balance. Whilst hard work is needed to build a successful business, it’s important to have moments to relax and take a step back. As Mathias notes, “You realise that after taking a weekend off, everything works better”. The final quality he highlighted was being open to feedback – positive or negative – and knowing when to ask for help. Very few people are talented at everything, so it’s important to bring in the right people with the right skills when you need it.

Learning from failures

Many of these lessons Mathias learnt from his own failures. One of the mistakes he made in the past was not working with the right people. It’s nice to start a business with people you like and get on with but, according to Mathias, “if you’re not 100% sure of the skills that they bring, or that your skills fit together, it will fail.” It’s important to choose your team well.

And it’s important to have a team. It’s hard to start something on your own. “People don’t take you that seriously…you’re often seen as ‘some guy who developed some stuff on their own’…”. Making sure you have the right business partner, or advisor, with the right skills and who you can get on with, is important.

Ultimately, this is what LiftOff aims to provide: a team to get things kicked off. Thanks to Mathias’ experience, he can offer advice and skills to help get a business idea up-and-running, quickly and efficiently. And, most importantly, help people avoid the common mistakes new entrepreneurs make.

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