Get your hands dirty

In a small company there is no such thing as a supervisor or an ideas person. Sure you can do elements of those things, but no start-up can afford to pay for such roles on a full time basis.

Let me give an example.

Recently a great café in my town changed owners. The new owner likes to stand around and watch his waiters and then scold them when they do things wrong. It never occurs to him to actually be one of the service staff and help with the customers. Needless to say, in the space of 6 weeks the restaurant went from always being full to being almost empty except for pensioners cashing in their coupons.

Likewise, you need to be able to actually contribute to doing the work. If you just want to provide money then be an investor. If you just want to contribute ideas then go work as a consultant. If you want to supervise people all day then go get a job somewhere.

If you are doing the business as a lifestyle choice then jump in and learn as much about the job as you can – you can’t afford to pay people to do everything.

Always be prepared to get your hands dirty – and as a company owner you will probably need to do more crappy jobs just to keep things going for the first year or so.