You probably already know who Zig Ziglar is. If not, refer to this resource on more about him. He was the self-described ‘Undisputed King of Motivation’. That, he surely was.

Over the span of five decades, Zig Ziglar wrote more than 20 books on salesmanship and motivation and held several seminars that were packed with people wanting to listen to him.

Zig Ziglar’s messages of motivation and success made the person who he was. His quotes became legendary. Among them, I found one that I felt was the greatest lesson there could be for aspiring entrepreneurs.

And here it is.

People who won’t take step number one never take step number two.

There is a reason why they say, ‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’ Most often, you will see your best ideas executed in just awesome ways simply because you sat on it for far too long.

The first step, albeit the most difficult, of starting a venture is to start one. It’s easy to get wrapped up in thinking about all the complexities and challenges that may come your way. But, if you want to start your business, shut up and start up.

You’d be surprised how easier or do-able your idea becomes when you just start working on it. Things do fall in place. And the universe does conspire to make it happen. But only if you start.

If you don’t act on your idea today, someone else is bound to stumble up on it and take it to market before you can. Trust me, no idea is unique until it is executed.

If you’re waiting to sculpt a perfect product or a service, let me tell you that there is no such thing as a perfect product or service. If you spend all your time just tweaking and supposedly perfecting your product, it will never be.

Products evolve over a period of time through constant customer feedback and use. Don’t delay your launch for this one reason. In fact, you must build a prototype, beta or a minimum viable product and get it out in the hands of the customer. Let your customer decide whether the product is of value or not.

Most people just don’t get their products out in time and spend a most part of their resources in trying to build that one perfect product. Save yourself some grief, time and most of all, hard cash and build on a product that your customers want.

Now, if you are going to start up, you are bound to fail. For in failure are life’s little secrets. For in failure is where you will discover the secret to your next successful venture. So don’t let the fear of failure not let you startup.

Angry Birds was the 52nd attempt that finally made it for Rovio. PayPal was Max Levchin’s fifth attempt at entrepreneurship that finally won him the things he deserved.

So embrace failure. You cannot learn to ride a bike by reading how to ride one. You’ve got to hop onto one, fall a few times, but then you get up and hop on again. And only then will you gain the confidence and the balance to ride free. Let a hundred potholes or bumps then come your way, you know how to ride!

And when you do finally start up, here’s a little, but very important piece of advice from the master Yoda: “Do or do not, there is no try.”

I can help you find the answers you need to be a successful entrepreneur and avoid the pitfalls of starting up. Write to me for answers.

Photo credit © BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons.