The 5 Qualities You Need to Run a Self-Funded Startup
1. Conviction / A firmly held belief or opinion.
Starting a business is arguably the most vulnerable thing we've ever done. We'll never forget slowly starting to tell people our idea and were being quickly dismissed by acquaintances and colleagues. We'll never forgot staying up all night the day we launched, tweaking little things on our website and gearing up to personally email 500+ people each. We'll also never forget the feeling of being told (most often condescendingly) "you know what you should do?" However, proving people wrong is the name of the game. You’ve got to be able to hold your ground because you know what you're contributing is the best.
2. Vision / Knowing where you're going, even when you haven't gotten there yet.
This leads us to vision. We knew exactly what BOXFOX was and how it was going to be. Plenty of opportunities and setbacks have come our way, but that still doesn't take away from the path we set out back in 2014. It also helps us from getting distracted by shiny opportunities that might not be the right fit for us.
3. Re-vision / *Ross voice* PIVOT, PIVOT!
As much as we’re planners and we know who we are, complacency isn’t key. Corporate gifting wasn’t always our plan, but we knew we were the best people to help out the inbound clients that kept reaching out to us. We’ve been open to revision time and time again so that we’re best servicing our customers.
4. Resilience / Elasticity, bouncing back from adversity.
We've always faced challenges head on. Whether it was cleaning up mistakes of our own making or de-palletizing 70 palettes before it rained or needing to ship out 1750 boxes when our tissue supplier is backordered. As founders, we encourage our team (and each other) to face challenges head on. It's all about attitude, we're in control of a lot more than you think (and so are you).
5. Enjoying the Ride / Pretty self explanatory
We were so paranoid to overtly enjoy any success we had that we finally said “enough!” Successes big and small all deserve acknowledgement in our book. (As long as we’re ready to keep rolling up our sleeves and keep the magic going.)
A quick look at BOXFOX from the past...
Our first warehouse
Our first HQ
Just the beginning
