Lessons from 2016
- I was going to turn down Kiwi Homes! Why? Because of fear of failure and uncertainty about the role and doing it on my own.” I am so glad I gave it a shot.
- Look for “Win-Win-Wins;” with projects this year, I have asked “what does a win look like for ____ person” and then set about making sure that happens. The result = we all win.
- We decided to close the Teaspoon after 3 years (little coffee shop we started at back of restaurant).
- It split our focus away from our core business of plated meals.
- It consumed more time than the profits it produced.
- It was doing ok and covering costs but never thriving.
- Shortly after closing it, we found someone to rent the space for little hassle, and the rent produced more profit than the coffee shop did.
- Focus on what we can do best: we pulled out of the awaken cafe idea (another place we were looking at starting) because so many other people in Upper Hutt are doing cafes and doing them better than we could.
- Realizing I am good at working with businesses that have already been created (rather than starting a business from scratch). Both the Silverspoon and Kiwi Homes were someone else’s dream, and I have joined them.
- Good services are worth more than they charge (and conversely bad services are more hassle than the discount they provide),
- Regarding the Silverspoon, I purposely stopped thinking about the physical building and what I could do to that. I decided to take my builder hat off and think about the concept, the strategy, and the direction of the business.
- Regarding employees and contractors, I don’t need them to want to be my friend; I don’t need to like them or for them to like me. Focus on their contributions (this might sound weird but I wrote it down. At the time I was struggling with lots of different big personalities that I wouldn’t normally gravitate to; however, they were all contributing in positive ways so I decided to focus on this).
