If you really believe in something—if you see an opportunity others don’t—trust your intuition. Not everyone will understand it, and that’s okay. But six years later, I can say with confidence that I’m so grateful we went for it.
2. Try to avoid debt if at all possible.
This is a practical one, but it’s been a game-changer for us. From the beginning, Breezy was bootstrapped. We didn’t take outside investment, and we’ve never gone into debt to keep things running. As a result, we’ve been profitable for the vast majority of our six years in business.
Now, I know that’s not possible in every industry. This is obviously a unique situation and we’ve been very blessed for this to be the case. Some businesses require funding, loans, or investments to get off the ground. But if you can avoid it, it gives you a unique kind of freedom that has benefited us in so many ways. We’ve been able to make decisions without pressure from investors, the ability to reinvest where it matters, and have the leeway to build at our own pace.
3. Your values and mission should guide everything.
Your core values are not the thing that you just like to print up and put on a wall. If that’s all they are for you, you really should reevaluate because core values should truly be something that guides you.
Take concentrated time and effort to build out your values and mission very early on. They should guide everything that you do in your business. They affect how you hire, invest your money, deal with clients, and build out your services.
We are not perfect, but I truly believe that our core values guide us and we try to come back to them in every decision we make. They have had such a massive effect on how we run this business, the virtual culture that we’ve developed, and what I believe is, really outstanding customer service.
When you’re in the early stages of building a business, it’s tempting to focus only on logistics—services, pricing, growth—but one of the most important things you can do is define your core values early. They will truly guide everything. If you haven’t taken the time to define your values, I can’t recommend it enough.
4. Don’t get married to your ideas—your business will change.
Just because something starts out one way, doesn’t mean it will stay that way. And honestly, you don’t want that! If your business looks the exact same way today that it did 5 years ago, you’re not growing or climbing towards more.
Breezy today looks nothing like Breezy in 2019. Our services have evolved. Our processes have changed. We’ve pivoted multiple times. And that’s a good thing.
