ThemBid.com

The 17 Success Principles Applied to a Web 2.0 Startup

I read this book by Napoleon Hill some time ago called “Success Through a Postive Mental Attitude”. It spoke of 17 success principles that I re-read every day and apply to our Web 2.0 startup. In this article I will list those seventeen principles with a brief explanation on how we applied them to ThemBid.com.

1. A Positive Mental Attitude
   • When the coffee runs out along with the money… this is an essential trait to keep working 16+ hour days and sacrificing your weekends.
2.  Definiteness of Purpose
   • We clearly defined our goals and ignored (we briefly looked at the competition to make sure there was a need for what we visioned) the competition when designing ThemBid.com. Coming from academia and being engineers it becomes easy to spend the majority of time “researching”.
3. Going the Extra Mile
   • Each of our team members goes well beyond what is expected each and every day. Even when there are no more resources left to continue, you would not know it by the level of dedication of our team.
4. Accurate Thinking
   • We make sure to use the wisdom of the crowds along with verified facts to make  sure we are all executing correctly.
5. Self-Discipline
   • When you don’t have a traditional boss who plans the day for you, this trait is essential.
6. The Master Mind
   • We meet at least once a week for two to eight hours of brainstorming.
7. Applied Faith
   • Every member of our team has a tremendous level of faith in each other. This faith is justified through action each day.
8. A Pleasing Personality
   • We have a culture of lighthearted fun. While we can get serious at times, we always make sure to take time out and relax. We treat ourselves to a five star dinner once a month and that day we travel in style, courtesy of our angel investor (aka the godfather).
9. Personal Initiative
   • There is no micro-managing going on with our team. We use collaborative tools to keep track of all that needs to be done. Once a task is assigned to a team member there is no need to worry if it will get done.
10. Enthusiasm
    • Each member of our team has a passion for what they do. We all genuinely enjoy our roles within the company and often spend our free time continuing with our “work”.
11. Controlled Attention
    • To get thing done effectively, you must be able to focus. Since we have another business that requires customer service, that can be a challenge at times.
12. Teamwork
    • Our accomplishments have come at a fast pace because we work seamlessly as a team. While our hackers are programming away, our marketing team will be out promoting. At the same time our financial team will be fending away the VC’s.
13. Learning From Defeat
    • One of our company motto’s is “Act, then ask for forgiveness later”. This causes us to do some things we would rather not talk about… :p The key is to learn from each situation and grow.
14. Creative Vision
    • This project would not exist if it were not for the creative vision of Isaac Saldana and his ability to allow us to share in that vision.
15. Budgeting Time and Money
    • We are a startup… need I say any more? Just take a quick read of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and “The Richest Man in Babylon”.
16. Maintaining Sound Physical and Mental Health
    • With out the Physical stamina, how could we perform our marathon “work” sessions each day? Even more critical, we need to have the energy left over to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Personally I do coffee cup curls and keyboard leg lifts in my spare time.
    • We keep mentally sharp through voracious reading and hacking.
17. Using Universal Law
    • There are certain law’s in the universe that don’t change and are true across various religions and philosophies such as “the law of attraction”. We think positive and visualize success, and so far we experiencing the return.

We hope that you can utilize these principles to advance your life, the lives of those close to you and your business. Group hug…