Have you ever heard a startup or entrepreneur say that their idea, product, or service has no competition? Hopefully you were not the one making such a statement.

Thinking you have no competition is harmful in several ways. The first issue is that you may be blindsided by competition you initially did not identify. The second issue is other entrepreneurs and potential investors will react with skepticism thinking your research is incomplete, or that you are naive.

Before we get into ways of identifying competition, I want to open your mind. Have you ever heard, "You can't compare apples and oranges" or some variant of that? Let's examine why using this logic causes blind spots in competition recognition.

Apples & Oranges Both:

• Grow on trees
• Come in many varieties
• Have an outer skin protecting the fruit
• Have seeds
• Have many uses (whole fruit, juice, cooking, etc)

What are Apples and Oranges considered in business terms? Indirect Competition.

Different varieties of apples such as Granny Smith and Red…

Are you an Honestrepreneur? What exactly is a honestrepreneur and what does being one mean?

First an Honestrepreneur is honest with themself. Once an entrepreneur can be honest with themself they should carry that forward with their team and customers. This is not to say that being an Honestrepreneur is a realist or a pessamist. It means that they understand the value in honesty and transparency.

An honest entrepreneur quickly builds credibility and trust.

• Be honest with yourself. What are you trying to accomplish with the venture. Set realistic but challenging goals for yourself. You must leave room for hope, but not at the cost of denial. If you are honest with yourself you will know whether you are on track or need to refocus your efforts.

• Approach your team with honesty. They may not need to know all the details, but they will appreciate you sharing truthful information with them in a timely manner. If things aren't going well in the venture it will not be a secret to the rest of the team, they will…

How do you know when it is time for your startup to transition? This is not a rhetorical question, but there may be a need to ask a question before answering. What is the goal of your venture? This is a pivotal question in understanding what your transition strategy will become. Your transition strategy is very different if you are scaling to be aquired than if you are growing but plan to maintain a family run business.

Now that you are thinking about the focus of your venture we can move on to the original question about transitioning. You must have a pulse on your venture to know when transitioning makes sense. It is important to keep in mind the type of milestones that can be indicators of transition periods.

Potential Transition Milestones:

• Growing your team - You may need to rely on others to ensure your team is growing properly. This becomes important when your company has grown to the point that individual roles are now teams themselves. During the early days of your venture perhaps everyone met…