That is correct, read the title again. Okay, now we can proceed.

Customers are the fuel to your entire venture (or at least the majority when you factor in smart investment strategies). Without a genuine focus on customers you business may likely stall or even shutter.

Customer Service and User Experience should be two of major driving forces of every business venture. If you are going into business you need customers to survive. If you want more than basic survival, your customer service must be responsive, transparent and honest. If you want your customers to stay with you as loyal and repeat customers you need to create engaging and meaningful experiences. There are specific reasons your existing customers come back to you. There are specific and perhaps different reasons new customers are drawn to your products or services.

This is not to say that customers, especially loyal customers, are extremely sensitve to price increases, business model changes or brand reworkings. Customers are flexible and wil…

Or is your company the product? This may be a novel way to hit on strategy, but it is important. When launching quickly we often focus on getting the core aspects correct and tweaking the details later, but do we ever circle back? This may be especially true when launching an app or a service. Stop and think for a minute, has your product overshadowed your company?

These are some signs your product or service has taken center stage away from the core of your company:

• There is a lack of long term strategy from a business perspective (you may have a product strategy in place)
• Employees are unsure what the key objectives the company is striving to reach
• Ideas that do not support the product are dismissed instead of leveraged for another product/service opportunity
• Individual development has taken a back seat to pushing out updates or enhancements to the existing product

If you are successfully growing your business, your employees and company you are probably already on the right track. If any of the above…

No, this isn't a pitch for a wireless carrier. When starting a business you must carefully choose partners and employees. When trying to launch a venture with a spouse, a family member or close friend you must consider the future before taking any action. Is going into business with someone familiar less risky than a stranger? You may think so, but doing your homework is the only way to ensure you are indeed on the same page.

Starting a business with someone close to you does have unique challenges. Below are some of the challenges with ideas on how to overcome them.

Challenges:

• History - This is an obvious challenge that is not necessarily shared by many business partners. Your history with your spouse, family and friends is probably quite lengthy. Challenges can emerge based on past events and conversations. A great way to overcome this challenge is to leverage your history and make it work for you. You hopefully trust your spouse, family and friends (at least if you are planning on going into business…