5 Tried-and-True Strategies to Make Your Company “Unstoppable”

I dish out a lot of advice on LinkedIn. And while I have many lessons to share from my 15 years of building a successful company, I’m always looking to grow, evolve and improve. That’s why I love turning to others to hear about their professional experiences and what they’ve learned along the way.

On my podcast, “Unstoppable,” I’ve been fortunate to interview some truly brilliant entrepreneurs over the past two years. Each episode is packed with fresh and inspiring tips on how to be a better leader, a better builder and a better human. Below are five key takeaways that have made the biggest impact on me during this time. Hopefully, these will entice you to listen to the full interviews for even more great guidance—or at least give you a new idea to chew on. 

1. Keep the stakes in perspective.  

No matter how prepared you are, starting a business takes a huge amount of faith. But if you feel like the stakes are too high, you might not take the risks necessary to make your company truly great.

Alli Webb, founder of Drybar, says her attitude was pivotal in pushing her company forward. “If Drybar didn’t work, no one was going to die,” she recalls. “The world wasn’t going to end. I would have figured something else out. And I think you have to have that mentality to feel unafraid to take that big leap.”

Of course, you want your business to succeed. Yes, you and others may have money at stake. And maybe what you’re doing is actually saving lives. But if you focus too much on what could go wrong, you may end up paralyzed. (Related: My 4 Secrets to Hustling Without Burning Out)

On the flip side, you do need some stakes to keep you pushing forward. “You kind of need that fear to keep your blood boiling,” says Alli. “Every day, there’s something that puts a fire in my belly.” It’s all about finding the balance. Aim for a level that’s motivating without holding you back.

Listen to the full conversation with Ali 

2. Remember, you’re qualified.  

Okay, maybe you can’t perform surgery if you haven’t gone to medical school or fly a plane if nobody’s ever taught you. But in the entrepreneurship space, there’s very little that you’re actually unqualified to do, even if you haven’t done it before.

Jessica Herrin, CEO of Stella & Dot, says her father instilled this point of view in her since she was a kid. “His mindset has always been, if you wanna learn something, crack [open] a book,” she says. “Don’t think you need a pedigree or that somebody else is gonna come educate you. But if you want something, the library is open and it’s free. Now, we have access to the internet. Go figure it out and never expect somebody else to show up for you if you are not showing up for yourself. That really helped me as an entrepreneur because I never thought I was unqualified to start a technology business or a fashion business or a skincare business.” The only prerequisite? “I had to be willing to learn,” she says. “You do not have expertise when you start, you get expertise over time with failure, with error, with tenacity. 

You’re going to be walking into so many situations as an entrepreneur where you don’t know how to do something or don’t know the answers to questions. Instead of stepping back and feeling like you shouldn’t be allowed to weigh in because of your lack of experience, trust what you do know. (And look up what you don’t.) But if you reach a point where you’re truly not interested in becoming an expert on something, or you think your time is better spent elsewhere, hire someone smarter than you to take the task over.

Listen to the full conversation with Jessica!

3. Pay attention to what’s not working for other businesses. 

As entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time studying what works for other companies. How are they structuring their business model? How have they built their team? What are they putting out into the world…and what can I learn from it?

Christina Stembel, founder and CEO of Farmgirl Flowers, says that she was able to find her niche by paying attention to what wasn’t working for her competitors. Specifically, she dug into why the e-commerce flower industry wasn’t taking off. It struck her as odd that in 2010, when e-commerce was exploding in every other market, the online floral industry was actually losing ground. “I thought, ‘Why is it declining?’” she recalls. “And that would remind me of all the times that I would send my mom flowers in Indiana, and I hated the whole process. I hated the product. I felt like I got ripped off. I spent $100 on what looked like it was $8 from the grocery store. And so I thought, ‘Well, this is a real problem for me. It’s probably a real problem for a lot of other people.’” 

She says that her company will never open a brick-and-mortar store—or do pop-ups—because she’s seen that the current retail model is broken: “The reason that we work is because we aren’t doing it the traditional way.” Her advice? Look for the problems that other businesses are facing. Think of how you would solve them. And don’t be afraid to go against the grain.

Listen to the full conversation with Christina!

4. Hear out your haters.

It can be brutal to hear constant critiques as an entrepreneur. But it is very important to consider negative feedback, especially from people within your industry.

Jenny Fleiss, co-founder of Rent the Runway and Jetblack, learned this the hard way when she and her co-founder snagged a meeting with designer Dianne Von Furstenburg in the early days of concepting Rent the Runway, a startup that allows customers to borrow designer clothing. Spoiler: Von Furstenburg hated the idea. She was worried that it would cannibalize sales. The designer assumed that people would stop buying her clothes if they could just rent them instead. 

Through the course of their conversation, the founders learned a lot about the fashion industry’s pain points. And they took this information and used it to figure out ways to tweak their product to appeal to designers. “What we wound up being able to prove, and what we talked to [Von Furstenburg] about, was this is not your customer who’s buying items at Saks, who’s actually in their 40s and 50s,” she recalls. “This is a consumer who’s in their 20s and 30s, who otherwise you were losing to the Zaras of the world. And if instead you can introduce them to your product through experiential marketing, they’re gonna rent it, they’re gonna try it, they’re gonna fall in love with it. They’re gonna see how different it feels from a fast fashion knockoff item.”

Jenny and her co-founder also addressed another issue that was bothering designers. “We also said, this is a great way to get more of your editorial styles out there,” she recalls. “So the Neiman Marcuses, the Saks of the world, they’re not buying the bold prints, these statement pieces that all these designers want to get out there, the actual runway items. Because it doesn’t make sense for a woman to purchase those. You buy the black version, you buy the basic version. So this was also a great way for these designers to get some more of their exciting, creative pieces out there and then, in turn, onto social media and start more of a discussion about their brands.”  

By actually listening to the criticism of their ideas, they were able to think about how to address them intelligently. “You learn so much from everyone you talk to,” says Jenny. “So [try to] ingest it and then think about how to reframe your business, or things that you might want to tweak and pivot.” (Related: 6 Podcasts to Keep You Inspired)

Listen to the full conversation with Jenny!

5. Sometimes, trial and error is the only way to grow.

It’s easy for business leaders to get sucked into advice paralysis, where you’re endlessly asking around in search of what feels like the perfect answer...but not actually doing anything.

Heidi Zak, co-founder of ThirdLove Bras and Underwear, asked everybody for guidance. “I would talk to anybody,” she recalls. “You’re trying to learn, you’re trying to listen. And you know, the hard answer is that every business is different and you’re probably going to have to test 50 or 100 things until you figure something out that works. And there is no silver bullet. And if there was, every business would be successful.” 

So, go ahead and ask questions. Learn from other people you admire in the space. But take their advice as ideas, not answers. You’re going to have to do the hard work yourself to find those.

Listen to the full conversation with Heidi!

If you want to keep the inspiring ideas flowing, you can subscribe to the podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts.

What’s your favorite piece of advice you’ve heard on the show? Tell me in the comments below!

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Let’s Connect! Find me on Twitter (@KaraGoldin), and DM me your burning business questions and/or comments. 

Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of San Francisco–based hint®, a healthy lifestyle brand that produces the leading unsweetened flavored water and a scented sunscreen spray that’s oxybenzone and paraben-free. Listen to her podcast, “Unstoppable,” where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and disruptors across various industries and keep up with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.