10 Brilliant Marketing Stunts That Put Startups on the Map

A strong marketing stunt can be a valuable tool for any company. Last week, Microsoft employees released a ridiculous "Sexy And I Know It" parody featuring the Surface tablet, and despite the horrible lyrics and dancing, it actually made the Surface look sort of cool.

But Microsoft — and even the Surface — already has a defined image. No matter how the video turned out, Microsoft would still be Microsoft.

A startup has more to potentially gain from a successful marketing stunt than any other kind of company. Without defined brand images in the minds of consumers, some clever PR can easily turn a fledgling startup into a superstar brand in a matter of weeks.

1. Tinder visited sororities and their partnering fraternities on campus and devised a master plan to get tons of signups.

Tinder cofounder Whitney Wolfe ventured to college campuses with a clever plan to onboard thousands of users. According to Bloomberg Businessweek's Nick Summers, Wolfe scheduled meetings with sororities and then their corresponding fraternities on campus. Sororities typically have a favorite fraternity or two on campus that they plan social events with frequently, so Wolfe made sure to hit both chapters back to back.

From Summers:

“We sent her all over the country,” Munoz told me this week. “Her pitch was pretty genius. She would go to chapters of her sorority, do her presentation, and have all the girls at the meetings install the app. Then she’d go to the corresponding brother fraternity — they’d open the app and see all these cute girls they knew.” Tinder had fewer than 5,000 users before Wolfe made her trip, Munoz says; when she returned, there were some 15,000. “At that point, I thought the avalanche had started,” Munoz says.

2. GoldieBlox created a viral video about getting young girls into technology. It got 3 million views in 2 days and caused a lawsuit.

GoldieBlox CEO Debbie Sterling is a Stanford-educated engineer who produced the popular video to the hit Beastie Boys song "Girls." 

The lyrics spoke to an issue about too few women being interested in technology from a young age. Here are some of the verses:

Girls to build the spaceship,

Girls to code the new app,

Girls to grow up knowing they can engineer that.

Girls.

That's all we really need is Girls. 

To bring us up to speed it's Girls. 

Our opportunity is Girls. 

Don't underestimate Girls.

The video was watched more than 8 million times. All the attention attracted a lawsuit between the Beastie Boys and GoldieBlox over rights to the music. It kept GoldieBlox, an interactive game company few people had heard of, in headlines for weeks.

3. Mailbox was one of the first apps to stir up demand by creating a wait list, which grew to more than 260,000 people. 

This is what the waitlist looked like just after the Dropbox acquisition was announced.

Mailbox, an email app that sold to Dropbox for ~ $100 million 37 days after launch, built hype for the product by creating a virtual wait list.

The demand grew to more than 260,000 pre-launch signups by first creating an intriguing teaser video that promised to help people reach a desirable inbox zero. 

Then, blogs like TechCrunch went wild. That's when Mailbox announced a brilliant "reservation" scheme to keep the hype going and waited an unnecessarily long time to launch. 

4. Fixed, an app that fights parking tickets for you, employs "ticket heroes" who leave Fixed's fee-evading solution on tickets on cars' windshields.

Fixed is an app that helps fight parking tickets for citizens of San Francisco. It has a bunch of volunteers, called "ticket heroes," who trek across the city in search of cars that have been fined. The ticket hero will then leave a Fixed-branded report card on top of the ticket, so when the driver comes back to his or her vehicle, it's clear what service they can use to avoid paying the fine.

Another smart marketing scheme Fixed employs: It uses the Mailbox-famous waitlist for cities in which Fixed hasn't already launched. If you want to jump to the top of the waitlist, Fixed will let you. You just have to share the app with all of your Facebook friends first.

5. Airtime succeeded in getting a lot of early press with a celebrity-filled launch event. It's just too bad the technology failed on stage.

Airtime may have been a $40 million startup failure, but its launch was memorable. Created by Shawn Fanning and billionaire Sean Parker, Airtime invited an army of celebrities including Martha Stewart, Jim Carrey, Jimmy Fallon, and Olivia Munn.

The celebrities put on a good show; unfortunately Fanning and Parker couldn't get their technology to work on stage. The app's traffic tanked soon after.

6. Dollar Shave Club made dirt-cheap razors and butt wipes.

Dollar Shave Club blew up in 2012 with a launch video that both echoed Old Spice's popular ads and defined its own style to be copied by others in the future.

The video, staring CEO Michael Dubin, has over 15 million views and created some much-needed buzz for the subscription shaving service. When the company launched yet another quirky product last year, Dubin took his place in front of the camera once again.

"They're called One-Wipe Charlies," Dubin says, as he catches a package of wipes thrown to him from off screen. "And they're butt wipes for men."

7. Yo got everyone talking because it was "stupid."

Yo's simplicity is easily underestimated. Its developer famously turned down his supervisor's request to build a one-character messaging app for notifying his personal assistant, wife, or anyone else.

"He comes to me and said, 'Can you make this app? It's really annoying me,'" Or Arbel told Business Insider, quoting his boss Moshe Hogeg. "I told him, 'I think it's a silly idea, and I don't have time to do it.' How many people in the world have a personal assistant anyway?" Soon after he saw the appeal when he realized he essentially has conversations with one of his friends using as few as one character per message.

Arbel gave in and built the app. After a quiet April Fool's Day launch, Yo racked up 500,000 users in less than two months. Appearances on TV shows, mentions in blogs, and chatter on Twitter about much money the simple app had raised only served to fuel its popularity. Just recently Hogeg's company used Yo's wild success as a springboard for the new messaging app Mirage.

8. Uber always launches in style. For its launch in the Hamptons it offered up helicopter rides.

Because Uber is constantly fighting a public fight against cities everywhere to allow its service, it makes sense that the cab-calling startup would have to pull some killer PR stunts to maintain appearances. When the service launched in the Hamptons for the Fourth of July in 2013, the company promised flat-rate rides to New York.

It also promised helicopter rides to New York for the oh-so-affordable price of $3,000 for a five-person ride.

The Uberchopper has proved to be popular enough to return to the Hamptons for Independence Day weekend in 2014 and to take festival goers from San Diego to 2014's Coachella music festival.

9. "Angry Birds" took 8 fans on a real flight across the world, but by airplane, not slingshot.

"Angry Birds" is a worldwide brand today, but in 2011 it was little more than a popular mobile game with a handful of expansions. To expand in the huge market that is Asia, Rovio created the Angry Birds Asian Challenge.

The company partnered with Finnair, an airline based in its home country of Finland, and asked fans to apply for eight spots on a specially decked-out "Angry Birds" plane flying from Helsinki to Singapore. The trip doubled as a competition for the bird-flinging iPhone game.

10. Fab floundered as a social network then flourished as a design site, bringing in users with invitation incentives.

Fab had a slow start as a social network and Groupon knockoff for gay men. But when it pivoted to become a design and home decor site, it started to catch on. CEO Jason Goldberg and his team first stirred up excitement with a campaign of Facebook ads aimed at people who blog about design. Next, Fab asked its users to invite their friends and offered incentives to those who got the most to sign up. The more of your friends you coaxed to sign up, the better access you got to the site.

Fab gained hundreds of thousands of users every month after the big switch, and sales skyrocketed, the company reported.

The company ended up having trouble sustaining its growth and has announced layoff after layoff for the past few years. Perhaps almost getting crushed under the weight of its users, Fab is the ultimate example of the power of the marketing stunt.

From Entrepreneur

For political candidates, if your signs are in the ground first, you will be memorable and make a first impression. If you’re second or anything thereafter you've just become visual spam.

Beating your competition into the ground isn’t just good advice for politicians. It’s also a great metaphor for you and your business. If you’re not first, you’re forgotten. I share this with you because the single best piece of advice my coaching mentor gave me when I became a college head coach was “Be the first one in the living room.” He was referring to being the first recruiter to make a home visit with a blue-chip prospect’s family during recruiting season.

Following his sage advice off the field turned out to be the biggest difference-maker over the years in beating my competitors on the field. I kept track of how many top recruits I signed when I was “the first in the living room” vs. any other spot and was amazed with what I found. I noticed that if I was the first recruiter to visit with our top prospects it was game over and I won! I was the lord of the living room, signing almost every single one.

If I was second or later I rarely got the kid, with one exception -- if I was last. Believe it or not, that was when I also was able to land some of those top prospects.

Success leaves clues and there’s a good reason why this was the case. It’s a concept called serial position effect, which is the tendency of people to remember the first and last items in a series best and the middle ones worse.

The concept was discovered by Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist. He found that when asked to remember a list of items in any order, people tend to recall the item in the beginning of the list best (the primacy effect), the last item second best (the recency effect) and middle items not nearly as well.

Being first isn’t just about primacy, it’s about being responsive. The big no longer beat the small. In today’s economy it’s the fast that beat the slow. For example, recent research from the National Association of Realtors indicated that over 60 percent of home buyers use the first realtor who gets in front of them.

Your business is in that story too because if that’s the case with the single largest purchase a person makes in their lifetime, it’s also how they make their smaller decisions. Regardless of industry, when you’re first more often, you’ll make more sales.

Case in point: I needed to get my driveway seal coated this fall and I asked my neighbors for referrals. They each gave me a different company. I called both to get a quote. Company A showed up the next morning, while Company B still hasn’t responded. The man from Company A and I sat in my living room, and he recruited me so to speak. He explained how his company would save me money (compared to his competitors), save me time (compared to doing it myself) and how he could solve the problems we identified with my driveway.

Suffice it to say, I signed with him and his company seal coated my driveway the very next day.

People will usually buy from the company that can save them time, save (or make) them money or solve a problem for them. If you’re responsive and can deliver any of the above you will win the business more often than not.

With today’s technology, between call forwarding, Google voice and virtual assistants, there’s no excuse for a lack of responsiveness.

Do you have a policy on how fast your people respond to leads, referrals and inquiries? If not, you need to create your version of the “first in the living room” policy. Otherwise you’ll get beaten into the ground.

From Entrepreneur

Train Your Brain to Overcome Fear

Entrepreneurs have to take big risks in order to succeed, but even well-known leaders are often terrified to leap. In one famous example, fear of failure almost kept Kevin Rose from starting Digg, the enormously successful social news site that made him a multi-millionaire.Over time, he learned to trust his gut by taking the initiative to learn sides of the business that were unfamiliar or scary at first.

You don't have to be a natural risk-taker in order to succeed, and learning how fear works can empower you to overcome it.

When you become fearful and hesitant, your brain is focusing on loss aversion, meaning that it’s trying to protect you from harm. It's an adaptive strategy that kept our ancestors from getting killed.

In that mode, your brain becomes hyper-analytical. It catalogues everything that could go wrong and recalls past memories of failure in an effort to keep you safe. "The unintended consequence is that you get demotivated and don't take any action," says Monica Mehta, author of The Entrepreneurial Instinct (McGraw-Hill, 2012).

Your brain is wired to avoid anything that could harm you, so your aversion to loss is powerful. "Loss aversion is two and a half times more powerful than greed," Mehta says. With a ratio like that, it's no wonder that fear holds so many people back.

But your brain also has a system, known as the reward pathway, that releases feel-good chemicals when you do something novel or thrilling. This system overrides loss aversion and rewards you for taking risks.

"People with naturally active reward pathways focus on novelty or action," Mehta says. To overcome fear, adopt some of their strategies for focusing on the positive side of risk.

Here are three tips to help you do that:

1. Don't weigh the pros and cons. When you're taking a risk, a bit of research and a gut reaction is all you really need to make a good decision. Wading in a swamp of pros and cons will only activate fear. "The more you go into an analytical mode, the more you activate the part of the brain that makes you fearful and demotivated," Mehta says.

If your gut tells you to say yes, then prevent fear from taking over by simply diving in and adapting as you go. That doesn't mean you should be reckless, but the sooner you start to take action, the less likely you are to get scared.

2. Set many small goals. To get comfortable with risk, start small by setting a series of manageable goals that you can accomplish in a short period of time. Include some that are a little scary, but the main purpose here is to experience success repeatedly.

Those early successes will motivate you to seek out bigger risks. "Every time we achieve success, our brains release dopamine, which motivates us to go back and tackle the next success," Mehta says. If you approach a big risk at that point, you'll be primed to take action and less likely to get bogged down in fear of potential losses.

3. Surround yourself with risk-takers. A big part of comfort with risk is exposure. If you have people in your social circle, or especially in your family, who have been willing to take risks, then you will be much more likely to do the same. "There's a huge social aspect to entrepreneurship," Mehta says.

Risk-takers will be more likely to encourage you to take chances, and they will also be living examples of what it takes to risk and fail and risk again. "If you look at the biography of a famous person, it all depends on where in the biography you stop," Mehta says. "Success comes by way of many, many failures."

From Entrepreneur

5 Stern Truths You Need to Know Before Becoming an Entrepreneur

Expressing your desire for entrepreneurship 15 years ago would have created laughter and an assumption that you’re crazy. The tables have turned. Entrepreneurship has become one of the most respected and intelligent paths to take. It’s saved our economy and moves our culture forward.

Dream “jobs” are disappearing fast. Creating your ideal opportunity is the new normal. A lot of people are getting into entrepreneurship but with a blurred perspective. They think all they need is passion and work ethic. Those people are in for a rough ride, unless they understand these five powerful truths.

You can either play it safe or become successful, but you can’t do both.

1. Failure is the only thing guaranteed. Michael Jordan, the epitome of success, has said “I have failed over and over again, but that’s why I succeed.” How you respond to failure determines your success. Successful entrepreneurs are paid for their high tolerance for stress and pain.

Successful people see failure different than the majority. Stay loyal to yourself through failure. Instead of taking failure personally, use it to sharpen your perspective and strengthen your commitment. Most new entrepreneurs beat themselves up but, to gain the competitive advantage, you must leverage failure for even greater success.

Failure adds to your hunger and real hunger comes from tough times. Good luck finding hunger in the kids who have had everything given to them.

2. Habits trump inspiration. Inspiration is needed to create consistent action but your habits are ultimately going to define your success or failure.

It’s been said after seminars and conferences only 5 percent actually use what they’ve learned. Why? It’s because inspiration is short term, feels good in the moment, but doesn’t last past the activity producing it.

The biggest inspiration of all is seeing progress and results, which comes from new habits. When you begin the formation of a new habit, stick to it and see the lasting change in your new-found life. Great entrepreneurs focus on behavior and habits more than thought. Thinking is important, but doing is crucial.

3. Resourcefulness is the ultimate resource. The majority of people will say they don’t have the resources. This resource belief structure keeps most people from building the world-class businesses they are capable of.

The great entrepreneurs find a way to maximize whatever resources they have, as little as that may be.They don’t believe in limited resources because they understand the ultimate resources are the feelings and emotions that make them resourceful. Tony Robbins, the well known life coach and motivational speaker, says is perfectly. “Resourcefulness is the ultimate resource.”

If you don’t have the money, but you are creative enough can you find the money? YES!  With enough determination and commitment can you make it work with little resources. The ultimate key is internal emotions.  

4. Your circle of influence will make or break you. Leaving your mind open to the negative influence of other people is the most common weakness of new entrepreneurs. Poor choices of influence heads the top of the list of reasons most entrepreneurs quit prematurely.

To grow, learn and become the person who achieves big success requires an exceptional supporting network. Successful entrepreneurs surround themselves with a powerful circle of influence who guide, challenge and help them think bigger.

Success rises and falls on who you associate with. Stay aware of your surroundings. You can systematize a lot of things but time isn’t one of them, so make sure you’re spending it with the right people.

5. It’s not easy but it’s worth it. The bigger the goals, the bigger the challenges. The bigger the rewards, the tougher the journey. 

If becoming an entrepreneur was easy, everybody would be doing it and it  wouldn’t be worth much. The moment you pursue entrepreneurship, obstacles will show up. They test your character and faith but let you see if you’re really serious about becoming an entrepreneur.

You must focus on  the rewards on the other side of struggle. Visualize how good it will feel being your own boss, controlling your schedule, inspiring others and creating financial freedom. Chaos is guaranteed when you strive for entrepreneurial greatness. It’s important you accept that instead of fighting  it. You’ll never know how strong you are until being strong is the only option you have.

Still want to be an entrepreneur? Good, I promise it’s worth it.

From Entrepreneur

6 Small Changes to Your Morning Routine Will Transform Your Entire Day

People have a lot of bad habits when it comes to morning routines. Here's how to fix them.

The first few minutes of your morning are the most important of your day and can set the tone for positivity and productivity. Ideally, you have an app or clock that taps into your natural circadian rhythm and wakes you during your "best time" within a certain window. Getting jarred out of a deep REM slumber to the sound of a blaring alarm clock sets you up for a negative day brimming with fatigue and crankiness.

But getting the right alarm clock is only part of the battle.

Here are six ways to start your morning better while kicking bad habits that destroy good sleep hygiene.

1. Give yourself at least 15 minutes of no screen time

Besides turning off an alarm that might be on your phone, resist the urge to check your email or social media. It sets you up for a day of being enslaved to technology, and your morning time should be reserved just for you. This might mean disabling notifications on your home screen so you're not tempted by that Facebook update or mounting emails.

2. Swap out the coffee for lemon water

Lukewarm water with a fresh lemon squeezed into it has numerous benefits--but you need to drink it first thing in the morning. It starts your metabolism, which burns fat while sustaining muscle, cleanses your mouth and throat, and gives you a boost of energy. Then wait at least 30 minutes before brushing your teeth, drinking, or eating. This might be a toughie for caffeine addicts, but you can manage 30 minutes and it's a great way to reduce the need for a coffee fix.

3. Sit up correctly

There are many "bad ways" to get out of bed, but only one best way, if your body allows for it: Roll over onto your right side, then push yourself up into a sitting position before standing with a straight back (no hunching). It's the gentlest way to get up, takes the pressure off your heart and back, and is a great, easy ritual to start your morning right.

4. Set and affirm your goals for the day

While stretching in bed or prepping your lemon water, set some feasible goals for the day, but limit them to three. This might include packing your lunch instead of eating out to save money, committing to that noon yoga class, or scheduling the doctor's appointment you've been putting off.

5. Stretch

It seems so obvious, and yet so many people ignore it. You can do this in bed, using a simple stretched-out-legs-and-arms-overhead movement. You can indulge in a supine twist on a padded floor, or you can practice whatever feels right for as little or as long as you like. Your body's just been booted down for hours--you can't expect it to be warmed up, energized, and raring to go right away.

6. Meditate

Don't skip over this one just because it sounds boring or like you don't have time for it. Meditation is only as strict, long, short, boring, or annoying as you make it. A "successful" meditation in an entire lifetime might be only a few seconds. However, sitting in a comfortable position and focusing on clearing your mind--even if it's for less than a minute--can help your mental clarity and spiritual well-being and set the stage for the day.

You probably already know which morning habits aren't serving you, so why keep doing them? Instead, focus on what really makes your mornings better and prioritize them.

From Inc. Magazine

Dominate Your Industry: How to Become the Best in Your Field

The notion of a miraculous genius being born smarter and more capable than the rest of us mere mortals charms our curiosity. Robert Greene, author of the popular The 48 Laws of Power (Penguin, 2000), would disagree. The fascination we have in prodigies, he says, is "bogus. It's completely bogus." Exceptional talent is about hard work, he says.

Greene studied the lives of exceptionally successful people for his latest book, Mastery (Viking/Penguin, 2012). He says that there is no such thing as being born into superior success. Rather, those politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, athletes and artists who rise above the rest in their field, achieving what he calls a "high-level intuitive feel" for their specialty, have an unyielding focus and work ethic.

"It's not a question of some natural talent or brilliance that you have, it's that you have reached that level of experience or practice," Greene told Entrepreneur.com. "We have to get rid of that old-fashioned notion of genius and creativity." He holds himself to the standard he preaches, having put in more 20,000 hours researching and writing his last five books.

Robert Greene

Image credit: Susan Anderson

In Mastery, Greene examines the cultural poster-children for natural-born genius: Mozart and Einstein. For example, by the time he was 9 years old, Mozart had already put in 10,000 to 20,000 hours of work, equaling the efforts of an average person in his or her 20s, says Greene. Einstein attributed his own success to persistence, he says.

Greene developed a near cult-following for his methodical and -- some say -- Machiavellian breakdown of power and the people who wield it inThe 48 Laws of Power. Part of what makes Greene popular is that he studies powerful people and then breaks down their process such that others can emulate it. Here are recommendations from Greene for entrepreneurs eager to be the next Steve Jobs.

1. Chose a topic to focus on that you are deeply in love with.

"Masters and highly successful people are emotionally and personally engaged in their work" on a level beyond intellectual curiosity, Greene says. It's the personal commitment to a topic, problem or skill that is ultimately necessary for motivating and maintaining the long hours and fervent curiosity required to rise to the level of "mastery" in a field. "Otherwise you are never going to have the energy, the patience, the persistence, the ability to put up with the criticism, you will give up too easily, you won't push through all the crap the world is going to throw at you."

2. Skip all the extra school. Learn by doing.

According to Greene, learning entrepreneurship in school is inane. "Being an entrepreneur is making something, it's like Legos," Greene says and the best way to become an entrepreneur is to try building businesses.

Henry Ford's first two automobile companies failed miserably, notes Greene. "You want to actually psychologically desire failure because it is how you are going to learn." If you aren't going to start your own business, at least work in as small a company as possible to learn as many skills as possible. Avoid large corporations and business school, Greene says. As an entrepreneur, "you are going to hire the people that have the MBAs. They are going to bring in that nuts-and-bolts knowledge."

3. Don't focus on making money in your 20s.

"Tune out the idea of making your first million. It's about learning. You are there to accumulate as much experience building a business and you want to build several, if possible," says Greene. In the first five to 10 years after college, pursue experience over money. You will learn more than you could earn in those years.

4. When you have some experience, select a mentor. 

When selecting a mentor, look for somebody who is already doing what you see yourself doing in five to 10 years, says Greene. If you are going to try to approach a master to be your mentor, wait to do so until you have already started amassing a body of work.

A healthy mentorship relationship is like that between a parent and a child, says Greene. A good mentor should be older than you and at a point in his or her career that he or she is wants to give back. Personality is important, too. "You want somebody who matches your spirit. If you are a very rebellious type, you don't want a stuffy conservative type mentor," says Greene.

5. Be flexible and creative.

For the book, Greene interviewed Paul Graham, the computer programmer entrepreneur who started Viaweb, a company acquired by Yahoo in 1998 to become the Yahoo Store, and a partner of Y Combinator, an accelerator for startup entrepreneurs. In the highly competitive interview process for Y Combinator, Graham "can tell after one minute if he has the next Zuckerberg or this guy is useless, and it is because they are open-minded, they're flexible and they love, they are excited, they have a childlike interest," says Greene. Building a company will inevitably confront you with unexpected challenges, and your ability to adjust your path to deal with those surprises is critical.

From Entrepreneur

5 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Running

I love running my company, but of course, the risky business of entrepreneurship comes with its stressors. To clear my head and keep my body and mind in shape, I maintain a strict running regimen and make sure to hit the pavement almost every day. This is where I do some of my best thinking, and during a recent run, I realized how closely the sport aligns with my business mentality.

While training for a marathon or a road race isn’t for everyone, but here are five lessons entrepreneurs can learn from the discipline:

1. Always run, but save enough energy to push.

Building your own company is definitely not a sprint. It’s a marathon (and maybe even longer than that). A successful entrepreneur needs to constantly perform over a long period of time, and he can’t afford to lose his pace. Professional runners know that if, for whatever reason, they aren’t able to stick to their pace in the first half of the race, it’s twice as hard to achieve their goal. They have to overachieve in the second half when they’re already out of energy from the first.

I remind myself every day to always run--never walk--and to hit my goals every single day. Otherwise, I know the next day will be twice as hard. That said, I always keep enough energy on reserve to be able to push extra hard for special occasions, such as closing an important customer deal or raising an additional round of funding. I know I need to be fit enough to power through to the home stretch, and I can’t do that if I try to sprint every mile in between. In short, go fast, but never forget you are in this for the long haul.

2. Train with others.

Running is an individual sport for which many train alone. Without fellow runners by my side, it can sometimes be difficult to stay motivated, run that extra mile or worse--get up on a weekend morning to train. Trust me, it’s not always fun. I’m often up early in the morning doing high-intensity training by myself. During those sessions, I know it would be easier if I had someone with me to help stay motivated.

The same holds true for building a business. Collaborating with a group of likeminded people pushes me to the next level -- especially if they’re “fitter” and more “athletic” than I am when it comes to business.

Get a peer group and meet other founders or CEOs. Talk about your struggles, share your war stories and get their feedback. Learn from them and always be brutally honest about your own experiences. Help them whenever you can and don’t be afraid to ask for help. They will be there for you, because they understand what you are going through.

3. Follow your own game plan.

Everyone knows that you should stick to your plan, but I’ve seen many of my friends make this mistake--and I’ve made it too. You make a grand plan to run a race, and then you train, prepare and define your target pace. Once the race starts, you seem to forget everything and start off way too fast. After your first mile, you realize what you’re doing, force yourself to slow down and you’re able to get back on track. But then, out of the corner of your eye, you notice someone else passing by you, and you try to match her pace. And then again, you start to crash and you end up suffering throughout the rest of the race.

It’s important to have a game plan and to stick to it. Don’t get nervous because your competitors are doing X, Y and Z. Never let them dictate your strategy. It’s okay to be slower in the beginning if you know how to outperform everyone else in the long run. Don’t blindly copy someone else in the market. Understand their reasoning, their customers and be flexible enough to adapt your own strategy, if necessary. Before changing anything, think long and hard about the decision and try to remember the reason you created your game plan in the first place.

4. Embrace the pain.

You may love running, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to enjoy it every single day. Of course it is satisfying to go out on a perfect day after sleeping eight hours and it’s not as much fun when it’s cold, dark and rainy. Get over it and stick to your plan. You won’t achieve something great otherwise. Find those small things that still make it fun. Embrace the stress and stay positive.

I love running my company, but there hasn’t been a single week in the last few years when I haven’t thought, “Oh, boy. It’s always something!” Nevertheless, I have made it a point to enjoy at least some of every single day.

5. Always win.

It’s race day, you tossed and turned all night and it’s pouring rain. It doesn’t matter. Nobody cares if you are having a bad day, and you shouldn’t either. Stop giving yourself excuses as to why you can’t win or why you can’t run your pace. Go out there and achieve your new personal record or run a complete marathon for the first time. The biggest mistake you can make during a race is to start thinking about why you should go slower or why you should give up.

Building a successful company is extraordinarily difficult. Most entrepreneurs fail--even those backed by a huge amount of venture funding. Those are the statistics. We all know them, but they don’t matter once you’ve started your own company. As soon as you do it, you are all in. Focus on winning, focus on building your dream and never, ever stop until you’ve crossed the finish line.

From Entrepreneur