In just two years, Skedadle has grown from an idea in my head to a company with 8,000 app users, employing a team of five and serving household-name clients such as Domino’s and BrewDog, Nick Macandrew writes.
Whilst we are only just getting started, here are the three most important things I have learned so far.
1. Vision is everything
Who on earth would start a business entirely reliant upon people travelling/commuting during a time when the whole world was ordered to stay at home?
I did, and I’ll tell you why you should consider doing the same type of crazy thing, and also share my thoughts as to how to go about doing it.
Firstly, in order to achieve something, you must have a crystal-clear picture of what you’d like to achieve and what the world will look like when you get there.
The truth is that we all have a vision of something we would like to achieve.”
It’s the guiding light that focuses all of your actions and decisions towards achieving the outcome.
Without that, you’re aimlessly directing your energy towards things that don’t matter in a world full of distractions.
Passion, belief and determination are key
The truth is that we all have a vision of something we would like to achieve. It doesn’t need to be massively aspirational, but it needs to be something that matters to you on a deep emotional level.
It may be business, family or even sport/recreation-related, as long as it matters to you.
Once you find and see your vision, I guarantee that you’ll feel an immense sense of energy to take action. It’s passion, belief and determination, and often all three stacked together.
It’s the fuel that starts you on your journey towards realising your vision, but more importantly, it gives you the strength to keep going when the going gets tough, which it always does.
Anything worth having in life requires effort. It is therefore essential to have the energy in you to both start and stay the course towards your vision.
It’s passion, belief and determination, and often all three stacked together.
Finding vision will fuel you
My vision is to completely change the way the world travels. At present, it’s a horrible experience – we are forced to do it, it’s uncomfortable and expensive.
I see a world where travel is an opportunity for people, a time in which we can earn money and rewards whilst having fun playing games.
My vision gives me my passion which makes me get after it, and at least in the beginning, do crazy things!
I guarantee that once you find your vision, which is in every one of us, you will feel the passion and energy inside of you and you’ll go full steam ahead towards achieving it.
The quality of your life is the quality of your emotions, and I encourage you to get out into the world and pursue the things that matter to you.
2. A strong company culture is imperative
One of the most important obligations upon any business leader is to create and promote an amazing culture within the company.
By definition, a company (or business) is a group of people united together to achieve specific, declared goals, the success of which will depend on the collective ability of those people.
People perform at their best when they are motivated and feel good. It is therefore imperative to create a motivational environment which sets people up to feel good in their work.
At a macro level, this needs three things – a clearly defined mission (and vision!), a clear plan of how to get there and an understanding of where each person fits into the plan.
Within this, people need to feel safe, respected and have a strong sense of autonomy – like they are really contributing and making a difference.
If you get these things right, you will create an amazing culture focused on delivering the vision. All you then have to do is protect it with your life.
3. Managing change is difficult but necessary to succeed
Before I started Skedadle I was a corporate lawyer, so it was a massive change to jump into running a tech start up. Starting anything new is always challenging.
However, managing constant change within every single aspect of your environment is even harder.
A high-growth business will be constantly working through a series of transitions, whether that’s an increase in customers, staff, product development cycles or workload.
Taken together, it can create a great deal of uncertainty for everyone involved, which human beings hate.
If you can work hard to get as comfortable as you can with handling uncertainty, which again comes back to having a clear vision, navigating these transitions will be far smoother.
The discomfort from entering these periods of change shows that you are where you want to be, at the forefront of achieving something worthwhile.
Understanding and managing that is difficult but undoubtedly a massive contributor to success.
Nick Macandrew is founder and chief executive of Skedadle.
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