mental — Blog — When Going Viral

When you launch a company and its goes viral so many different decisions end up coming your way, and those decisions all feel like they need to be made at once. Your business is getting so much attention in such a limited amount of time that the risk of getting pulled in SO many different directions is sky high. So it begs the question. What can you do to prepare yourself mentally for launching a viral growth company?

This is an interesting question because in my opinion having rock solid mental toughness plays a major factor in launching and sustaining any successful business. Entrepreneurs are constantly faced with various circumstances and decisions that require proper mental balance and thinking in order to make as many correct decisions as you can.

Of course it’s subjective based on where you are in your company’s lifecycle, but certain questions entrepreneurs are regularly pondering, or in some cases have rattling in their heads are:

1. Is it the proper time to finally launch my company?

2. Should I meet with person “X” in order to achieve outcome “Y” or person “A” to achieve outcome “B?”

3. Is it the optimal time for my company to try raising outside funding?

4. Is person “C” the best fit to perform task “D,” or is it time to hire someone to complete this task?

All of these SUPER important decisions require an entrepreneur to be thinking properly. If not you can end up witnessing a couple weeks go by, and you can make a few bad decisions, which results in your mental judgment feeling impaired, which then leads to self doubt, and confusion.

I think there are a few important things that all entrepreneurs need to be cognizant of and mentally prepared for when launching a company, especially one that goes viral. I’ve listed them below and would love to hear reader’s thoughts and feedback on them!

1. Just because you’ve gone viral doesn’t mean you’re made: Too often when an entrepreneur and their startup experiences viral growth they think the startup game is over and they’ve won. Boys and girls at that point the game has just begun. Only then when your company, brand, or product has gone viral is EVERY single other company and person in your space now aware of what you’re doing, and trying everything possible to disrupt your growth. If mentally you decide to take a break because you think you’ve made it, and you don’t recognize the new fiercely competitive landscape you’ve created, then your business is destined for failure.

2. Top level management needs to be mental brick walls: The people who are in charge at your company need to have mental toughness like no other. There’s no room for any panic attacks from your leaders, otherwise it will trickle down to confusion, questioning, and panic from your other team-members. When viral growth is peaking and you feel like there’s a million things to do, it’s at that point you need your leaders helping you determine what are the most important things to spend your time on. When your viral growth slows down and your company is faced with questions like “What do we do next?” Your leaders must be the ones setting the tone in terms of upcoming work so that you don’t feel clueless when you enter the office.

3. Don’t let mirages cloud your head: When your business goes viral certain mirages start to become created in your head. Maybe it’s a mirage of your retirement in Hawaii due to the millions of dollars in sales that are coming in. Perhaps it’s the mirage of you maybe one day getting the chance to meet Justin Bieber because he just endorsed your product. Either way these mirages need to be deleted from your head because they’re not happening unless your team continues to stay focused and execute where it needs to be executing. Too many times with my company PhunkeeDuck I personally saw, witnessed, and experienced these mirages that ultimately never came true and as a result they mentally clouded both mine and my team’s heads and impaired our ability to execute.

4. Meditate: If you have a startup and you don’t already meditate each day I would strongly suggest you begin doing so. Meditating for 10 minutes in the morning each day can help you clear your mind. By clearing your mind before the start of your business day it allows you to stay mentally clear throughout the course of it. During my time at PhunkeeDuck I believe I was able to recognize some of the red flags we experienced because I meditated on these problems each day. I recognized many of the problems our business and Hoverboards as a whole were experiencing during these meditations, and it allowed me to remove myself from the business earlier rather than later. Although at times I experienced certain mirages I think one of the ways I was able to see clearly through some of these mirages was because of meditating. I personally would suggest mobile app’s like HeadSpace and Calm for beginners who don’t know where to begin, or simply going on Youtube and trying out a couple 10 minute guided meditations.