Here is a list of the topics I’ve shared at the Lab since October:

• 25+ Ideas for Getting Customers
• How to Find Time For Your Business
• 7 Keys to Bootstrapping Your Business
• Is Entrepreneurship For You: 8 Questions
• Your First 6 Critical Biz Partners
• Finding the Right Business Opportunity For You
• The Great Entrepreneurial Experiment
• My Top 3 Online Marketing Strategies: Blogging, Webinars & Email Marketing

(By the way, the Member’s Only Downloads area has all the PDFs and recordings ready for download of these topics!)

My goal has been to help you take practical steps toward starting and growing your own businesses and I’ve got more in store for you in 2013. And because we want as many of you as possible to join us in 2013, we’re offering the Lifetime Membership to the EntreLab for just $25.

What does that $25 get you:

• Access to all future events at the EntreLab
• Access to all the downloads, content, etc
• Access to the community forums to ask questions & get feedback

Or what they really means is …

• Practical help for taking next steps on your business ideas
• Ongoing training to fill in the gaps of what you know about running a business
• A community of like-minded people on the same entrepreneurial path — so you don’t feel alone!

I hope you’ll invest the $25 (discounted from the original $97) today to make progress on your entrepreneurial dreams and get continue to get ongoing training from me and other entrepreneurs at the EntreLab. (In fact, I’ve got two veteran entrepreneurs on the calendar for January that you won’t want to miss.)

Get the Lifetime Membership of the EntreLab TODAY for just $25!

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But here are the 11 S’s of Sacred Software with some examples:

• Sync – Software should be available everywhere I want it to be, like my iPhone, then my laptop and yes, even at the public library I just used this week. (Dropbox)
• Social – Software should connect me to others. (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, yada yada)
• Share – Software should help me easily share my life (or stuff) with others (WordPress, Pinterest, Swap)
• Stats – Software should help me measure and analyze everything I do. (Google Analytics, Nike+ Running App, or FitBit)
• Sell – Software should help me sell my stuff (Etsy, SquareUp, Stripe)
• Spend – Software should help me buy the stuff I want. (Amazon’s one-click payments, iTunes, [insert any app store])
• Smart – Software should help me find and figure out stuff faster and easier. Yes, software should think for me. (Google’s autofill or shortcuts, Netflix recommendations)
• Simple – Software should be easy to understand and use. Super bonus points if you don’t need a manual or have to ask questions. (Tumblr, Uber)
• Spam – Software should sift out the spam and noise in my life. (Akismet, Gmail)
• Speed – Software should make things faster and streamline life for me. (CDNs, caching services, Mint, but let’s share the worst example of speed: Facebook Mobile)
• Secure – Software should make everything safe and secure (1Password)

Read and comments on the full post at the EntreLab here.

Since starting iThemes in January 2008, and thus fulfilling my lifelong dream of being an entrepreneur, I’ve wanted to find a more defined outlet to help other entrepreneurs.

(By the way, in that time we’ve also helped thousands of entrepreneurs build affordable, attractive and effective websites for their businesses with our extensive library of web design tools and training.)

So this Saturday, I’m kicking off a new and private community — called the Entrepreneurship Lab — to help aspiring entrepreneurs make progress and launch their dreams.

The Lab is going to be a mashup of several vital things I believe you need in order to be successful and is best described as:

• A community of peers to help and encourage each other
• Practical, actionable entrepreneurial training from people who have been where you are and will help you make the same progress towards your goals
• A place to find some answers, formulate ideas and theories to test, report best practices and results, and find help for filling in the gaps or to get pointed in the right direction

I’m kicking off the Entrepreneurship Lab this Saturday, Sept. 29 starting at 9 a.m. Central with 3 webinars and have two more planned in October.

Get a Free Lab Membership Today

I’m excited about the coming months and hope you’ll join me too!

A Special Bonus for iThemes Toolkit Customers

As a reward to our faithful iThemes customers who invest in our business by purchasing the iThemes Web Designer’s Toolkit for their own freelance businesses, I’m offering a 6-month free membership to them to the Entrepreneurship Lab.

It’s one more reason to get the iThemes Web Designer’s Toolkit today … and get all of our plugins, themes and web design training for one low price.

And we’ve got a 35% sale going too to make it an EVEN better deal!

1. Significant Other

Your significant other is your first, most valuable, most influential and primary partner in your business, even if he isn’t working IN the business with you.

Fact: Your significant other can make or break your startup.

If your significant other (aka S.O.) isn’t fully on board with your startup, I can guarantee you a higher likelihood of failure OR worse, MISERY through your startup experience.

Lack of support from the key figure in your life just makes a hard job worse.

After all, you’re going to be working long hours. You might not have the income you thought you would to add to your household (or worse have to forgo your own check and lean on your S.O.). Your focus is going to be on getting your startup off the ground. You’re going to be responding to customers at all areas of the morning (or first thing after you wake up from bed on your iPhone). You’re going to get calls while you’re at dinner. You might not take a real vacation for a couple of years. And each and every day you’ll deal with what most people can’t tolerate — uncertainty.

Truth be told … you might handle it extremely well … but the odds are your significant other won’t.

Maybe you’re not married right now, but you have someone you love and are sharing your life with, regardless, that person is going to have a deep impact and influence on your success or failure.

This is why I suggest going on a retreat together BEFORE you start your business to align your work-life goals and dreams. Talk. Then talk, and then talk some more. Clarify and seek crystal clear clarity. Ask questions. Paraphrase what the other said and speak it back to make sure you are on the same page. Set expectations. Be realistic. And if it’s meant to be — seal the commitment to the business.

Talk about your work and your life and where you see it going. Make sure your significant other is keenly aware of the sacrifices involved. Don’t let them be surprised later when you’re not home for dinner, or get called out in the middle of the night, or have to answer the call of an important client.

Without the consistent support and encouragement of my wife, Lindsey, I couldn’t do half of what I do on a weekly basis (or 100% of it happily). In fact, her words of encouragement bolster me each and every day. She sees that what I do builds what WE want in life. From the start of our relationship, she’s fully engaged and supportive of the business. And knowing that, frees me to be and do what I need to for our business.

In a very real sense, you and your significant other will be having a startup baby together. Make sure your S.O. is OK with helping raise it — if even from the sidelines!

2. Accountant

I say accountant, but what I mean is someone to help you with the financial aspect of your business – primarily managing cashflow and paying taxes.

You can hire an accountant to assist with year-end taxes, which I’d highly recommend, or even payroll, however I’d suggest using an online payroll service like PayCom (we do now) from Day 1.

If I could go back to Day 1 (or actually 30 days previous to that Day 1), I wish we would have retained an accountant or financial partner on a monthly basis, like we’re doing now with Rick Simpson of CFO Partners in OKC.

We employ these types of financial consultants to guide us, and I suggest doing the same, because if you’re like me and didn’t major in economics in college (and can barely balance a checkbook), then their primary purpose beyond getting the priority work done will be to consult and coach you to understand how the financial aspects of businesses work.

Cash is oxygen to your startup. If you don’t know how to properly manage the cash you have, you’re doomed. You’ll run out of money when you need it most. Insanely talented experts get going in their business, their clients are loving them, but they forget to invoice their clients, or worse, make sure those clients are paying on time. Then they can’t make payroll at the end of the month.

Imagine if your current paycheck didn’t get drafted automatically every month and was left to you invoicing your boss. They made it your responsibility to get paid. And trust me, they don’t mind if you bill late, or forget.

How would you feel if you really didn’t know if you had enough money in the bank (or whether or not your check was going to be in the mail) in order to pay for your mortgage, food, insurance or electricity?

So ask around and find an accountant who have an active and healthy roster of clients (and even better, those similar to you). Approach it like a job interview. Ask questions. Get references. Find out how they work with clients. Tell them your situation. AND most importantly, ensure they realize they are a partner in this startup with you … not merely a transactional client once a year around mid-April.

This means you can ask them questions like: What software do you use or recommend for finances? Where do you bank and why? How do similar clients handle invoicing their clients and the terms (15 days out or 90 days)? What’s a good practice for making distributions? How much should I pay myself? When do other clients pay their employees? And the best one of all … As a startup entrepreneur, what financial advice and tips do you have for me to ensure maximum success? (You’re admitting you’re a newbie and want to learn from their experience.)

If they are hesitant or can’t answer with good, actionable advice, find your keys fast and get out of there!

I admitted early on that financial management was NOT a strength and never would be, so I’ve consistently found people who enjoyed it, were trustworthy and knowledgeable to handle that aspect for me. (And it should go without saying, but yes, under my watchful eye. That’s called accountability.)

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you hand everything over to them. But at a minimum, approach this relationship as a trusted ADVISOR for one of the most critical aspects of your business — your money.

3. Attorney

I wish from the start we would have had an attorney on a minimal monthly retainer to be able to ask questions as we grew, or help with crisises. (If you’re in business long enough and have even modest success, expect to have a large legal bulls-eye painted on your forehead.)

But primarily I say this because I highly suggest you hire an attorney to incorporate your business first and foremost. That’s not legal advice, it just feels like common sense to me as a businessperson.

Yes, I understand you are smart enough to figure it all out and file the paperwork with your state. Yes, I realize you can get something on Legal Zoom. But for me, I’d rather leave nothing to chance. I’d rather hire a professional, bar-certified attorney who deals with this regularly to walk me through it (and to do it for me).

This is the foundational document(s) that legitimizes you to the world — I’d get it right from the start!

I also recommend having a good relationship with an attorney so that when issues arise (and they will) you can pick up the phone and get some reassurance and guidance. We’ve had several attorneys (in fact one of my partners is one) and I can’t tell you how beneficial it’s been knowing there was someone with a legal background to bounce things off of and get perspective.

***

Ultimately, here’s why I say these are your FIRST three critical partners (not all of them by the way): You can’t do it alone. You need help. And by and large I’ve seen these three partners be the most vital and critical to the health of our startup.

You need to focus on what you do best … NOT what you don’t do best or what drains or distracts you from the most vital task at hand (getting paying customers to sustain your business).

Having support at home … someone to advise you on the finances … and to help guard against potential threats … help me sleep better at night and focus on getting our startup up to cruising altitude!

This is a guest post from entrepreneur Michael Torbert, owner of Semper Fi Web Design (custom WordPress development shop), founder of Semper Plugins (premium WordPress plugin store), developer of the All in One SEO Pack (#1 most downloaded WordPress plugin), and co-author of WordPress All-in-One for Dummies. This list draws from his experiences ranging from his high school job working at a retail store, to the Marine Corps, to corporate life, and to his current position as a small business owner. You can find him blogging at http://michaeltorbert.com or on twitter at @michaeltorbert.

1. Be motivated and dedicated. 
If you aren’t motivated to do the best you can for the interests of the company, and are just a clock watcher, or are using your job as a paycheck until something better comes along, you’re bringing other people down, and are stealing from the company.

2. Have intellectual curiosity. 
In school, and in entry-level jobs, you’re taught most of what you need to know, and told a few other things to learn. In real life, when working a higher level job, you’re expected not only to learn what you need to know, but to be able to discover what those things are on your own.

3. Ask all the right questions. 
During meetings, ask questions, and make sure you understand what other people are discussing. You don’t have to understand every single technical detail from a different field, but it’s important that you understand the general idea of what’s going on it the company, and understand certain things that you’ll need to know how to do. It’s also important that you understand the way your work will impact other people’s projects, and vice versa. This doesn’t mean to ask questions just to be asking something. Everything you say should be significant and have a purpose.

4. Take notes. 
Really. Take notes on everything. If you’re talking to someone, you should be taking notes. Make a shortcut to Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac) and use it. Use Evernote, Google Docs, or a traditional pad of paper and pen (gasp!). Do impress your boss, coworkers, and customers with your ability to retrieve information from a previous conversation. Don’t make them repeat themselves.

5. Take it seriously. 
People often say that you should be easy-going, or to take things lightly, so that you aren’t stressed out, and are generally more pleasant to be around. I say take things seriously. Too often I see people not taking part of their profession seriously. I don’t mean their entire job – I mean the little things. When your boss tells you to do something, it may not seem important to you, but it’s important enough that someone who makes a lot more than you decided it was a good idea. Treat the task as such.

6. Do your job as if you own the company. 
Don’t just do the bare minimum. To say to do your best isn’t quite right either. If you aren’t doing everything you can to make the company succeed, you’re stealing money from its owner. There’s someone else who will do better. Your job isn’t to just do what you’re told – it’s to make money for the company.

7. Dress the part, or better. 
At my last job, I remember walking in for the interview wearing my best suit, and someone sarcastically asked, “who died?” The CTO was wearing an old t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts. Obviously, there was no dress code to speak of, and this was reflected in the attitudes and work performance of the staff. Dressing professionally gives other people the impression that you’re a professional, and it makes you feel like one. This helps you to actually be a professional. My girlfriend’s old boss didn’t just wear a suit – he wore cufflinks. She was so used to only seeing him as a professional, that when she saw a picture of him in street clothes, she couldn’t believe it was him.  This is directly related to the next point.

8. Be all that you can be, and aim high. 
When I was in the Marine Corps, we had a saying: always do the job of the rank above you. If you’re a Private, you should be learning (and doing) the job of a Private First Class. If you’re a Corporal, you should be doing the job of a Sergeant. Set goals, and constantly move the achievement bar higher. Don’t fall into a rut where you get comfortable doing just your job, which is really just the bare minimum.

9. Be confident. 
When you’re talking with people, act like you know what you’re talking about. (It helps if you actually do know what you’re talking about.) If you act like you’ve got a purpose and are confident, people will assume that you’re well-informed and an expert. Otherwise, they’ll see a weakness, assume you don’t know what you’re talking about, and will walk all over you.

Bonus #10

Spelling Counts. In high school, a student raised his hand during a math test and asked, “does spelling count?” The teacher replied, “spelling always counts.” Remember, this was a math class. Nobody expects you to be an expert on grammar usage, or to be a walking dictionary or thesaurus, but you need to be able to express yourself intelligently to your boss, coworkers, staff, and clients. In life, spelling always counts.

He uses the metaphor of growing REALLY big pumpkins to taking your business to the next level.

This definition of what is an entrepreneur was especially sharp:

“Entrepreneurs identify the problems, discover the opportunities and then build processes to allow other people and other things to get it done.”

Here are some of the great things I marked in the Pumpkin Plan:

• Finding your best clients – the ones you actually like and sync with who you are. He calls it the ‘desert island’ approach. “If you could only bring one client to a desert island, who would it be? Who could you stand to be with for the months or years it takes you to figure out how to get off the island? Who can you trust? Who do you love?”
• Interviewing clients to find out what they really want – we’re looking through our top 1000 customers right now to find commonalities and to begin talking to them with some of the questions he suggest
• His product launch sequence – something I’m going to think through with our next product … “Predict,” “Appreciate,” “Announce,” “Engage,” “Ask,” “Limit,” “Over-deliver,” and “Keep Track.”
• Three questions he uses to empower employees to make the best decisions — we’ll likely refine these but here they are: ”1. Does this decision better serve our top clients? 2. Does this decision improve or maintain our Area of Innovation? 3. Does this decision grow or maintain our profitability?”

Get it The Pumpkin Plan here from Amazon.

Here’s my Amazon WishList to see what I’m either reading or wanting to read soon. By the way, what books are you reading right now? 

“Put together a small team of the best engineers, designers and product people you can find. Charter them with building something amazing that has to ship in the next few months. Then repeat. Nothing helps morale like seeing stuff you can use.

This is what a successful startup does from the beginning … and KEEPS doing over and over and over again and NEVER forgets.

(And yes, this is what ANY good company does over and over and over.)

Build and ship great stuff that makes people’s lives awesome and better.

“What is the most important part of a company’s application when applying to an accelerator?”

Some quick background on the question: The concept of startup accelerators has really grown in the tech industry with Y Combinator and TechStars leading (and Venture Spur is modeled after these).It’s about ideas you might see that have the best chance to success and startup liftoff.

But I love those kinds of questions (and the others on the profile). It gets me thinking and reflecting on our own experiences as a startup.

I went through several iterations and tried to boil down what I would look for personally. And although I’m not an investor or venture capitalist (but bootstrapped iThemes with under $100K), this is what I personally would look for in new startup team and their ideas that would help me best guess their success:

Passionate, competent, quality people … insanely committed to building and shipping something that people want or need.

There are so many variables in startup success. I honestly cannot say I have THE definitive answer that would work even 50% of the time if I was a venture capitalist. (I’ve heard if 1 in 10 startups hit success, then it’s a win in certain VC circles. But that’s WAY lower than my best guess at the guess!)

At the end of the day, to me, it would be more of an educated gamble.

But I do know … investing in good, quality people increases the odds significantly. I’ve rarely been let down by investing in quality people who are passionate and competent (or willing to learn).

People make the difference in a startup. I’ll mention this again below.

So let me unpack my answer a little further about what ingredients give a startup the best chance for success …

• Contagious Passion – You gotta have enthusiasm and energy for what you’re doing.
• Rock Solid Competence – If you don’t have the skills, or can’t learn them quickly enough, you’re sunk. You and your team have got to be able to do the work.
• Grade A Quality – This can be viewed as an intangible, but I would bet on “good people” every time. I’m talking about the founder(s) and the first core people on the startup team. We’ve done that inside of our business and quality people typically find a way to win the right way. You can count on quality people. You can build on quality people. And customers and others want to work with quality people. Quality counts.
• Insane Commitment – You need focus and determination to get a startup off the ground. It’s not easy. It takes a ton of work. Those who aren’t supremely committed to the task(s) at hand are going to fall behind. It means if they don’t get it right on the first try, they are going to keep pushing and pushing and pushing until something sticks. Committed people will keep trying to find the right product or service to deliver. (Which is why I don’t mention product as a standalone ingredient.)
• Execution – It’s that simple and no more fluff is needed. You’ve got to be able to deliver on the ideas, concept and promise. If all your startup does is think and talk about the idea and never actually builds and ships it, you need to go into academia because pure theory without action isn’t part of the startup gig. It’s actually more action than talk.
• Hungry Customers – Obvious, right? But you have to build and ship something that enough people want or need who will pay you enough every month to support the business. You have to deliver something that solves a critical problem for people, or makes their lives easier, better, richer, more affordable. If you can’t fill that gap … and if that solution doesn’t have enough people who value it enough, you aren’t going to get off the runway.

What do you think? What are the attributes of startup success? 

You’re in a foreign land and you need to start learning the language, the little cliques, the personalities and people behind them, the rules and most importantly, where the snack table is.

It’s a nerve-wracking time because you often don’t know what the expectations are. So here are some tips for How to Navigate Your First Week on the Job:

• Remember the goal of the first week. It’s giving assurance to those who hired you that they made the right choice.
• Start your day on your toes versus on your heels. This means being proactive versus reactive.
• Be on time. Actually, scratch that, be 15 minutes early and stay 15 minutes later. Minimum. And count on that all week. Lunch is also one hour typically. Plan to be back before time.
• Stow the cell phone away. In fact, maybe you should leave it in your car for the first week at least. You’re setting a tone and image that getting constant buzzes on your phone while your boss or coworkers are talking is disrespectful and disruptive. Let’s also apply this to social media, at least for your first week or more.
• Befriend the assistants and receptionists. Especially long-time ones. They know the ins and outs. And top level assistants often have the ears of the leadership. They know all the rules but often get too little respect or appreciation. By the way, you should be nice and friendly to everyone, no matter position or title. (I always went out of my way to be nice to our janitorial staff. These peeps will often look out for you later because you merely recognized that they were people too.)
• Get to know your coworkers and what they do. Remembering names makes a mark. And start looking for a buddy. Someone you like and have similar interests and views.
• Start absorbing the company culture. Listen and ask for stories about the company and the team. This is more the why things are done than the how.
• When in doubt, ask for direction. Don’t just sit there like a bump on a log. But don’t consume all your boss’ time or others asking for help either.
• Start learning the rules. All the systems, processes, protocols, procedures, policies, spoken or unspoken rules. Every organization has them, like how to make coffee yourself when the pot is low … or putting paper towels in the breakroom … to when it’s acceptable to go to lunch.
• Know who the influencers are. Who are the people in the organization that really make things happen? What’s their background? Personality? Who do they report to and direct?
• Find something to do if there isn’t anything to do. Particularly in your own position and department. But if you strike out there, go ask people if you can help, explaining that you’ve finished what you were supposed to do, rather than sit bored and idle.
• Beware of joining a clique too soon. Beware of office power plays. You need to know what the gangs are and why.
• Be polite, helpful, friendly and happy. You’re just glad to be there. That means you need to smile. And really an even more basic translation is: Be someone your new coworkers are excited to work with because of your attitude and work ethic.

The faster you get acclimated to your new classroom, school and playground, the better it’s going to be for your future success!

And just because you land some fancy title doesn’t mean you’re set for life or done learning or growing.

Graduation is simply the first step in a journey that’s called your professional career. Now it’s time for you to use that base knowledge and those experiences to build your career.

It means constant improvement. And if you want to make more, do more, then that means you hone your skills on nights and weekends (yes, on your own dime!).

Let me be clear: Getting better at night and weekends is an investment in yourself.

My best illustration of this is our iThemes COO Matt Danner.

When he started working for us I put him on what we needed most: sales emails … the most entry level position we had at the time. It’s perhaps the toughest yet “boring” job we have as he would be answering emails that come through our contact form with questions from our prospects and customers.

He came to us with no true web skills to speak of. He was super green, but willing to work hard and to learn. We saw potential in him. So after a couple of weeks on the job, I put out this challenge to him: “Look throughout our company and see what job or jobs interest you … and go for it.”

A couple more weeks passed and he came to me and said, “I want to be a front-end developer.” So again, another challenge went his way: “OK, so now you know what you want … the trick is getting there, but it takes commitment and hard work. To get where you want, you have to start learning all you can about that job on your own time and dime.” (Maybe I’m paraphrasing a bit.)

Roughly four or five months later, he had done the work on nights and weekends and felt confident in his progress. He had spent his own time on after-hours projects to learn and then hone his skills. He had faithfully sought advice and help from others in our company, when one day he came to me and said boldly that he thought he had now surpassed my own skills as a web developer.

I knew he had. It was a good day for Matt AND for our company.

But of course he didn’t stop there, right? You keep going and learning more and more, which ultimately put him in the amazing position of being named the Chief Operating Officer of our company at 24-years-old.

The caveat to this story is … yes, you need downtime and rest and make sure you get enough of that … but consider using a large portion of your free time investing in yourself and where you want to be and go.

So far I’ve just talked about the time element of investing in yourself and your skills … but it can also mean your DIME too (i.e. making personal financial investments in it too). Too many people simply rely on their company to invest in them.

You should NEVER solely rely on your boss or organization to invest in your skills. Invest first in yourself. Make the time. Write the check. Because ultimately at the end of the day, whether you stay at that organization or not … you take those skills with you. 

So invest in books (specifically get a Kindle and build your ebook library to take everywhere), register for conferences, training, or classes to get more skills and take personal time if needed, get into online training membership and attend webinars and watch videos in your niche …. whatever helps you learn and grow.

Trust me … as a boss, this type of team member rises to the top. They are the clear leaders you take for the future of your organization. Matt is living proof.

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This is part of the 5-minute Career Nugget series at Purposeful Paychecks. Share your best career advice here!