Mark Zuckerberg, without any doubt, is one of the most influential people in the world today. The success that Mark has achieved is won by one in millions. By making the world a smaller place with Facebook, he revolutionized the communication manners.
Where Facebook became an integral part of common man’s life; businesses had to change the way they market and develop their products and services too.
Since Mark is one in millions, there are at least thousand things to learn from him. To do so, I started reading about him; his success factors, skills, expertise and leadership qualities and so on.
Surprisingly, there’s much more to learn from his success than one can think of. However, reading that much may not be a pleasant surprise for many. So, here I am going to sum up what I learned from various angles of his success story.
1- In order to succeed, you need to have a ‘go big or go home’ attitude: The higher you aim, the higher you achieve.
2- Do not let the excuses come on the way: One excuse takes success hundred steps away! Know the most common motivation killers and how to overcome the same, and there are +100 ways for entrepreneurs to be successful.
3- Don’t get distracted by not so pleasant opinions about you: Mark might not have been that successful if he actually cared about all those opinions.
4- You are only as strong as the team around you: There’s a big team behind Facebook. All of them are the cream of the particular expertise. Mark didn’t get this team as a gift from someone, he himself worked to build this team. Here’s a quick guide to developing a highly productive startup team.
5- Be the CEO and make sure everyone around you knows it: Everyone can become a CEO, but not every CEO makes sure that everybody knows it. Do, you need to know not just the rights you have, but the responsibilities too.
6- It’s your leadership that makes your team do their best: Few people are born leaders while a great majority is self-made leaders. Don’t worry, if your leadership has not been effective so far, you can work on enhancing your leadership skills at any age and you can even develop a team of leaders in your startup.
7- Do what you’re passionate about and you will enjoy the work!
8- Be open to change without losing sight of your goals: Since its launch, Facebook underwent massive changes, i.e.from technology to the business layer, everything evolved for better. Changes kept on happening, but the goal was making users happy.
9- Learn to engage people: Facebook may not have been that successful if it was not engaging. Every industry has multiple points to engage the customers, and that’s what Mark identified rightly.
10- Go with the technology: Started as a social network, went mobile right after the boom of mobile users and today Facebook has more mobile users than the desktop. That’s not the end, they are working on their own mobile now, so Facebook doesn’t end up as an app!
11- Do not ignore the trends: Keeping up with the trends is an essential to keep your business alive but to give it a dynamic life at times you have to be a trendsetter!
12- Sometimes simple ideas are the most profitable; build something that makes other’s lives easy and money will come in its own way. Here’s how to know if the business idea is profitable.
13- Do it yourself: Now at this stage, he himself doesn’t do most of the things, but he knows most about the least of the Facebook because he did it himself in the beginning.
14- Do not hesitate to ask questions: Mark does take opinion and advice from experts, listens to his employees and doesn’t feel any hesitation in asking if he is not clear about something.
15- Contribute to the well-being and growth of the company either ideologically or financially: Mark does this because he thinks that growth of his people actually grows the company. Check out how to motivate employees without pay raise, how to benefits a small business by introducing work ethics for employees, and how to promote a safer workplace for employees.
16- Focus on serving the communities prior to focusing on making profits: Facebook was meant to bridge the gaps between long distant relationships in fast paced life. It served the purpose well and money came automatically!
17- Don’t plateau; think out of the box and set a new milestone on achieving one. Read more about setting aggressive and achievable goals for your startup.
18- Difficult problems demand innovative solutions: From Facebook itself to the various features introduced periodically, every time there was a difficult problem which was solved in an innovative way.
19- Strive to sustain that success: Many people achieve success, but Mark sustained it for longer and that’s what makes him one of the most successful people. You may be interested in knowing how to grow a small business startup faster while sustaining the success.
20- Love your family; focus on business, but give them their share of time.
I hope my little research on Mark Zuckerberg’s success will help many of you to alter your success plan and to get it in the right direction.
