Humility. It’s a word that new startups take seriously. Confidence is essential, but you don’t want to be cocky or arrogant. The latter, especially, is a nail in the coffin for startups. Get ahead of yourself and you’ll assume success is guaranteed. 

In this industry, there is no such thing as a sure thing.

Often, entrepreneurs double down because it seems like the smart option. After all, being humble isn’t going to harm your chances of succeeding. If anything, it will increase them, right? 

While not jumping the shark is vital, you must play to win to hit your targets. Below are the reasons why.

You Will Craft A Plan

A plan - a short, concise summary of how you believe you will bring a product or service to the market that customers will love. On the face of it, this written document doesn’t seem like much other than a file on your laptop or a piece of paper. However, looks are deceiving. A business plan dramatically improves your chances of succeeding as it gives you a sense of direction and negates distractions. Plus, there is always a level of accountability when you can see the goals and refer back to them. 

Launching a startup without a plan is a bad move.

You, Will, Take The Correct Risks

You can’t play the game and win without taking risks. The ability to gamble is what sets the top players out of the good and mediocre ones. As well as spotting the opportunities, world-class operators understand the need to act quickly. Jeff Bezos has a 75% rule where he makes decisions based on three-quarters of the data. 

On the flip side, you shouldn’t randomly shoot from the hip. The trick is to take the right risks, and a plan helps you do this by showing you the company’s strengths, weaknesses, and threats.

Improved Performance Is A Must

It’s easy to see why boosting performance isn’t a big deal for humble businesses. They don’t think they will perform, so they don’t see the point. Although this can save you money, a resource that you must have to keep the debtors off your back, it’s also short-sighted. What happens if an ad goes viral and website traffic skyrockets? Without a VPS server that scales bandwidth, the platform will crash and downtime could bring the company to its knees.

And this is only one example. Enhancing the performance of business practices is only a plus as it means you’re taking the experience to the next level.

Success Involves Reflection

Successful leaders don’t rest on their laurels. Once they have a platform, they try to build on it to become even bigger and better. Modesty only gets you so far because it doesn’t encourage you to reflect on the past and use the experiences to create a more advanced process. The incredible thing about a plan is that you can revise and update it at any time.

Planning to succeed is more than a winning mindset. It’s also understanding your failings and working to make them stronger.