David Kurzmann is one of the co-founders and CEOs of Women’s Best, a fitness company that’s marketed solely to women. He, his brother Lukas, and a friend discovered that, when looking at the fitness market, there wasn’t a company that offered a one-stop-shop for fitness and nutritional supplements made for women only.
Too many fitness supplements are designed with men in mind, but the chemical makeups of men’s and women’s bodies are so different, they need separate nutrition. David and Lukas strove to create a business that would offer supplements and sportswear women could trust to help them be the best possible versions of themselves.
It’s not the first business that the brothers started. David said that they were previously running a business that offered online personalized fitness and nutrition plans with the help of a licensed nutritionist. This got them interested in the fitness world and helped them understand the need for the products that they now sell.
“Our passion for fitness and social media motivated us to start Women’s Best,” David said in a recent interview. “We really wanted to create something with a positive impact for ourselves and the community.”
Passion and a desire to do good aren’t enough to build a burgeoning empire, however. David shares seven of his top secrets for running a successful business.
1. Stay Motivated
It’s easy to stay motivated near the beginning when your passion is ignited and you’re feeling good about your business. But once you get things moving and you’re dealing with the stress of keeping a business afloat, it can be difficult to maintain that momentum.
Kurzmann suggests finding something that motivates you and revisit it often. “I tend to read our customer reviews. I listen to them on social media and try to understand how they see Women’s Best,” he says. “Our customers and the community we create are our biggest motivations for continuing our work.”
Try to find something that keeps you motivated other than money. That will come and go, but your customers and the good you’re doing will always be there.
2. Keep Up Your Skills
You’ll be constantly practicing skills that helped you start a business in a particular industry as you keep your business going, but there are always new things to learn. The Kurzmann brothers were already seasoned entrepreneurs when they started Women’s Best, but David says he’s learned so many new skills to benefit the business.
“We’ve leveraged our marketing skills, customer retention rate knowledge, content marketing skills, website CVR knowledge, and more,” he says. Constantly learning and developing your skillsets will rapidly help you achieve your goals.
3. Don’t Compare
Startup owners are often encouraged to learn from their competitors. As you watch them, you’ll likely get ideas about what to do and what to avoid. You’ll also probably compare your success to theirs.
Kurzmann warns that there’s danger in this practice. He says comparing yourself to others can be de-motivating and isn’t always helpful as you work towards your end goal.
“We focus on ourselves,” he says. “We try to make it about our unique path and what we want to achieve.” Comparing yourself too much to other businesses can’t provide those insights for you.
4. Overcome the Naysayers
The founders of Women’s Best encountered many people who doubted their abilities, especially when David and Lukas started their first business as teenagers. But, before long, they’d made their first million, as teenagers, too.
“I often see inexperienced entrepreneurs stress out unnecessarily because they’re listening to doubters,” David says. “What they’re saying is really not a big deal.”
David said that it was actually motivating to hear from naysayers. It gave them unique motivation to prove their skeptics wrong.
5. Find Your Why
Money and growth can be extremely motivating at the beginning, but they aren’t enough to keep you invested in the business if you’re not doing it for a good reason. Entrepreneurs need to understand why they’re pursuing a business venture so that they’ll do whatever it takes to see it through.
“If I was able to go back three years, I would tell myself to keep going,” David says. “I’d say, ‘You’ll be a part of changing lives, bettering and inspiring women to start and maintain a healthier lifestyle.’”
That’s the reason that he and his team have continued with the business, and it’s more motivating than having nearly a million customers and an 8-figure revenue.
6. Measure Your Success
How can you know where you are now if you don’t know where you’ve been? Savvy entrepreneurs will set goals from the very beginning and measure progress regularly. They’ll be able to see how far they’ve come and set more goals for the future.
Focusing on what your business does right helps you maintain a positive outlook for the future. Instead of becoming downtrodden because of the mistakes you’ve made and challenges you’ve faced, you can look at what you’re doing well.
David says that in order to measure the success of Women’s Best, their team looked at “the people we were able to support and the lives we were able to change. We saw so many lives that were healthier and better and heard so many stories of success.”
7. Believe in Yourself
With challenges, setbacks, doubters, and financial pitfalls littering the path of any entrepreneur, it’s easy to give up. Perhaps this is the reason that half of businesses shut down within the first five years of operation.
David says that the key to overcoming these negative experiences is simple faith. “Don’t listen to the doubters. Believe in yourself,” he encourages.
Being a successful entrepreneur is about far more than creating a niche-specific product in high demand. It’s about becoming the best version of yourself, someone who’s passionate and motivated to develop a strong business. David Kurzmann and his team at Women’s Best are surpassing these milestones all the time, and you can too.
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