Gessica Lomonte, MIM 2012, works as a Marketing Manager at cuaQea, a technology startup.

How many times have we read or listened to someone saying that if you have a good idea, the results will come? Well, sorry to say it is not really the case. Having a great idea is key, but knowing how to execute your idea is of paramount importance. In a startup context there is no road map to success, on what to do next, very often you need to make decisions very quickly and foresee if the course of events needs to be changed because it is not giving you the results you expected. You must be willing to take risks and adapt to changing environments and circumstances because not always everything goes as planned.

That being said, you depend on the resources you can make use of, namely time, cash and people. Time can be a constraint and you might be forced to balance the need to build up a detailed picture regarding customer needs against the desire to make decisions quickly. We all know that “cash is king”, no company can think of long-term growth and scalability if it lacks the main resource to make the necessary investments. However, what really makes the difference is the team. Your colleagues are the ones who share your vision and help you turn it into a vivid picture that the rest of the world can see. That is why you must trust your team, empower people around you and be smart enough to know how to capitalize on everyone’s strengths. Each one of the above mentioned affect your future as an entrepreneur, and if just one of them is missing, or it is not correctly “functioning”, that could have a negative impact on your company. The idea is just the starting point, the team behind the scenes is what helps you execute your vision, the available resources you have help you accomplish your objective, but it’s a combination of them all what either makes you a dreamer or a real entrepreneur.

First published on the Master in Management Blog.

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