STARTING OUT IN BUSINESS? 9.5 WAYS TO GROW QUICKLY:(…Continued from yesterday)6. When you have 5 people on your team, titles mean little. Very little. You are all in the trenches.After I left the corporate world in 2005 and embarked on my entrepreneurial journey, I told my workmates who were so hung up on titles, that going forward our official titles would only appear on our employment contracts. Our business/calling cards would only have name, contact, and the company’s full-style address. And when there were multiple export loadings on a single day, yours humbly (me, the venerated founder) put on a reflector jacket and was dutifully designated Loading Clerk for the day; a lowly and menial job that exacts brawn, not brains. Those early years taught me that a society of Sirs and Madams never gets anything done.7. Do not waste money on expensive software (ERP, accounting, etc) that requires constant maintenance and expensive upgrades. Unless it is warranted, go generic and keep it basic.8. Forget about all these fads: Work From Home, 3-day work weeks, 2 months sabbaticals(after 2 years with the company, what have you. When you are a start-up, you need all hands on deck, and a close-up collaborative environment. Not folks calling in from the Ssese Islands. You are not in the big-boys club.9. If your growth model is capital raising (versus bootstrapping), remember to keep the main thing, the main thing. Spend more time building revenue and talking to customers than you do investors.And for Mercy’s sake, do not ( and I repeat, do not) be like the fisherman who woke up one day after a storm and found his nets teeming with all manner of fish. Pure luck. Fortuitous indeed, and all nice and dandy – until it got to his head. You see, the other fishing village folk who had not been so lucky that fateful night started praising him for being a great fisherman. And what do you know? While his boat and nets were rotting away by the shore, our man started telling his story to any one who cared to listen. A circuit motivational speaker, that’s what he became – roving from one fishing village to another, talking about catching fish. Don’t be like him. The business of raising money is not the business. You only become a superstar for turning the cash you raise into hard revenue, and returning value to investors.9.5. Every business phone call you make should be followed up with a formal “As per our phone conversation” email. And one day when you have reason to be thankful you did, remember to send me a love offering. Will you?