ByKat Hours Updated

Sponsored: Inside Successful Small Businesses, with American Express’s OPEN Forum

Sponsored: Inside Successful Small Businesses, with American Express's OPEN ForumDisclosure: This post is sponsored by American Express's OPEN Forum, but written by Kat Griffin.

I feel like one of the most common paths for overachieving chicks is to leave bigger companies and eventually work for, run, or even found small businesses. American Express's OPEN Forum recently reached out to a number of small business owners to ask them which important lessons they learned the hard way, and there are some great lessons for everyone in the short videos. They're shot in a documentary/interview style, and edited really well — it's a great way to learn some quick lessons on your lunch break. Some of my favorites from the series:

  • If Your Business Plan Isn't Working, Change It (lesson learned by Angela Jia Kim, the founder of Savor Spa, screenshot pictured above) — I feel like all business owners face this! You think your business will run one way, and in fact things start going in other ways when you're actually up and running. The key is being able to adapt. I've written a bit about my blog business plan changed, and how different Corporette is from what I first imagined all those moons ago…
  • Find the Right Size (lesson learned by Robert Schwartz, president, Eneslow Foot Comfort Center) — This is true with every kind of business — I feel like we've seen a lot of very high profile failures lately because businesses got too big.
  • You Can't Always Do It All (lesson learned by Jessica Banks, co-founder of RocksPaperRobot) — So true, and I'm still struggling with this myself — obviously I wear a lot of hats on this blog and I probably shouldn't. Whether it's just delegating tasks to an assistant, or hiring new people, you can't do it all.
  • Expand At Your Own Pace (lesson learned by Leo Kremer, owner, Dos Toros Taqueria) — Again, so true — you don't want to be buried in work, or have so much work that you can't do a good job on any of it.

Readers, what business lessons have you learned the hard way? What do you wish you'd been told earlier?