This is re-posted from NYU Entrepreneur.
Though I try not to make a habit of regretting things, one thing I do kick myself for from time to time is the set of skills I could have built while I was not starting a company. I think about all the time I had while I was in college or working, and if I had a chance to go back, I'd systematically learn the skills that would be tremendously useful to have in my arsenal now. To save you the regret, I thought I'd share with you the top twelve things (in no specific order) to learn/do while you're waiting for the big idea:
1. Photoshop / Illustrator - so unbelievably handy when it comes to any design work to be able to do at least small things yourself instead of hiring someone else. You don't need to be an expert - just keep an eye out for work you appreciate in an effort to begin developing good taste, and the ability to edit / adjust other people's work, and you're halfway there.
2. Online Advertising (Google / Facebook) - if you've got a bit of spare change, it's worth playing around with both of these to understand how they work, how to systematically improve your ads and work towards paying less and less for the same amount of clickthrough/conversion. Also a great way to test demand for ideas.
3. Relationships w/Journalists & Bloggers - it's infinitely easier to befriend bloggers and journalists when you're not pushing a product. Before you've launched anything, you're in the powerful position of being a fan only. Make a habit of writing to journalists frequently - if you like an article, write to them and thank them for it. Follow them on twitter - make yourself part of their following, and when you do need a leg up, they won't hesitate.
4. Social Media - social media success blogs are a dime a dozen, but implementing recommendations is a lot harder than they make it sound. The only way to really learn is by doing it yourself. Why not take up a cause and begin learning now what works and what doesn't when trying to drive 'likes' or 'follows' or anything else?
5. Prototyping - if there's one skill to learn, it's how to make your ideas as real as possible without actually coding them. Using Serena Prototype Composer, Axure (my favorite), or iRise, learn how to create something that looks and feels just like a website - then study usability testing and iterate on it until your users are achieving their (and your) goals without hesitation.
6. Coding - yup, this is a biggie. If you've got time - learn a language. If only so that you can better communicate with developers and understand their challenges, begin to estimate effort & difficulty on your own, or at best get your prototype up off the ground before hiring the big guns. If I had a second chance, I'd have been a developer.
7. Offshoring - learning how to quickly and skillfully offshore tasks can end up being critical. Got a long, dull, repetitive task? Pay someone offshore to do it for $5 and learn how to write job descriptions, interview candidates, read applications, and assign super unambiguous assignments. Then review performance, adjust, and try again.
8. Blog - creating content unceasingly is a very necessary skill in startupland. Whether for your newsletter, for press, for your corporate blog - writing should come easily, and you should have something important to say. Blogging gets you into the habit of observing every situation in your life through a lens that makes you wonder whether it's worth writing about.
9. Online Communities - Reddit, Yelp Talk, Hacker News, Quora, Communities around Blogs - these are all places you should be building social capital in starting right now. Doesn't take much - let's say one intelligent response to a post you feel passionately about every two weeks, and several upvotes of other people's posts. Get involved now and when you need these communities, you'll not only understand them, but they'll embrace you as one of their own.
10. Google Analytics - can't say enough about how important this tool is. Picking up the basics is super easy - don't stop there. Study event tracking, search tracking, ecommerce, advanced segmentation and custom reports - there's so much you can do with it. Even better, learn what you can't do with GA, and be sure to fill those gaps with your own internal site usage tracking or other analytics tools.
11. SAAS Tools - there are so many online tools that will help make running your business easier, and the better you know the landscape, the sooner you'll be efficiently managing your business. Check out the top CRM tools, financial management tools, collaboration and project management workspaces, google apps - think about all the different aspects of a business and go out and find/compare the tools you might use. Then learn how they work so you can hit the ground running when you need them.
12. Networking - goes without saying but the more connections you have when you start your business the better. Ideally by the time you start you've already met your technical (or business!) co-founder, you know some entrepreneurs and investors that are rooting you on, you know who you'd love to hire, and you've already formed relationships with the first set of people you're going to reach out to for business development.
There's no time like the present. Go forth and learn this stuff before your big idea hits!
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