Right Time/ Wrong Time

In business, timing is everything. But there’s no secret handbook that tells entrepreneurs exactly when to make big moves or decisions. (Too bad!) Instead, learn from those who’ve been there: Eight entrepreneurs dish about the best-timed decisions they’ve ever made, the worst-timed, and how to tell the difference.

- Jason Fell & Stephanie Schomer

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT?

It’s a constant question throughout the entrepreneurial journey. When is it the right time to launch your business? When is it the right time to grow? When is it the right time to make your first big hire? When do you know it’s time to fire? When should you consider raising capital? When should you hang on tight to your bootstrapped company? There’s no single answer to any of these questions—and there’s no exact science to finding the answer that will best boost your business. But on the following pages, eight entrepreneurs discuss their own big decisions—some made at the right time, some at the wrong time—the instinct they followed (or ignored), and the lessons they learned.

The Right Time to Launch

When you’re worthy of consumers’ trust.

Back in 2016, Kal Vepuri’s product was far from perfect. But maybe that didn’t matter, he thought. “Our original approach was the classic startup way of thinking: Get an MVP to market, and work out the kinks later,” he says. Then he reconsidered.

Vepuri’s company is called Hero, and its goal is to help people manage their medications. It does this with software as well as a pill dispenser that releases the right doses at the right times. Vepuri came to realize that, because of the medical nature of his product, he couldn’t embrace the traditional hiccups of an MVP release. “The product had to be incredibly safe,” he says. “It had to be validated way beyond what a typical hardware product needs.”