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Running a company can be kind of a whirlwind. It’s important to stop every now and then and take stock. Here are a few of the five questions that every entrepreneur should ask him or herself.

WHAT CAN I BUILD WITHOUT A DEVELOPER?

I’m not a technical person, so I simply assumed that I could not build a product without finding a technical counterpart. After months of searching for a technical co-founder without any success, I realized I wasn’t doing enough to test my ideas. I ended up refocusing my efforts on building out a minimum viable product with just the PowerPoint and Excel skills learned from my previous corporate life. Even though the product was low-tech, it was still something I could give people to use, and I immediately started learning. By the time I did find a developer, I had a much better idea of product requirements.

IS NOW THE RIGHT TIME TO BE FUNDRAISING?

I spend a lot of my days in Palo Alto coffee shops. I have several friends running startups. My husband’s company is VC-funded. In other words, I am constantly surrounded by fundraising buzz. In the beginning, I felt that the value of my ideas completely rested on how much money I could raise. However, before I started to seriously go down that path, I asked myself, “Do I want to build a $1M, $10M, or $100M business?” I honestly wasn’t sure what my fledgling ideas could grow up to be yet. I still frequently ask myself the fundraising question, and I know the day I answer, “Yes,” it’ll be because I can’t achieve my vision any other way.

Via Women 2.0.

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