One key goal that every business owner should set especially for start-ups is to at one-point to focus most of their time on strategy and innovation.

Looking at some of the most successful businesses today like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and HP, they all started from either a garage, a basement or college dorm. But they all quickly grew to become multi nationals with thousands of employees.

At the outset most founders worked long hours in their businesses and wore many hats. They did all types of tasks and slowly hired staff. It became imperative for them to give up control and delegate responsibility to their managers as they grew in numbers. If this didn’t happen the business would have stayed small and eventually disappeared or acquired.

The business founder is the driver of innovation and strategic thinking and the larger the business becomes the more important these activities come to be as competitors want to copy their products and services and capitalize on them.

Thus, the business owners must stay ahead of the competition and take time to forge the road to future growth with new products and services.

For this to happen the leader needs to hire the right person in a management role so that full responsibility and authority can be given. The leader needs to develop their leadership abilities to be able to do that effectively.

A suggested long-term goal for the business owner would be to spend a minimum of 50% of their time on strategy and innovation. Having a goal like that in mind at the start of a business can be a great guiding principle for the founders.